TRACY HARRIS AND RICKY CONNER
2025 C-STAR CHAMPIONS
By:
Corey Roberson, Director of Golf
The 2025 C-Star was held the first week of May and while we faced a few challenges from Mother Nature, we were able to get most of the golf tournament completed along with the shootout to crown our champions. Before we dive into the shootout, let’s start with a brief overview of the event.
On Thursday morning, most of the field played a practice round followed by lunch and then a 9-hole putting tournament on the course. We split the field over the front and back nines and created some very difficult putts for the players to navigate. Congratulations to Brett Nichols and Brady Shivers for winning the Front Nine, and Jeff Stahl and Bruce Boruszak for winning the Back Nine. After the putting tournament, the players gathered at the Practice Park to enjoy a little live music, cigars, cocktails and a delicious meal prepared by Chef Isaac and his team. In addition, we had a fun activity planned with a golf ball cannon hooked up to an assault rifle that got cut short by a little storm that blew in. Don’t worry — we didn’t cut the party short, everyone shifted up to Axis to enjoy the rest of the evening.
The tournament officially started on Friday and we got most of our scheduled golf in before another storm rolled in from the west. On Saturday, we had a couple holes to finish from the prior day and then rolled right into the 4th and 5th matches where we crowned our flight champions.
On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to #10 to start the Shootout with our flight champions. Per tradition, our sequence was #10, #11, #16, #17 and #18 — eliminating two teams on each hole leading up to #18. There were a lot of penalty shots on that first shootout hole — the team of Morris/Freeman blasted two tee shots wide right while a few of the other teams found the penalty area. Even after those wild tee shots (which they are known for), Morris/Freeman still had a chance to advance but weren’t able to navigate the difficult putting surface on #10. Stu and his team didn’t think the greens were fast enough so they rolled the greens again before the shootout … 13.8 on the stimpmeter — it was like putting on a curved granite counter top. The team of Dommert/Sloan also struggled with #10 green and were eliminated after making a net triple bogey.
Once we made it to #11, we ended up with a 4-way chip-off where only one team would be eliminated — this was a first for me … we’ve had chip-offs in the past, but never with four teams. We picked a very difficult chip and I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of shots hit. Unfortunately for the team of Stroud/Tremblay, their chip was just a few inches outside the others. In addition, the team of Norcross/Sanders ended their shootout with a few wild shots and too many putts.
Our signature hole, #16, only plays about 125 yards and is known for bringing a tragic ending to many teams’ shootout runs — this year didn’t disappoint. I’m fairly certain Zane Price and Jim Crites are still putting on #16 … to be perfectly honest, I lost track of how many putts they hit and just wrote down an X on my scoresheet. The team of Vanderpool/Lile were eliminated via a chip-off after losing to Smith/VanBuren.
By the time we got to #17, only four teams were left standing. After a few good tee shots and one pulled a little left, everyone ended up near the green in a similar number of strokes. The teams of Harris/Conner and Stock/Stock made net pars to safely advance to #18. While the team of Pratt/Polo advanced further than last year, and Gabe was able to earn a little redemption, they finished 4th in the shootout after making a double-bogey. Congrats to those who wagered on Larry Smith and Matt VanBuren as they made a bogey on #17 to finish third in the parimutuel.
If you feel like this recap is long, you should have been out there for the shootout — it also set a new record for the longest shootout in Cordillera Ranch history! Harris/Conner hit a good tee shot right up the gut on #18 while Stock/Stock tugged it a hair into the left rough. However, both teams ended up just short of the green and it looked like it was anyone’s championship. After a couple of duffed chips and missed putts, we headed back to #18 again as both teams made triple-bogey. The second go-around resulted in similar results but the team of Tracy Harris and Ricky Conner came up victorious. Congrats to our 2025 C-Star Champions.
Corey Roberson is the Director of Golf at The Clubs of Cordillera Ranch. He can be reached at croberson@cordilleraranch.com and 830.336.4653.
