Twenty-four participants showed up for the 2002 edition of The Cragin.  Even more than that showed up for the food later.
This was the 25th year of the tournament being held at Hunter in Richmond, Illinois.  As usual the players did their best to make the course look difficult.  And most of us were very successful at that bit of golf legerdemain.  The grass was brown, the ground was hard, the greens weren't cut, the putts were slow and bumpy.  In other words, the course was in its usual shape.

This year's winners were Ken Mrock, Rich Wojnicki, Gail Zielinski and Denise Zielinski.  Rich took home the traveling trophy.  Ken had the low gross score of 82, sad considering he had a blistering 38 on the front nine.  Denise won the low women's net, and Gail won the low gross for the women's division with a 101.

Yes we could all do better.  But we must always keep in mind that golf is a fickle game humbling even the best among us.  At the time we were busy not tearing up Hunter for another, Tiger Woods was busy doing the same thing at Muirfeld in this year's British Open.  Has anybody else noticed that The Cragin and The Open Championship always seem to coincide?  Maybe that is why we can never get any of the big name players to come and vie against us in Illinois.  By the way, Woods shot an 81 in the British on the same day we played The Cragin.  While it's nice to see a pro shoot as woefully as the rest of us do, it was totally unexpected from the best player on the planet.  The golf gods were indeed not smiling on him today.  With the 81, however, think about this.  This was his WORST round ever as a professional.  His worst, dammit.  And he still would have beat our winner by two strokes.  Of course, maybe he can't play in really bad weather.  Maybe he can't hit off concrete either.

In a battle within the battle for the championship it was Dennis Zielinski's stated purpose at the beginning of the tournament that he wanted only to beat Moe and Rossi.  The game was on, and for a while it looked as if he might succeed.  He was two shots up after the first two holes, but quickly gave those back after Moe birdied the third hole.  They stayed close through most of the round, tied after nine holes, before Moe pulled away comfortably, even after a woeful 8 on number 16.  Gregg started the first five holes only one over par.  Unfortunately, he started to let it go to his head that maybe he was on to something big.  His game fell apart, as is usually the case with these three guys.  Moe and Gregg were tied through 17, but a bad tee shot and a two pulled shots later forced Gregg to accept another Cragin slide.  In this annual battle of The Cragin's Big Three, also known as the Big Guy, the Blind Guy, and the Skinny Guy, Moe eked out a two shot victory with an 89.  Gregg finished with 91, and Dennis had a 93.  The response from these three Cragin legends was unified. "We didn't have our A game today."  Of course no one ever does at The Cragin.

Again for a complete scoresheet go here.

Until next year, hit them far and straight.