Congratulations to Barry Stoltz and Matthew Ingrassia, the 2011 Nomad Classic Champions!

The 2011 edition of the Nomad Classic was held in “la belle province” for the first time. The tournament consisted of three rounds of play on two of Mount Tremblant’s premier golf courses, Le Géant and Le Diable. This year was also notable for a few other firsts. It was the earliest scheduling of a Nomad (early June), and it was the first time a new handicap system was implemented which would eliminate any future disputes about player handicaps.

The first round of the tournament was an unofficial fun round on Le Géant. Players familiarized themselves with the challenging mountainside course in cold and wet conditions. This course would be the course for the final round of the 2011 Nomad Classic.

The first official round of the 2011 Nomad Classic took place on Le Diable the next day in what started as a sunny morning. The pairings would be interesting with the tournament up for grabs by any team. Defending champs Way and Rinaldo were split up with hopes of sharing championship glory with new partners. Way teamed up with Doyle, while Rinaldo teamed up with Ferguson. Way and Doyle played the first round with playing partners Stoltz and Ingrassia. In a close back and forth foursome, the two teams ended up finishing tops after day one at +15 and +18 strokes with Stoltz and Ingrassia in the lead. These two teams would be paired up for the final round the following day. However, there were plenty of other teams in striking distance. Veteran Chris Muir with rookie partner Byron had +20, while Tom and Zenny had +21, followed by Aldis and Kershaw at +22. The final round on Le Géant was setting up to be an exciting finish!

Back on the mountain, the weather was once again cold, wet, and windy. Rated the easier of the two courses, several golfers improved on their performances on Le Géant from the prior day. Zenny bettered his performance by 9 strokes to shoot +1, while Rinaldo bettered his score by 10 strokes to shoot +5 in the final round. However, the only player to shoot below his handicap this tournament was Barry Stoltz, who shot -2 during the final round. All other players, whether it was too early in the golf season, or due to an improved handicap system, shot above their handicap. It was the performance by Stoltz that made a close competition into a cakewalk for the wire-to-wire leaders of Stoltz and Ingrassia. They took the title with a score of +18. The second-place team of Way and Doyle failed to improve their scores and shot marginally worse lending them to drop in the standings. Strong performances by the team of Tom and Zenny led them to second place at +34, with Byron and Muir taking coming third at +37. Matt and Barry were presented with champion red caps at the awards banquet by last year’s champions, Steve Way and Mark Rinaldo.

Barry Stoltz’s final round also netted him the Sandbagger award for his combined two-day total of 3-over par, six strokes better than runner-up and 2008 Sandbagger Matthew Kershaw.

This is the third time Stoltz will have his name on the trophy, with this being Ingrassia’s first win since he shared the inaugural award of the trophy back in 2005 with Christian. Stoltz has won the trophy 3 out of the 4 Nomad Classics he has attended thus far.

Congratulations was given to Matt Ingrassia for the lowest stroke play overall with 188 strokes.

Place	Player	Day 1	Day 2	Total	NC-HC
1	Matt Ingrassia	+10	+5	+15	86/87
1	Barry Stoltz	+5	-2	+3	101
2	Tom Shepherd	+11	+12	+23	97
2	Zenny	+10	+1	+11	90
3	Byron	+16	+10	+26	94
3	Chris Muir	+4	+7	+11	113
4	Mark Rinaldo	+15	+5	+20	90
4	Christian Ferguson	+9	+9	+18	101
5	Steven Way	+15	+14	+29	98
5	Ryan Doyle	+3	+9	+12	103
6	Sam Masih	+7	+10	+17	89
6	Brett Berens	+20	+10	+34	94
7	Aldis Zandbergs	+18	+27	+45	101/102
7	Matt Kershaw	+4	+5	+9	102
8	Tim Jones	+15	+18	+33	86
8	Nathan Greene	+15	+9	+24	113