Scoring error erases tourney leader Signing incorrect card proves disastrous for Poulin, but golfer plays on

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BANGOR – Corey Poulin of Jackman arrived at Bangor Municipal Golf Course on Sunday looking to protect a comfortable five-stroke lead and win the R.H. Foster/Mobil Paul Bunyan Amateur Golf Tournament.

He never got the chance.

Poulin’s plan came unraveled as he practiced on the putting green 45 minutes before his scheduled tee time.

After a quick discussion with Bangor Muni head pro Brian Enman, Poulin learned he’d been disqualified from the tourney for signing an incorrect scorecard the day before.

Poulin explained that the discrepancy occurred on the 18th hole at Bar Harbor Golf Course in Trenton, just after he’d finished a round of 75 on Saturday.

“I wasn’t thinking,” Poulin said. “I thought, ‘double[-bogey].’ I thought it was a par 4, and I said, ‘Six,’ I guess.”

The only problem: The hole he’d just finished was a 544-yard par 5. And his double-bogey? It was a seven, not a six.

“A hard lesson learned,” Poulin said, softly.

The discrepancy was noticed by officials after Poulin had left, because the hole-by-hole numbers on the card Poulin signed didn’t add up to his total of 75. It added up to a 74 that he didn’t shoot.

“I signed for a 75, which I did shoot,” Poulin explained.

But according to golf rules, that’s not good enough.

“What a lot of golfers don’t realize is, they’re responsible for the hole-by-hole on that card,” Enman said. “The addition is our responsibility.

“As long as they make sure they put down what [they shot] on each hole correctly, it doesn’t matter if they have it added up to 53 and it’s 35,” he said. “If the holes are right, they’re OK. He just happened to sign for a six when he made seven.”

In tournament play, each golfer keeps track of an opponent’s score on the “official” scorecard bearing that opponent’s name. They also keep track of their own score.

When a round is complete, players double-check to make sure that the numbers their opponent wrote down for each of the holes is in agreement with the score he kept for himself.

“It just happens,” Poulin said. “It was a pretty poor day [weather-wise] and I was excited to get into the clubhouse with that score.”

At first, the word filtering into Bangor Muni from other players in the A flight wasn’t precise about the discrepancy. And at first, Enman thought Poulin had actually signed for a score that was higher than he’d shot.

That would have been costly, but not nearly as devastating.

“Obviously, if you sign for a higher score on a hole, that isn’t any big deal,” Enman said. “You just keep that score.”

Enman said that after receiving a faxed version of Poulin’s card from Bar Harbor Golf Club in Trenton, he questioned Poulin about his 18th hole, and Poulin said he’d shot a seven.

The walk from the clubhouse to the putting green to discuss the matter with Poulin was a long one, Enman admitted.

“I didn’t want to go tell him,” Enman said. “But you have to protect the integrity of the rest of the field.”

Enman was impressed with Poulin’s reaction to his disqualification, though: Poulin chose to play his round – which he was entitled to do – even though he knew he couldn’t win the tourney.

“I’m happy that he decided to stick around and play, because I think it shows a lot,” Enman said.

Jesse Speirs of Bangor was the eventual tourney champion after winning a one-hole playoff against Joe Alvarez by one stroke.

Saturday’s woeful weather

After the Bunyan Amateur opened with beautiful weather on Friday (at two of three venues, at least), players had to deal with the elements on Saturday.

Players in the “A” flight, which played in Trenton, slogged through increasingly inclement weather as the day wore on.

Jim Frost of Calais said the rain began when he was playing the second hole, and after trying to avoid using his umbrella for as long as possible, he finally opened it on the sixth and “kept plugging away.”

But things got worse.

“I was on my third glove by the time we got to the 16th green, and my umbrella blew out on the 16th hole,” Frost said. “It inverted. It went from an oval shape to a reverse-V shape.”

Frost said the course held the rain well, and he only had to take relief from casual water a couple of times.

His body, however, didn’t fare so well.

“When you get older, it’s harder,” he said. “I got all wet, my back got stiff, and it’s harder to make the turn. Then you start losing your focus, and your concentration kind of goes when you make a couple of double-bogeys.

“The next thing you know, you turn a 70-something into an 85.”

Tom Caron of Bangor teed off at 9:28 a.m., and missed most of the worst weather. But he said it got bad enough.

“When we started playing, it was 53 degrees,” he said. “It was just chilly, a little rainy.”

But as time wore on, a steady drizzle turned into rain, and he found that his attempts to keep his equipment dry had failed.

“I have three or four gloves with me,” Caron said. “But I kept just one on. The others got soaked before I got a chance to keep them dry. It wasn’t very helpful.”

Play at Bangor may have been a bit better, according to Bangor Muni assistant pro Rob Jarvis.

“We really didn’t have a problem until the last 10 or 15 groups,” Jarvis said. “They had really tough conditions.”

Jarvis said that while conditions may have been unpleasant, they never crossed the line to unplayable.

Thunder, lightning, and standing water on the greens all are considered serious enough to postpone play.

“We never got to the point where there was casual water [on the greeens],” Jarvis said. “If the whole day had been [like the afternoon was], we would have been in trouble. But we were never in danger of having to call it.”

Father’s day matchup

Glen Hanna of Augusta got a rare Father’s Day gift on Sunday, as he got the chance to play a competitive round of golf with his son, Greg.

Well, almost.

Glen, who had shot a two-round score of 150, was two shots behind leader Jesse Speirs, while Greg had a two-day total of 151.

Greg, who plays collegiate golf at Methodist University in North Carolina, played in the third-to-the-last group, while Glen was in the second-to-last group.

But Glen figured he’d have a chance to catch up with his son out on the course.

“I’m sure I’ll get a chance to talk with him here and there,” Glen Hanna said. “If he’ll talk to me.”

Glen Hanna said that he doesn’t get a chance to see his son play top-level golf much any more, because most of those tourneys take place in North Carolina.

“It’s nice to get to see him play in a competitive tournament,” he said.

With a one shot lead over Greg going into Sunday’s final round, Glen wasn’t willing to count on topping his son, though.

“Right now, I’ve got the bragging rights, but we’ll see what happens when it’s all done,” said Glen, who ended up with a 232 to his son’s 222.

Bunker mentality

Golfers didn’t face much sand on Bangor Municipal’s front nine on Sunday, as ongoing course improvements continued.

All bunkers on the first seven holes, along with the ones on No. 12, were considered “ground under repair,” and players were given a free drop from them.

Assistant pro Jarvis said the wet spring has slowed progress on the project, which calls for the renovation of all the bunkers on the course. All will get sparkling white sand.

Some of the bunkers held the white new sand, while others had only a liner and still others had merely been excavated and emptied of old sand.

“We prepped most of them last fall, but they just never dried out to the point where, when we had a good day, we could do the drainage in them,” Jarvis said. “Two days later it would rain and we’d be back to day one.”