First father/son team seek Pot O’ Gold

By Joel Myhre (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Thursday, August 28, 2008

In the Pot O’ Gold and Labor Day Classic at Pebble Lake Golf Course, players do not choose their partners. Rather, like it or not, players are chosen for them.

Brian and Gene Shuck, however, say this year, each likes his respective partner just fine.

For the first time as long as any long-time player can remember, the Pot O’ Gold and Labor Day Classic yielded the first father-son partnership in Gene and Brian Shuck. The Shucks open the Pot O’ Gold against Adam Kalenberg and Lynn Schultz at 10:40 a.m. Saturday.

“We’re really looking forward to it,” said Gene, who has played in the majority of Pot O’ Gold tournaments over the past 28 years. “It’s going to be a great time.”

Brian, a plus-one handicap, says the fact that both his and his father’s handicap have gone up over the past couple years made the partnership possible.

The Pot O’ Gold and Labor Day Classic ranks the 64 participants by handicap, with the first 32 making the Pot O’ Gold. The lowest handicap players are then paired with the highest.

“We know as I got worse, we probably had a chance,” Gene said. “This year, with everybody’s handicap so low, it worked out.”

“In fact, me getting worse was what helped,” said Brian, who has played with a handicap two to three strokes lower in previous years.

With four Pot O’ Gold titles between the two – Brian with three in eight tries, and Gene with one – the two certainly have the experience to handle the pressures of the tournament.

The Shucks moved to Fergus Falls from Fargo in 1976. While the two admit they didn’t play together as much when Brian was younger, they have made up for it by playing together on a regular basis the last decade.

“I was just more interested in playing with my buddies when I was younger,” Brian said.

Both say their relationship should give them an advantage over teams whose partners don’t play together.

“I’ve known his swing since he was a youngster,” Gene said. “If something’s wrong on our swing, or putting or chipping, we can talk about it in a way that a team who doesn’t know each other can’t.”

Both agree that playing together certainly beats playing against each other, which happened only once. “Seven or eight years ago,” Gene said. “I beat him on the 18th hole.”

Labor Day Classic matches begin at 9 a.m., followed by the Pot O’ Gold matches at 10:20.