History
Back in November of 2003 Glen Ellen had a senior rate for anyone 50 years of age or older so on a beautiful, sunny 55 degree November 15th, the day I turned 50, I rushed over to Glen Ellen to play at my reduced rate (I think I saved $10. BIG DEAL). I teamed up with some great guys in Tim Smith, Steve Brovelli and Ray Hart and we played a spirited skins match where I took each of them for a few pesos! Post pound at the 19 hole Timmy made the suggestion that I should have an end of year tournament to celebrate my birthday and get the boys together for one last BIG TIME before the snow flies. Hence the tournament was conceived. And here we are 15 years later, hundreds of golfers have participated and we’ve had memorable events every year since. And just as luck would have it Tim Smith teamed up with Ray DiCarlo to become the inaugural champions in 2004 at Red Tail when we had 16 guys withstand a frost delay to kick off this annual event.
Nickname
So once we decided to have an annual event we needed a name for it. Well it didn’t take long to figure out what we should call it. The Assman Open is a direct result of the Connors Brother, Shawn and Chris, having branded me with the nickname Assman a few years prior. If you know the Connors Brothers you know that they’re not shy and they’re certainly not soft-spoken. They started calling me Assman because they would always heckle me when I was walking up to receive a prize at any tournament we played. After my name was called or I won a raffle prize they were always yelling “hey look it’s skillet ass, no it’s frying pan ass, he has the ass of a 50 year old Jewish women” because of my lack of any ass cheeks. In other words I inherited my Nebraska No-Ass from my dear old Dad. So they just combined all the non ass references into The Assman which just happened to be an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer gets the New York state license plate inadvertently at the DMV (And that’s why we adopted the license plate as our official logo).
The Plaque
Back between 2009 and 2010 one of my Dad’s uncles passed away and in true Irish tradition the family offered a walk-through of old Uncle Ermond’s home to see if there was anything the family wanted to keep. So I did my family duty and went through with my cousin Ellen and found some things that would fit nicely in my home. As we were finishing up Ellen brought me down to Ermond’s workshop and she pointed to this plaque hanging on the wall the was The Hudson Elks Pitch tournament winners from 1942 through 1947. And sure enough in 1943-1944 there was E McCarthy who was part of Cuneo’s Champs and Ellen went on and on about how much that plaque meant to Ermond. So she asks me “Do you think you could do something with this to keep this family heirloom meaningful”? And indeed I did. With the help of Tall Paul Lemieux who took the plaque and sanded and varnished this keepsake and the AMO Plaque was created. After the tourney in 2010 I brought this over to my parent’s house when Ellen was visiting and showed her what we had done with the plaque. The 3 of them with tears in their eyes thanked me profusely for making this happen. With all that being said I am so honored to have my name on there a few times and I hope all of the past champions feel the same way!
Historical Moments
Every year something unique happens but let’s start this history with the events of November 12th 2010. I had the pleasure of being in the foursome with my buddy Jim Botsford from Orleans, Mass and I witnessed his hole in one on the 10th hole at Turner Hill. It was the 3rd hole I one I’ve witnessed (still none that are my own) and I think I was more excited than Jim was even though this was his first. We were all kidding around about how he just wrapped up the closest to the pin trophy and was sure to win some decent skins money. We went to the 11th hole and slashed our way up the long par 5 and was still brimming with excitement when we got to the 12th tee. Just then the beer cart ladies for the day, Caitlyn and Charlene, pulled up to the teebox and said hey we just saw a hole in one on the 10th hole. My response “I know we were with the guy that got it Jim”. Their response “no it was Joe Ryan who just got the hole in one”. Low and behold 2 aces on the same hole 15 minutes apart and the closest prize gets split and the skin gets squashed. Are you kidding me? Now that’s AMO history!
