I hope that everyone has a happy, healthy and safe 4th of July. It is a time to celebrate our country and spend time with our family and friends over good food and several beverages! But be careful.

 

It was another hot day out there but not as bad as the last couple weeks.  Glenwoodie was tough as usual but we were playing a scramble so that helped.  There was a 3-way tie for first as Rob Elliot, Bob Vizdal, John Adreani, and Lee Kaz had 58, so did T. Schessler, Nick Voutiritsas, John Roberts, and Paul Kleinpaste, as well as Brian Miller, Kevin Bewley, Greg Lewis, and Arnie Carlstrom. 

Coming in at 59 were four groups: Les, Lambros, Rob, Jesk. Also, Stanford, Stewart, Bondi, Long.  Also P. Schlesser, Suntken, Schaefer, and D. Tomkins. Coming in at 60 was Furman, Vardikos, Ganz, and Flanagan.  Also, Lee, Lopez, Konopacz, and Bay.  Also at 60 was Jenner, Kogut, Poteracki, and F. Carioti. 

 At 61, Day, Clementi, Jasinski and Podlasek.  At 62 was Kossmann, Schroeder, Raymond and Joe Eppolito.  And finally at 64, was Kevin Kennedy, J. Samoska, Swintek, and D. Samoska.

Scott Lee, Lopez, Konopacz, and Bay won the closest to on the 12th hole with 9ft, 2in. My group had 9ft, 3in. They definitely had a better tape measure. Just kidding. Scott, we missed the putt though, that definitely hurt my team.  We had lots of opportunities but could not make many putts.  And as captain Dave, I made all the right decisions as we had to use my drive on the last hole we played. I hit it 230 yards, but unfortunately it was also 200 yards left which led to our only bogey. Our group had a very good time out there.

As usual, Laurel was a very good cart girl. She is friendly and makes it around to everyone enough times.  After golf, it was a lot of fun talking about our rounds and I definitely had too many Yuenglings.

Well, that's enough for now.  We are at Deer Creek next week.  One of my picks for best courses for the BTC.

I have to mention that I played George Dunne today.  Played a match against Bob Kennedy straight up.  He won the front, & I won the back.  He won more holes than me so I only lost 5 dollars, but he bought me a beer for six bucks.  Doesn't seem right somehow, but I am setting him up for the club championship when he will have to give me 8 or 9 strokes.

Your secretary,

DJ

P.S. Scrambles are fun.

P.S.S. The cart girl Ashley at George Dunne was very good and she was also very friendly.  I like to give shoutouts to good bartenders and cart girls as they work hard. (Wearing short shorts/skirt doesn't hurt either).

 

 MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE

A membership meeting was held on Tuesday after golf at Glenwoodie.   Please make these gentlemen feel

welcome when you see them on the course of clubhouse. Our newest members accepted into the Club:

  NEW MEMBER                SPONSORS

Larry Konopacz            Ostrowski/Day

Frank Kossman             Day/Radcliffe

Kevin Kennedy              Kennedy/Rob

Committee Chairman,

Jerry Jasinski

 

Historian News

Fellow Members,

Today’s Member Story involves someone who has been totally involved in bringing our Club into the 21st Century when it comes to how we operate as a Club. When Andy Zilis joined the BTC in 2002 the Club was in the early stages of changing over from mailing out 275 newsletters to our then membership via Office Assistants and through USPS. The cost of that service to our Club was upward of $17,000 per year. By 2009, the year that Andy was President of the BTC, Andy was able to change over our system to 100% online email of our newsletter within the next few years. He would take all the information that was sent to him and formalize it into an email that was sent to every Member. Rich Schroeder would then take that email and put it on the web for posterity so watch what you say.

But before Andy was with the club let us go back to the beginnings. Andy grew up in the Mount Greenwood area. He attended IIT on a baseball scholarship. While playing baseball in College he still laughs about the fact that he gave up back-to-back homers to two future major leaguers in Joe Girardi and Reggie Hammonds in 1983. Andy graduated in 1984 and received a BBA in Accounting. Andy worked at the Options Exchange for one year and then for 8 years he worked at a CPA Firm. While there he passed the CPA exam and started his own business, Zilis Accounting & Tax Services, which is still operating today.

Like I mentioned earlier Andy joined the BTC in 2002. His Sponsors were Longtime Members, Ed Tadevich and Frank Falbo. They brought Andy in for his bowling abilities and rightfully so since Andy managed to lead the BTC in high average three years. His Teams managed to win a few titles and during his bowling career Andy has 2 sanctioned 300 games and even harder to do one 800 series.

He also has done well in golf winning some Divisions in the Presidents Cup and Club Championship and even more so in the Two-Man Event where three times he won with three different partners. Once with our Current Secretary, Dave Jenner, Former Member Justin Kamper and Current Parliamentarian Jim Van Eck.  In 2006, the year that I was President, Andy came on to be an Officer and over the last 19 years has done much to “Make our Club Great Again” (Not that it always wasn’t). When Chuck Martino passed Andy took on running the Kids Christmas Party which always put a big smile on our Children’s and Grandchildren’s faces. Between Andy, his fellow Chairman, Dan Roberts, our every year Santa, Jim Fowler and many more contributors this party continued to run until Covid.

Andy told me that it was alright to bring up his current health problems. He doesn’t really want this honor but, with a 100% success rate at Christ Hospital in 2024, he is hoping to become our first member with a heart transplant. He will be going into the hospital sometime in August and is planning on coming out, and after a long recovery, coming back to golf and maybe even bowling. I am sure that we all will be praying for Andy to be the first.

Andy has lived in the Oak Forest area for 30 plus years. He and his wife, Kara, have been married for 40 years in November and have two Children and 5 Grandchildren. So, let’s keep Andy in our prayers so he can come back and continue to enjoy time beating up on us on the links and on the lanes.

Thanks for listening,

Your Historian,

Bob Vizdal