Marilyn & Tom Vetlesen

Do you Ocean Hills golfers remember how after playing 18 holes in a tournament we had to spend at least a half hour making sure that all entries on the card were correct? We figured out complicated games, dealt with dots, slashes etc. and then waited days for the results! One slip of the pencil and we were disqualified.

Relief arrived when computer guru, Scott Sloan (see below for Bio) moved to Ocean Hills in 1999. It took Scott a couple of years to design, buy computers for the Casa, and implement the Ocean Hills Golf Computer System.

He used a complicated Excel program and instructed a volunteer team to use it.

Did we ever get lucky?

Tom and Marilyn Vetlesen moved to Ocean Hills in 2004. They started to play Ladies and Men's tournments in 2005. Either Scott is a very good teacher or Tom and Marilyn are bright over achievers because this gracious couple quickly started spending many hours on the computer in the casa posting our scores.

I thought we had struck it rich again with two more computer experts, but Marilyn had these encouraging words for members interested in learning the program. She said, "both of us were not computer literate. I owned a Mac and could navigate around the primary-grade programs I used with my first graders. Tom could barely write something on Word."

Tom has been Vice-President of OHGC since 2006 and with Scott's help uses a new software to establish and keep our handicaps at no cost to members.

Tom and Marilyn also post scores for most of the special tournaments, as well as for the Ladies and Men's days.

All the golf club members are thankful to them for saving us tons of time and money, because we no longer have to pay an outside company for maintaining our handicaps. A lot of brainpower and the purchase of special software was the masterstroke in bringing this about.

Tom was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and Marilyn in New York City.

Pretty Marilyn, a 6th grade teacher in La Mirada, Ca. met handsome Navy Ltjg Tom in Long Beach, Ca. in 1966. Madly in love, they married in 1967 and raised one son and two daughters.

One daughter has two lovely little girls aged 4 and 5 years. Their son has two sets of twins, four bundles of joy that keep Grandpa and Grandma active and busy. The children live in San Diego County, within baby sitting distance.

How do the Vetlesens find time to save us time? It is a mystery to me!

Betty Betus 4-6-07

New Computer Scoring System
Designed and Implemented!!

The Ocean Hills Golf Computer System is now saving our players thousands of player/hours per year, greatly reducing the disqualifications, and has better accuracy than the manual method.

There are only two different scorecards to fill out instead of twenty four. Why?

Because the computer will calculate the team's best score using its own dots and circles instead of the players having to do that on the scorecard. Now all games are as easy for players to score as a scramble.

All the games are available to the chairpersons for their selection without regards to the difficulty of scoring and checking.

Scott Sloan and his dedicated team of trainers - Tom and Marilyn Vetleson, Dick Travis, Gerry Stier, Doug Wright along with Olive McCullough, Mary Puterbaugh, Bonnie Stricklin, Hugh Simpson, Jim Piercy, Paul Steinberg, Dave Sweet, Roy Heath, Ken Hyde, MG Wildrick, John Sargent, Max Blumeyer and many other Casa volunteers will be using the computer to help OHGC Players.

The Excel program has taken many months to adapt to the OHGC style resulting in long-lasting benefits to our club:

Scott Sloan designed the OHGC Computer System, and patiently trained interested members to work the system. Scott and Helen (right) moved here in 1999 and they have been generous and brilliant volunteers. We appreciate them both...

If you want to be a part of this exciting new venture, please call Sol Jacobson at 726-8137 or Olive McCullough at 631-7015.

Golf Club Webmaster--Dick Travis

Chances are if you live in Ocean Hills, and are a member of our great progressive Computer Club, our vice-president, Dick Travis, has helped you. He is that big-hearted guy who comes to your rescue when your PC is acting up and you are ready to ax it out of existence.

Dick's interest in computers started in his teens, got really heavy during his college years years in Toledo, Ohio. After graduation, he went on to work on all kinds of computer projects, ending his career with the big financial services firms in California.

He married the very athletic and talented Liz in 1957. She swims laps in our pool most mornings at 6am. They had 4 children and are the proud grandparents of 9. Check out his home page at members.cox.net/dtravis2

After retirement he became interested in the Internet and has been developing and maintaining Web pages for 11 years. He currently maintains 21 business Web-sites and fortunately he still finds time to also maintain sites for Ocean Hills clubs.

Dick's interests are his family, his work and playing on his computer. He has a great interest in Google and all the interesting sites it provides.

He is a great asset to the Computer Club and now to the Golf Club. He is helping with the new computer program that Scott Sloan set up for the golf club.

Dick took up golf a few years ago and had a bit of difficulty hitting the ball because of his height. Werner Greve made him custom, long shafted woods, including a #15. He now hits every (?) shot with those giant woods long and straight.

He is a busy person but still likes to help people solve computer problems and to be able to take advantage of all the Internet has to offer. Dick Travis is an excellent teacher, and if you attend his class "Surfing the Web" on the 2nd Friday of the month you will always learn something new.

... Betty Betus