If you play golf long enough, you’ll likely run up against a sandbagger in a member-guest, a rule-bender in a local tournament, or a scramble team with a questionable winning score.
It’s probably less likely that you wind up competing against a five-time PGA Tour winner and two-time Ryder Cupper in the same event with $30,000 on the line.
That’s what happened to the members of Franklin Bridge Golf Course recently when Jonathan Bradley and his team entered the club’s annual “Gangsome” event. The event is a six-man scramble with teams made up of four members and two other players. Each team is allowed to have no more than two plus-handicaps.
The name Jonathan Bradley may not mean much to even the most avid golf fan, but the name J.B. Holmes most certainly does. Holmes turned pro back in 2005 and has racked up more than $25 million in career earnings since. He entered the Gangsome event under the name his initials stand for, and the field didn’t realize it.
The Gangsome is a 6 person scramble in Franklin Tenn. One team had a player named Jonathan Bradley on it. Jonathan Bradley has 5 pga tour wins and played in the Ryder Cup. The team was booted from the $30,000 calcutta. The full story here. https://t.co/o8pa0x7VIj
— Monday Q Info (@acaseofthegolf1) May 31, 2023
The 2023 Gangsome had 22 teams enter, and the field was divided into three flights after the first day. Once the flights were declared, they held a Calcutta for members to bid on the teams they thought would do best.
A Calcutta allows players to bid on each team in an auction, and the final pot from the auction is divided among the top teams in each flight.
Holmes’ team led after the first day, and put themselves in position to claim the first-flight first place prize: about $21,000 this year.
Once day two rolled around, the club owner recognized Holmes’s swing on the third hole in the second round. It was decided then that Jonathan Bradley and his teammates could continue to play, but they were declared ineligible for the winner’s pot and refunded their buy-in.
As play continued, word spread that Jonathan Bradley was indeed J.B. Holmes. When the participants gathered for their post-tournament dinner, the names of Holmes and his teammates had been crossed out on the leaderboard after winning the first flight.
Flight winners were then announced, and while Holmes was reportedly not in attendance, the other members were sure to give his teammates a hard time.
According to one member, when Holmes’s team was announced, the crowd “went crazy, boos started, then some random vulgarities started.”
According to other members who spoke with MondayQ’s Ryan French, Holmes’s teammates accepted their trophies and left quickly.
“The thing is they didn’t break any rules for having a pro on their team,” one member said. “What they did do is lie and cheat their fellow members by signing up Holmes under a different name.”
While Holmes didn’t wind up with any money from the victory, he was more than happy to boast about his win on Twitter.
I did play scrabble under my real name…..John Bradley. It was bring your best team….. and we had the best team. pic.twitter.com/RsaYrV9cV5
— J.B. Holmes (@JBHolmesgolf) May 30, 2023
Here is the Tournament rules and what actually happened. We were winning -21 after round 1 and that’s how they made the flights. pic.twitter.com/zCNUm0kNYY
— J.B. Holmes (@JBHolmesgolf) June 1, 2023
Holmes’s last PGA Tour win came at the 2019 Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club. He’s played in eight events this season and is 226th on the FedEx Cup points list.
