The Handies are a new series of awards developed specially for achievements in - and against - the Handicap system by Saxony golfers.

The stories below are born of counting and statistics, which are at the heart of our game.  But they're also notoriously misleading.  Apologies in advance if I overlooked your wonderful round or misinterpreted playing injured as playing poorly.  I'm just trying to tease a little smile from the numbers.  And so the spirit of extracting one more drop of fun from a season passed I present The Handies.

Most Improved Golfer:  The USGA actually has a formula to calculate whose change in handicap was most significant. Many of us improved, in fact, almost half the club finished at or below their opening index.  And many made big moves.  Congratulations to Bill Levy, Jeff Bair, Guido Corso and Woody Burroni who each showed a greater than 10% improvement in their number. But the Handi for Most Improved Golfer goes to Joe DiFiore. Boom Boom dropped 15% in a year that included several very nice rounds - most surprising of which (to me) was his gross 80 (net 63!) on Play It Forward weekend. Wouldn't have thought the long hitter would do so much better on a shorter course. Congrats, Joie.
(To see the USGA formula and a full list of improved golfers click here)

Most Consistent:   He whose net scores were in the tightest grouping relative to his handicap.  Winner -Tom Bair.  All of Tom's rounds were between 95 & 98 (except for two flashes of brilliance 90 & 93).  Nobody else was even close to that level of steady play.  Runner up was Rob Herschenfeld who kept 90% of his play in a 7 stroke range and fully a third of his scores were exactly 89 or 90.  Count on Rob.

Jekyll & Hyde Award:       For never knowing which guy was going to show up on any given day - a very close race between Henry Mueller and Peter Ennis.  Henry posted 19 rounds and had 12 different scores: everything from a net 70 to a net 90 - sometimes back-to-back.  Multiple Major Champion Mr. Ennis ran the gamut from one of the club?s best rounds net 62 (gross 79) to one of the most challenging, a net 86.  The Jekyll & Hyde Award has to go to Pete though, since he showed tremendous timing by scheduling his Mr. Hyde rounds for the weekends that counted.

Biggest Sandbagger:    He who shot most rounds under his handicap, yet still managed to keep the index up.  Try it.  Harder than you think.  At the top of the list were Guido Corso, Mike Sakala and Tom Cook.  Each had nearly a dozen rounds of net under par - surely enough to move the index.  Just for comparison - across all other memebers the average number of sub-par rounds was 3!  Hmmmm.  Yet, in spite of great play, each of our top contenders managed to keep his handicap high. The award was a tough choice, but in the end the Handi goes to Tom Cook - who not only recorded 11 net under par rounds, but even increased his index over the season!  Gotta watch out for those numbers guys.

Special Added Bonus - Look to the right.  See Mike Belmont hit a sweet 7 iron onto the 16th green.  Dec 22nd 55 degrees.  That's a Christmas Bonus.

Next week - we'll close out the year with THE SAXIES, given for stellar statistical achievements in the best spirit of the Saxony Club.  Awards that are purely for pleasure; based on the posted score database.  If you'd like to nominate someone, please drop me a line.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are getting ready for a Happy, Healthy and Golfy New Year.