Club General Manager shoots 59!

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By admin June 13, 2015 21:33

 Sheibach card 59

 Scheibach

 GM Mark Scheibach joins the 59 Club. (GolfNews Photo) —“My putting was on auto-pilot.”

 

The Day Everything Went In

By Dan Poppers

 

There’s a golfer in the Coachella Valley (Southern California desert) that has something in common with six of the best golfers that have ever lived. The six are Al Geiberger, Chip Beck, David Duval, Paul Goydos, Stuart Appleby, and Jim Furyk. The golfer I speak of has experienced something that in all likelihood none of us will ever experience. He felt the exhilaration of shooting 59 on a regulation-size championship golf course. This summer is his second-year anniversary for doing the almost impossible.

The golfer is Mark Sheibach. Scheibach’s monumental feat took place summer 2013 at The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, California, on the 72-par, 6357-yard Desert Course. I asked Scheibach, “What’s it like to shoot 59?”

“Crazy and bizarre,” he responded, “because I really didn’t know how I stood until the thirteenth hole when my playing partner told me I was shooting double-digit under par. In good nature, Dan Anderson was trying to jinx me.”

Scheibach isn’t shy when it comes to shooting low scores. His previous lowest score is an impressive 61 on a legitimate championship course but he never had a chance to shoot in the fifties that day.

Scheibach’s 59 was obviously memorable, but he said the best part of the day was the camaraderie and the speed in which their foursome played. “Four guys played eighteen holes in two hours and fifteen minutes and had a great match going. Josh Garber, first assistant at The Vintage shot 66, my partner David Saunders, first assistant at The Citrus, shot 73. So there was some pretty good golf going on beside my 59.”

On the 18th Hole, Scheibach hit a perfect drive and knocked his iron shot 8 feet from the pin. “I realized if I were to ever shoot 59, this could be it,” said Scheibach. “Because the last putt remaining was up hill with a right to left break, perfect for a right-handed golfer. I was nervous standing over the putt but told myself, ‘Just hit it. It’s an easy putt and I can afford to be firm.”

Boom. Scheibach’s putt went in and he accomplished the unbelievable. “We all laughed,” said Scheibach, “because it was shocking. No one in our foursome ever played in the same round with someone who shot 59.”

How did Mark feel immediately after sinking the putt? “Shocked and stunned. I was speechless. Clearly, it doesn’t happen very often,” and added jokingly, “I may never play golf again because where do you go from here.”

When the final putt went in and he looked at his scorecard and saw nine birdies and two eagles, he then realized he had accomplished something you do only once in a lifetime. His round totaled 26 putts; he was on on regulation 18 times, every hole. He was on two par 5s on two. He drove the number eleventh hole—he was on the green in one. At one nine-hole stretch, he was 9-under par. Once in a lifetime, indeed!

 

Scheibach said something shocking to me. “I was more concerned about our team match,” he said in all sincerity. “ Our team was only one up through sixteen holes. The medal play scores, my team minus-15 and the other guys minus-13. And it was for big stakes.”

“What were the stakes?” I asked.

“All for one beer,” he said with a wide grin.

There’s Mark Scheibach the golfer but more importantly there’s Mark Scheibach the general manager of Avondale Golf Club in Palm Desert. “Only about once a month I play golf totally for the camaraderie,” Scheibach told me. “I enjoy the business side of golf much more than the playing side of golf. I don’t have to make a 3-footer any more to make a paycheck. My priority on golf is zero. It doesn’t change my outlook on the game. It’s not my day job anymore. But it will always be nice to reflect on the day they all went in.”

Written by Dan Poppers

 

admin
By admin June 13, 2015 21:33