2022 Fripp Island “BIG Champion of the Year Chris Graham”

With nothing to lose and not much more to play for other than an age-old desire to simply beat each other that stretches back decades, the third round of 2022 BIG will be remembered for the intense 18-hole duel that took place between two best friends, two former BnL partners and two co-founding members of the BIG! Two-time BIG champ Tony Vaughn and 2019 former champ Chris Graham squared off and went toe to toe in an epic final round 18-hole slugfest, battling simply for the day’s bragging rights…or so they thought!

With a go for broke attitude both players started out hot, with Tony throwing out a dominant 36 and pulling an incredible 18 points on the front 9, followed by Chris with a sneaky 37 and 17 points of his own. Brother Paul, the third member of the early tee time pairing, hung in there with a stellar 14 points of his own on the front 9 but eventually had no answer to the stellar golf going on around him. The back 9 saw no let up from the two fierce competitors, clearly both players were on a simple single mission…to beat the other player at his best! When the dust finally cleared after Crissy rolled in a 2 point par on the final hole the scorecard revealed that both players finished with an incredible 34 points, with both contestants posting personal Fripp Island bests of 74 on the challenging Ocean Course layout.

A likely reason both players played so relaxed and loosely with that go for broke attitude was probably because neither player appeared to have much of a shot at winning the tournament, both buried deep on the second page of the leaderboard. To the front page of the leaderboard, Stephen Cranford (+9) started the final round with a 1-point lead over the trio of Hackett, Freddy and TonyLo (+8), with Brian Shenk just another shot out. The feature pairing group ALL played respectable final round golf with Stephen posting a 33-point 75 of his own with a stellar up and down par from next to the seawall on the tough 18th hole! This forced a 2-way tie at the top, with Stogey bragging rights in the balance, against his favorite brother in law Chris. The former 2-time BIG champ TonyV started two points behind Chris on the final day so that kept him from joining the playoff in spite of both players throwing in +7 last round efforts.

The final tally revealed that the 2022 BIG would be decided by it’s first (on course) two-hole sudden death playoff in BIG history. Both players hit solid drives and second shots on the short Par 4 first hole as Stephen barely missed his 10 foot birdie effort and Crissy rolled in a testy 4 footer to save par. Both playoff contestants hit spectacular short irons to within 10 feet of the cup on the par 3 second hole. Stephen’s sidehill birdie putt slid a few inches to the right of the cup for a gimmie par and all he could do is watch as Chris’s speedy downhill putt appeared to be well short, but somehow kept trickling and found the bottom of the cup for a championship clinching birdie, securing his second BIG Stogey championship in the battle of 1-win titans. Just three years after finally breaking a 13 year drought in 2019, Crissy became just the third 2-time BIG champ with the win. The hard earned win was certainly bittersweet for Chris as he acknowledged how Stephen played stellar golf for three rounds and certainly deserved to hoist the Big Stogey for a second time as well.

The Charlie Griffin Cup was awarded to a shocked and surprised Tony Locascio by the prior year’s recipient William Hackett. TonyLo has been an integral part of the BIG since 2009 and has been making the road trip from Winter Haven, Florida just about every year. He has definitely tallied up the most miles driven by a BIG member by far. Congrats TLo, well deserved honor as you are the consummate example of what the meaning of the BIG is all about.

2022 saw Ryan Marshall newbie invitees Bates Harrison (sporting the pink teddy and hat in stule) and long ball hitting Mitch Johns. The 2022 field also included Larry, BobC, Steve-oh, Jackkkk, Freddy, Pauly, William, KK, TonyLo, Rick, Ryan, Woody, the Shenkster, the Vuaghn boys Darrell and Tony along with the events champ, Chrissy.

Jacky Childers turned in some stellar (bad) golf to capture the Dead Prez $1 Toilet trophy as he attempted to play with a bad Achilles tendon.

An obscure BIG Fact for those who were at the BIG 2014 Fripp Island event by the way. The vodka boys of the infamous 2014 feature group that turned in a sparkling -17 cumulative effort in the final round (Paul-KK-Chris-BrianS) were an astounding 29 shots better (+12) in the final round this go around. More importantly, Tony V was relieved that he was not needed to clean up the green of the #14 hole this year. All these years later just wanted you to know, the 2014 feature group still appreciates you looking out for us that year, my friend!