OOOH!! So close!

Holy moly. That was quite a display of voting you all put on there. It's also interesting that you guys seem to care more about who wins a free round of golf than you do bout football and basketball questions (based on the number of votes). Duly noted.

As you can see at the right, Entry 1 won out by the narrowest of margins, in a true Bush-Gore kind of showdown. Of 1868 votes cast, 1731 of them were for either Entry 1 (Doing it for Dad) or Entry 2 (Ladies Tees). The winning margin was 65 votes, or just 3 1/2 percent. Amazing.

As you may recall from the rules I posted, B-Dowd and I get to vote as well. And our singular votes carry as much weight as the nearly 1900 already cast. What can we say, we like having arbitrary levels of power.

Of course, it really doesn't seem fair for someone to lose by such a slim margin, regardless of how we cast our votes. Our wonderful benefactor for this event, Ed, felt this way as well and so he contacted me during the fierce battle:

"I am seriously considering sponsoring another foursome based on the entries. I am a sucker for this stuff."

Basically, Ed isn't as mean as us and couldn't stand the thought of any of our finalists losing and he DID, in fact, pony up for another group. SO... as Oprah herself  might say...

YOU get a spot and YOU get a spot and YOU get a spot....

Yeah, each of the finalists is hereby cleared to play in the event. The top two vote-getters will play with me and Ed, while the others will play with B-Dowd's brother in the other foursome (you've heard his handsomely dulcet tones as a fill-in on the Handsome Hour from time to time). And then we'll all have some brews and be merry at the cocktail reception afterwards. (And then at Harry's into the wee hours if I can slip Ed's American Express card away from him.)

Seriously, thanks to everyone who entered and voted. And a big thanks to Ed Sigo, one of the more generous people we've met in a while.