(First of all, let me apologize for I could not find photos of the 2011 and 2014 BIG. That was back when I had my new-fangled telephoto digital camera and for some reason the photos were never captured on a computer roll, hence the hodge podge of special Steve-oh Cranford pictures with the guys on this page. That being said…let’s get to the ACTION!)

Steve-oh Cranford dialed up a masterful final round at the beautiful Fripp Island Ocean Course. His incredible final round kicked off with a bang as he jarred a pin-seeking 5-point eagle on the Par 5 4th hole. Mr. Cranford also cashed in two late round birdies, resulting in a BIG single round scoring record of 39 points (+10 for the day) to finish +16 for the tournament.

Stephen fended off a serious challenge by prior year 2013 BIG Champ Ryan Marshall, who registered 36 points (+13) of his own on the wind swept final day. Ryan’s highlight reel also included the rare eagle accompanying a couple of birdies of his own. Ironically it was his day 1 start (-13 on the same Ocean course layout) that made the likelihood of running down that Cranford all but impossible. He certainly gained his revenge on the course that owned him the prior lap around (*Ryan’s spirited effort is the closest a defending BIG Champ has come to winning back to back titles, by the way).

Kudos also to TonyLo, who showed flashes of greatness as he threw in a smooth 79 (+7) in the final round and ending up T-2nd with the young gun Ryan. For our boy Stephen it was his first BIG Stogey title, and such a well earned victory it was! To date (2025) his 39 point round is still a BIG record. Congrats Stephen, well done!

The 2014 final round will fondly be remembered for the classiest choke job ever recorded by a feature group in BIG history. The four leaders of said feature group (who’s names we shall not mention so please ignore the 4-some picture of PG/KK/BS/CG) were an incredible BIG record MINUS 17 points combined, not to mention they were at least 3 holes behind the rest of the pack. Tony Vaughn, in his never ending quest to find slower golfers than himself, decided to venture out on a recon mission to find out where the heck the feature group disappeared to! Word has it he located them sitting on the side of hole 15’s tee box, laughing it up and doing Fireballz shots. As Tony described it, “I heard one of the contestants say I suck, followed by another of the the competitors arguing “Oh NO, I suck much better than you my brother…” followed by the third player saying “NOT SO FAST MY FRIENDS, You guys only WISH you sucked as bad as me” to which the 4th player (probably Paul) said “well now that we have that settled let’s toast – CHEERS Boys, here’s to the suckiest suckers in all of the sucking world”. And so they did. They even poured a fireball shot for their new best buddy TonyV, who simply said, “it’s true, y’all suck pretty good. Bottoms up!”

Footnote: Out of the corner of his good eye Ol’ Tony happened to notice a debris pile on the 14th green that he decided probably needed checking out. Thankfully there were no pressing groups behind the carnage so Tony drove on over and found sticking upside down in the golf cup an empty fifth bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. Strewn aside the fringe of the green there might have been a few empty Minute-maid Lemon-aide cans, a couple of half-filled half-spilled Coors light 16 ouncers, an empty tonic, possibly an unopened bottle of water and several empty plastic shot cups. Tony returned to the feature group a few moments later and took it upon himself to encourage them to the finish line. Through his thoughtful inspiration and kind words of motivation, he directed his brothers in the right direction thru the final 3 holes and they finally finished the round just a mere 45 minutes behind the pack. Thanks for the assist TV! Oh, and a special thanks for cleaning up hole 14 for us. I’m sure the groups behind us appreciated it. I know the golf superintendent did! Just so you know, I have it on the highest authority that all four of us would have felt really bad about the mess we had left when we sobered up!

The 2014 BIG field included a last moment fill-in for MIA Davis (JJ) and we were PROUD to bring aboard Tony Vaughn’s son-in law newbie Brian Shenk to don the pink teddy and yes, he wore it well! Made us all “Army Proud” I tell you! The stellar field also included Larry, Stephen, Freddy, Crissy, Pauly, KK, TLo, Ricky, Ryan, Mark Oglesby, CUZ, Scarboro and no BIG would be complete without my dear friend TonyV!

2014 was also the year the Leghumpers versus Spearchunkers challenge began and great news for Nole nation, they had an extra fan that year (something about a crab stealing rat bahstahd named Jameis Winston!) By a vote of 1 to 0 it was decided that this shirt challenge deserves its own page…and so it came to be!