SONIC BOOM
Bird/Frost Hooters Win, One For The Ages
BURBANK – The MGM Tour’s last visit to “Little” DeBell, 2010, produced a dramatic finish, thought at the time never to be equaled or surpassed. 3 years later, the 10th edition of the Hooters Team Play Championship proved that notion wrong, offering up yet another example of why the MGM Tour is so special. John Frost’s jaw-dropping, 15-foot winning putt on the 2nd hole of sudden death against Walter Vargas and Travois Gordón had the gallery erupt in a roar of disbelief. “I was really just trying to get it as close to the hole as possible,” said Frost of the putt that earned him and partner Patrick Bird the win. “[I] didn’t want to make the same mistake that I made before [on the first] sudden death, and got lucky.” Said Bird, “I knew he could do it because we saw the hole once before. We knew where we had to put it. We talked about it, where it was going, and he went right according to plan. They call him Frost for a reason. He’s got ice water in his veins.” Travois Gordón, who finished 2nd for the 3rd time in the past 4 years remarked, “You can’t argue with the shots they were making. I don’t think we did anything wrong so much as they did something great. You can’t fault that.”
A crucial missed putt.
His partner Walter Vargas, who missed a 1-foot putt for the win on the first sudden death hole was asked if Frost’s spectacular putt made the defeat any less painful. “No, it still hurts. I think it might even hurt more but, you know, had I played the first 2 tournaments [of the year] and gotten all those butterflies out maybe I would have made that one putt that I needed to make.” The win was John Frost’s 3rd Hooters victory in the past 6 years, while it was Patrick Bird’s 2nd Hooters win, 7 years after his first.
Gordón’s Frost-y Reception
Coming up short again.
They may have had different partners but Travois Gordón and John Frost were once again intertwined in a dramatic finish at “Little” DeBell, with the same results. In 2010 Gordón’s teammate PJ Fidler’s long distance putt for an improbable win stopped 2 inches short of the hole. Victory to Frost (and then teammate, Gil Ferro). 
This year, Gordón’s spectacular chip to the green in sudden death had him 1 foot from winning his first Hooters Owl, but Walter Vargas shockingly missed the ensuing putt. On the 2nd sudden death hole, Gordón’s 12-foot putt to guarantee at worst another hole of sudden death, stopped 2 inches short. Victory, once again, to Frost (and this time Patrick Bird).
FINAL RESULTS
| PLACE | TEAM | SCORE |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | BIRD / FROST | 16 + 14 = 30 * |
| 2 | W. VARGAS / GORDÓN | 19 + 11 = 30 |
| T3 | CRUMP / CLEMENTE | 7 + 9 = 16 |
| T3 | VAUGHAN / FIDLER | 7 + 9 = 16 |
| 5 | WITT / D. VARGAS | 3 + 9 = 12 |
| 6 | T. JOE / QUIROZ | 3 + 5 = 8 |
* – won on 2nd sudden death hole
QUICK CHIPS
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly: Bird/Frost, only team without any negative points; 1 of 3 teams with a birdie… Vargas/Gordón’s 19 points had them in 1st at the turn despite a (-1) on the 9th. Their only negative point blemish cost them the outright win… 2-time defending champions Witt/D. Vargas were 1 of 3 teams with a birdie but with 2 quadruple bogeys and 1 triple (7 points deducted) finished 5th out of 6 teams… DeBell Magic: John Frost’s last Hooters win was at DeBell. Now a 3-time winner, he joins Doug Vargas for 2nd on the all-time Hooters wins list… Clemente Returns: Nearly 7 years after his last appearance on Tour (April 15, 2006), charter member Jo Clemente finished a respectable 3rd with partner Clint Crump… Milestone: Clint Crump played his 70th career tournament… Feast or Famine: After breaking the Tour record (which he owned) for most consecutive tournament starts, Armen Grigorian missed his 2nd straight tournament.
