On April 16th 2008, Mark Dunn, Rick Powers, Ken Donnelly, and me boarded a flight to Ontario to participate in the 7th Annual Lebeau Invitational golf tournament. The Lebeau Invitational, rather than being a extremely 
competitive in your face type golf tournament, is a gathering of friends and family of Dan LeBeau.
The tournament has been held previously in Arizona, La Costa Resort, Carmel, and this past month at the infamous Industry Hills Golf Course located at the Pacific Palms resort in Southern California. Tournament participants range from 5 handicaps to 25 handicaps (Sorry Jerry!), but mostly average about 13, and ages of participants range from late 30's to some really old codgers (you know who you are). Players are paired off throughout the tournament, depending on handicap, and play as teams with daily prizes awarded at the 19th hole.
Dan, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, founded the outing for the purpose of acquainting new friends; spending time with his father Ed Lebeau and many of his closest friends, and playing the game we love--golf! All golf loving, good natured, players are welcomed. Occasionally, the committee, makes exceptions to this rule (see Mike Santucci), just kidding, Mike!
The most intriguing aspect of the event is the much discussed Fookerboody shootout. Typically scheduled at days end on Friday afternoon, the Fookerboody matches players drawn from a hat in a winner take all event whereby all participants play alternate shot format on the same hole. In other words, everyone tees off on the same hole, and play continues as one large group until there is only one team standing. This year's Fookerboody champions, Mark "Well" Dunn and Terry "Big T" White took the championship on the Par 3 5th Hole on the Eisenhower Course. The hole played about a 190 yards that day, and has been the concluding hole in past Fookerboody matches. The playoff ended with Terry and Mark defeating Dan and me. Many players remarked having throughly enjoyed participating and watching the Fookerboody to conclusion; many are looking forward to next year's match.
Past winners of the big money include: Mike Santucci, Eric Bingham, Ed Lebeau, Mike Havrilla, Terry White, and this year's cash king: Mark Dunn. The rest of us hacks need to go back to the drawing board!
