FOR MGICs CULVER, BUSINESS IS BAD; GOLF IS GREAT!

Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com

By Michael Horne

MilwaukeeWorld Hound Dog Team Links Correspondent

River Hills, WI --

MGIC Chairman and CEO Curt Culver has had a terrible year at work (when he’s there) but a fabulous year on the links (when he’s not.) He shot a 78 at Naga-Waukee last Saturday, June 14^th, 2008, and carries an impressive 3.9 handicap. Interestingly, he is able to maintain these near-professional scores by playing almost exclusively on the road. The guys at Blue Mound Country Club have barely seen him for over a year!

During the first, or “winter” quarter of 2008, Culver (bio) was a regular presence at Bay Colony Golf Club, in Naples, Florida. He played 8 rounds there, and averaged 81. In the 11 rounds he’s played since returning to Wisconsin this spring, his average score dropped to 78.

Culver paid $2,000,000 in February, 2002 for his Florida house, adjacent to the club. It is now valued at $1,722,742. It’s a money pit, to be sure, but not as big a loser as MGIC stock, which traded at $67.10 on the day he bought the house. It’s under ten bucks today. In the past year alone MGIC stock dipped from $60 to $10. Maybe that’s why Culver has been playing a lot of “away” games. Of his 31 bouts on the links since July, 2007, only three are recorded as being at his home base at Blue Mound Country Club. Maybe he doesn’t want to see his clubmates until his stock price firms up. That should take about another 500 rounds of golf, or so, at this rate.

Brother Craig Culver, on the other hand, is running Culver’s, a very successful and growing chain of hamburger stands now numbering 370 locations. He maintains an 11.2 handicap, which must be a terrible embarrassment to his brother. But what do you expect? Craig has only played one game this year, on May 8^th, 2008, when he shot an 83 at Lake Wisconsin, his home club. It was his first game since October, 2007. He spends too much time at work, and see what happened.

Supreme Court Justice Annette Ziegler carries a 20.1 handicap which she just hasn’t been able to shake despite golfing up a storm at her home turf at West Bend Country Club. She’s played 15 games since her election to the bench in April, 2007, but only three since she took her seat last August. She’s played twice this year, shooting a 105 last Sunday, twelve strokes off her 2008 debut on May Day. Both games were played “away,” possibly at a public course, or perhaps at a private course, which usually involves being a guest of a member of the away club.

Ziegler’s handicap is better than Sen. Alberta Darling, a Milwaukee Country Club mainstay whose last 4 games were all played away in a warm climate. Alberta’s 23.1 handicap is not helped by her recent scores in the 105 range. Maybe when they drain the club she can get back in the swing of things.

She is facing an electoral challenge from Rep. Sheldon Wasserman, who does not golf. Meanwhile, there is jockeying to take his place in the Assembly. One candidate, Dan Kohl, is a golfer with a pretty decent 4.6 handicap. He hasn’t played at his home course of Brynnwood since August of last year, although he squeezed an October game at Milwaukee Country Club, practically next door to his home in River Hills. Dan hopes to parlay his work with the Milwaukee Bucks and his considerable financial assets into a career of public service. After a stint in the Assembly he hopes to be sufficiently seasoned to replace Uncle Herb Kohl in the U. S. Senate. He faces a tough primary challenge, believe it or not, from Andy Feldman, a White House staff economist in the Clinton administration, and former instructor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he got his Ph.D. Feldman’s treasurer is Bonnie Bockl Joseph, one of the few people with connections enough to raise money against an opponent with the wealth of a Kohl.

This leaves us with Marc Marotta who spent so much time on the links as Secretary of Administration you’d think he was dumping Doyle administration skeletons into the water hazards at Tripoli Country Club. Marc has a handicap of 8.9, and it appears he is off his game, at least until the season picks up. On Sunday he shot a 93 at his home course. His other two adventures this year at the club, on May 31^st, and June 1^st, were not much better, as he shot a 92. He must long for that glorious September afternoon last year, when he shot a 75 at Blue Mound.