Vancouver, BC — Suspicious circumstances cloud Pointstreak’s annual golf tournament, held in Richmond, British Columbia at the Mylora Sidaway Golf Club. Featuring the Vancouver office, which mostly consists of tech developers and web designers, the competition was planned by Pointstreak VP Technology Andrej Nemcek, who, when the dust settled, emerged victorious for the first time.

Since its inception in 2009, the Pointstreak Golf Tournament has been a staple event of the Vancouver office. Teams are made up of four members, each with a different level so the overall balance of the team is “even”. The format of the tournament is a Scramble, with teams using at least three tee shots from each member. The 2014 tournament was returning to Mylora after a three year hiatus, during which time the competition was held at Country Meadows Golf Course.

Mystery surrounded the tournament well before the first tee time Friday afternoon. One top ten golfer at the office went down with an ankle injury earlier in the week, with the sustained injury forcing him to miss the festivities. This was followed by the CMS team working through a late night to complete a sprint. With some members opting to rest rather than compete in the tournament, two teams competing were down players, and ultimately finished well off the pace. Conveniently, the CMS team is headed by the VP Technology, who happened to be fully rested for the match.

Once play had begun, it was apparent that one team captain was suffering through an injury. While he was determined to finish the round, the mobile developer was limping on some holes, and clearly not at 100 percent. The injury put his team under pressure and proved to be too much as the group finished alone in third place.

The tournament came down to the wire with team VP Technology against the Band of Misfits, who were made up from CMS, Design and Marketing. With the two groups neck and neck, the Band suffered a huge blow as one of their team members was attacked by a swarm of bees. Standing over his shot, the team’s number two player was bombarded by dozens of bees, when they deemed him to be threatening their nest. The hive, which was constructed underground, was hidden from view by leaves, and by the time the bees had settled down, the Band of Misfits were shaken.

The tournament came down to the final hole, where the Band of Misfits were forced to watch their dreams of winning crumble as Nemcek hit the green of the par 4 18th on his drive, and birdied the hole to win by one stroke.

Newly crowned champion Andrej Nemcek had this to say: “The 3rd annual Pointstreak Golf tournament was a mix of experienced players and beginners alike. As a sports company, it’s always great to introduce current and future team members to a new sport whenever we can. Growing up playing team sports, I know how much you can learn about someone by participating in athletics with them. Whether it’s a golf tournament, open ice time, or playing on the company hockey team, balancing technological innovation with fun team building activities is essential to our culture. It’s also nice to finally win the golf tournament, especially with birdie on the last hole.”

From Gregg Sayer, VP Communications at Pointstreak: “A big congrats to Andrej and his team, who barely pulled out the victory despite the fact that Andrej picked the teams, picked the course, controlled the budget and assigned the prizes…Well done.”

It was also pointed out that in the past, the spread between the first and last place teams was five strokes, while this year it was fifteen.

Other Notes:

Congratulations to Rick Lin and Benoit Maria, who teamed with Andrej to win the tournament and collected gift cards from Sport Chek.

The Dynamic Duo of ‘Dunn & Dunner’ pulled out stunning wins Friday afternoon:

Mike Dunn narrowly outdrove Nemcek to win the Long Drive. Dunn heads the Registration team in Vancouver.

Sam Dunner won the Closest-to-the-Pin (KP) challenge by a mere foot over Nemcek. Dunner is a marketing intern for the summer, and was also a team member on the Band of Misfits.

Both players had never played the course before.