They had two long bombers and a deadly short game. The combination made them untouchable at the Kal Tire Texas Scramble.
Daryl Fiddler, Joe Gill, Clayton Fiddler and Darren Gess formed the winning team at the four-man best-ball golf tournament, held Saturday and Sunday at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club. With Daryl Fiddler and Gill blasting 300-yard drives and all four men exhibiting precise pitching, chipping and putting, they posted a two-round score of 111. Their opening-round 56 and closing-round 55 put them an impressive 31 strokes under par, well ahead of the second-place team of Shaun Lees, Kevin Pederson, John Hopson and Keenan Hopson. The foursome posted scores of 55 and 61 and finished at 26-under.
"Our group can hit a long ball so we had short chips into the greens," Daryl Fiddler said. "I think putting was the key for the weekend. The greens are a little bit rough but we made a lot of putts."
On the par-four 17th on Saturday, a putt wasn't even necessary. After a crushing tee shot by Daryl Fiddler, Gill stepped up, armed with a 56-degree wedge, and holed out from 70 yards for eagle. The ball tore its way directly into the cup and stayed down.
"[The shot] just felt really good," said Gill, a Vancouver resident and the lone out-of-towner on the team. "I knew I was going to be close."
During Sunday's final round, the group picked up birdies on all five of the par 3 holes, a dramatic improvement from Saturday when it managed just one bird on the par 3s.
This was the team's first year together in the scramble. The 31-under-par score is the lowest in at least the past four years. In 2010, Cole Shaw, Blair Anderson, Jon Strasdin and Dennis Forrest came in at 30-under.
As for Lees and his playing partners, they couldn't build on their great Saturday round of 55.
"[Saturday] we hit it nice and close [to the pin] and [Sunday] we left ourselves 20 to 25 feet on every hole and the putts just didn't fall," Lees said. "We only had two birdies on the par 4s [Sunday]."
The team of Will Gilbert, Strasdin, Anderson and Sam Tenveen finished third. Gilbert and company shot rounds of 60 and 57 for a 25-under-par total.
The BMO Ladies Best Ball tees off Sunday at the PGGCC.
