The lowest known score in The Cragin is a 71 shot by Ken Mrock in 1990.  A couple of other players have come close to that with a 72, a 73, and a 75 being the next lowest scores over the years.  The highest low score to win The Cragin was Den Zielinski’s 87 in 1996.  Compared with Mrock’s 71 just six years earlier, it shows just how fast our skills are deteriorating.  The lowest recorded handicap score was Bob Sparr’s 60 in 1991 until Larry Smotrys came in with a net 55 at the 25th annivesary.   That shows just how handicapped we really are.

The most honest golfer of all time in The Cragin has to be Eddie Bear who as far as anybody can tell has never broken 120 in the years he’s played.  We know he’s the most honest since by 120, we’ve run out of fingers and toes to keep track of his strokes, and that’s using the hands and feet of every participant in The Cragin.

Participants have played more than 10000 holes of golf. Incompleteness of Cragin records prevents us from giving average scores.  That and fact that we want to preserve whatever diginity we have left.  Suffice it to say that experts estimate the total strokes taken is considerably more than 50,000.  Man, that’s a lot of three putts and balls in the water.  That, by the way, is not counting all the Mulligans.

Some new records recently surfaced from the creek on the 9th at Hunter (where by the way several past players of The Cragin have been seen floating face down) which allowed organizers to gather some more information about our bad play.

We can now safely estimate that Cragin players have taken nearly 60,000 strokes.  On record, Ken Mrock's 71 in 1990 still ranks as the all time Cragin best ever.  Overall best ever record for all of us, however, goes to the year 1992, when only 11 players showed up, fortunately, pretty decent hackers.  Our average that year was 97.09 strokes.

Unfortunately, despite the continued stellar play of some of us, and Ken Mrock and Jim Zielinski doing their best to keep our strokes down, most of our games have gone as downhill as our bodies.  Just seven years after his blistering 71, Mrock's score of 85 is indicative of the rest of our games.  Larry Smotrys did set a new record for low handicap score with a 55 at the 25th Anniversary.  From 1990 through 1997, the average score had been an hefty 104 strokes.

Sheesh! after all these years we still can't break a hundred.  Maybe it's time we put erasers on our scoring pencils!  That, or learn to tell whoppers like fishermen and hunters do.  We gotta get serious for the next 25 years, or we'll end up with an average that will make people think we've been bowling all these years.  That, or learn to lie a lot about our games.  Heck, fishers and hunters have been telling whoppers for years.  Why can't golfers?

Since 1997, record keeping has again slipped into the lax category.  Suffice it to say that the official record keeper has not been diligent in fenagling score cards out of the participants.  Patricipants, too, have not exactly been forthcoming in fessing up to their lousy play.  We will continue our efforts to bolster accuracy, but we ain't making any promises.   For an estimated totals and this year's scores, go here.