Dateline Rolling Hills Country Club, Thursday, November 14, 2002. The annual Turkey Shoot was held amid a beautiful fall day in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Sunny conditions and temperatures in 70’s provided a pleasant venue for the popular event. This year there were 132 entries making it quite a challenge to ensure that all groups finished within a reasonable time period.
Were Judy Gilmore and Debbie Leiser Turkey-less?
Because of the number of entrants, and the fact that we lost the South 9 course due to the construction of the new grass course, Mike Wade and his tournament committee had to either split the tournament into a morning and afternoon session, or set groups up with 6 players each and double-up on the par-5’s for the shotgun start. It was decided to play in one session with all players.
The rules of the tournament are simple: a player wins a turkey if he or she scores a gross birdie on any hole. To give players a better chance to score a gross birdie, men played from the ladies tees on the par 4’s (making 9 shortened holes), and the ladies played from some of the men’s par 4 tees playing them as par 5’s. Because of the number of entries, the rules also required players to pick-up on any hole if they could not score a gross birdie. This ensured that play was not too slow. Players scoring more than one gross birdie would be eligible to win an additional prize in a special drawing – a multi-pound US tenderloin steak...
The tournament turned out to be a lot of fun and play was surprisingly completed in three and a half hours. A total of 78 players won a turkey; 37 had multiple birdies, including Jim Wahl with 6 and Marie Keese with 5. Six players had 4 birdies each, 13 players had 3 each and 16 had 2 birdies each. Congratulations to all! Happy Thanksgiving!