The BESTballers Story

1999 BESTballers began in the Spring of 1999 in a Yahoo! Fantasy Golf league titled, "The Real Golfers." Andrew Stewart (aka Par For The Course) had set this league up, and a few individuals (Chuck Gadke, aka Chuck's Challengers and Mike Berkowitz) conjured up a plan to offer a matchplay "side game" in addition to Yahoo!'s main game.

We had enough interested participants to warrant another league entitled Bestballers (named so since the game was played in a bestball format) and initially 32 managers were enjoying the first side game in the group. The year went by rather quickly, Chuck and Mike shared the scoring duties (Chuck even had to phone Mike one week when he was unable to score the game, due to a family emergency in the Gadke household) and our following began. If was a fly by night thing, we made the rules up as we went, and in one case, we had a match decided on by a coin toss, due to the fact that a tie-breaker system hadn't been fully developed yet, and a winner had to be determined.

At the conclusion of the '99 season, a list of managers who were interested in returning for the next season was compiled, and their e-mails were recorded so that the same group could get back together and enjoy the fine atmosphere that had already been developed. Aaron Lightle (CABS) offered to score the game next year, and with that, Aaron was starting to conjure up some other things we could do with the group.

We had already found 40 or so individuals who shared the same passion for golf, friendly competition, and computers that I could easily see we had something special here. During the winter break, he started to work on a website that would allow us a place to keep track of all our stats (we were using the message boards to post weekly and yearly stats, and once that message was moved off the boards, it was lost to the general public) and give our members the opportunity to view them on their own time and at their convenience.

Over the winter, Aaron tested out some other side games, to add to our already popular bestball game. The Majors Game seemed like a fine addition and Mike developed the D Player game. An editorial portion of our website was planned out as well, to give everyone a chance to have their voices be heard, and an opportunity to showcase the literary stylings or our members. We were already thinking of more and more things to do with the group, before our 2nd Season had even started.

2000 Come February 2000, Yahoo! had opened the Fantasy Golf game and we frantically tried to contact our pre-existing members. We contacted about 75% of our original membership, and it wasn't long before the friendly banter began to fly on the message boards. Our new games were brought to fruition (not without complications, as any new endevour encounters) and the season was underway.

As the season rolled along, Aaron was looking for some help with the website and while Mike was running the D Player game, Aaron and his brother Joshua quickly realized that with everything they had planned on implementing through the season they needed additional assitance. Aaron asked John Karben if he would be interested in partnering up with them in this endeavor, and he was really excited to help and brought quite a bit of knowledge and ideas along with him.

On May 1st of 2000, John and Aaron opened the new Homestead website, which allowed us room to run a better website along with more room for our ever-growing number of games. John also introduced our Earnings Game, complete with full leaderboards and a realistic and popular format similar to what they use on the pro tours. In addition another extensive and exclusive game was drawn up at that time. The Fore Tour game was introduced and and became crowd favorite, one of the few online golf games where you can actually draft a golfer and have sole possession of their stats.

With the addition to our new games, we also decided to expand our membership to an additional 50 members by creating a BESTballers 2nd Edition Group. We were finding ways to increase what we were doing while decreasing the amount of work we had to do each week. We also wanted to share the experience with new faces and friends, and hence with the creation of this additional league, we also created a rivalry of sorts when a 2nd Edition Member (Marcello Annunciato) brought the "BESTballers Challenge Cup" idea to us. What better way to bring 100 people closer together yet also create some group pride than a Ryder Cup style competition pitting the highest scoring managers between the two groups against each other! One of our best games that, to this day is as tense as any tournament with the largest of purses.

The BESTballers season lasted to the PGA Championship in mid August. This gave everyone, staff and members, the chance to focus on the upcoming Fantasy Football season.

2001 As the 2001 season approached the BESTballers staff went the extra step and aquired the www.BESTballers.com domain and our own web hosting service. This gave us the most flexibility to bring you the finest website. The 2001 season was our biggest endevour to date. We brought all the games from the previous years and added Matchplay and the Pick 5 game. The popularity and friendships extended us beyond just two groups so the Black group was added.

The new website expanded and covered a lot of material. The competition was tough and the games were fabulous. Daily news and stats updates kept all the managers informed. Many fellow BESTballers contibuted in different ways. The Editorial section saw many fine articles. Julian Tandy (Voorschoten Vultures) Squawk about a wide range of topics while Jeff Doering (Somebody Step on a Duck) gave his Two Cents and Marge Miller (Putter's Players) gave us her views from the Forward Tee's. There were also several guest editorials. 2001 was the largest and most productive season to date for the growing BESTballers members and staff.

Daily pressure to update the many games and to present a top notch website began to show signs of wear and tear on John Karben. When the BESTballers season ended John concluded that he could not do the same for the 2002 season. It was decided that he would reduce his load to a just a couple games. The 2001 season again concluded with the PGA Championship.

2002 With John stepping aside Aaron along Justin Mangold (Ball State and Duke Fan) took over the website development and developed one of the finest College Hoops site around for the 2001-2002 season. January quickly arrived and the impending golf season was soon to arrive. John and Aaron came up with an idea to develope a limited website to bring back a few of the most popular game adn to ask the members to "bring their own games" to play and score. This concept was well received and limited the amount of time needed to update the website.

The BESTballers staff brought back the Earnings game which was renamed to the BESTballers Tour. The crowd favorite BCC returned along and a new RedBlueBlack game was added. Brian Hendricks (Magic Valium Dispensers) brought us Cut Golf, Thomas Hainze (Texan) gave the Red group a monthly tournament, Ed Crowder (Gators Kick Butt) added Pick Once and Julian Tandy (Voorschoten Vultures) added the VVmWW. All three groups competed for the entire 40 week Yahoo Golf season. By the end of the 2002 season Aaron Lightle had hit the preverbial wall and stepped aside from most of the daily action.

2003 The 2003 season starts out in simialar fashion as the 2002 season. John Karben has updated the website and will be scoring the BESTballers Tour, RedBlueBlack, BCC and has added the Double Dip Tournament. The Monthly Red Tournament and Pick Once have also returned. The "bring your own game format" appears to working fine and looks to be the format for many years to come. The Red, Blue and Black Yahoo! groups are here to stay with many members returning year after year for the great competition and friendships.

2004...to present Same format, same games, a whole lot of fun!

We started as a fun group doing things a little different, and we've now become a larger group of close knit friends who enjoy each others company, and our friendly atmospheres and competition. The first league was set up for a place where we all could meet, talk, joke, have fun, and compete with the motto, entertainment for people, real people who just understand what the game of golf really teaches us, and that is, being fair to ourselves and others. That's all anyone ever wants.