2008 Sapelo Hammock “BIG Champion of the Year Tony Vaughn”

Year 2 of the BIG was held at the beautiful Sapelo Hammock Golf Resort north of Brunswick Georgia. Tony Vaughn played steady golf and behind a smoking hot putter on Day 3, held off all challengers by making clutch putt after clutch putt, and was able to claim his first BIG Stogey Championship.

For those that don’t know, this is the “inspired by true events” history of the El Grande Cigar: The Stogey as it was affectionately called, was literally just that…a long fat Dominican cigar sealed in plastic wrap. As shown on the 2007 page you can see the original in the Crissy to Larry Awards Ceremony pic.

I would love to tell you all that the cigar was originally presented to el’ presidente de la Dominican Republic in a show of cigar making detente by Fidel Castro…or perhaps that the cigar was miraculously found wrapped up in the Queen Isabella of Spain’s scarf and perfectly preserved in whale lard hidden away in a water tight empty rum barrel in the wreckage of Columbus’s ship the Santa Maria among the rocks of Haiti where the ship had met it’s ultimate demise in 1492…but the truth is that my lovely wife’s younger sister had received it as a gag gift and was going to throw it away. When we visited shortly before the trip to Lake Blackshear for the inaugural BIG, I noticed El Grande Cigar sticking out of a box with other throw away items. Being a man of limited finances and vivid imagination, I quickly bartered with said sister in law. “Got a deal you can’t refuse,” I told sis-n-law, “You take my wife for the weekend, and I’ll take that cigar” and with that…off to Lake Blackshear the Stogey’s journey to stardom began! I kind of thought it might make a cool trophy since well, we didn’t really have one. And besides, the price was right!

Short story long, so after Larry played so well and earned the initial award aka the adhoc el’ grande cigar trophy and took off to Augusta with the spoils, the magic Big Stogey transformation took place. Our boy Tony Vaughn took it upon himself to turn that beat up, abused, sad pathetic looking cigar into one of the finest, most revered golf trophies I’ve ever seen. And the rest, as they say, is h-i-s-t-o-r-y! The BIG Stogey was officially born!

Tony had a name plate put on to acknowledge the 2007 winner (Larry) and Larry awarded it to the winner of the 2008 event. It only seemed fitting that the creator of BIG Stogey Trophy was the one to earn it and take it back home in 2008. Who could have imagined what a prized possession your masterpiece has become over the years, my friend. Well done Tony Vaughn! Well done indeed.

And now you know the rest of the story with very little of it made up!

The 2008 BIG proudly welcomed in newbie Doug Melody, a gentleman on and off the golf course. The tournament field included Crissy, TonyV, Rick Marshall, Cuz, Rick Hart, Charlie, Larry and my boy Freddy. And as you can tell by the number of photos, 2008 also included our photographer Justin Graham! Thanks for helping out.