Round 11: Martin Takes the Throne, and Stableford Saves a 106

After a run of stroke-play weeks, the league switched gears Thursday and played Team Stableford on The Lehman (par 72, four par 3s). Six foursomes, twenty-four players, and a format that rewrites how a bad hole feels: every player banks points against their net par — birdie stacks up, par pays the rent, and a blow-up simply scores zero and gets out of the way. Nobody drowns; you just stop earning for a minute. Keep that in mind, because it's the entire story of who won.

🏆 The Winning Team: 137, by the Width of One Missed Par

Michael Martin, Scott Kimman, Jesse Johnson, and Sam Geraets banked 137 points to win it — by two. The runners-up sat right on their heels at 135, and in a game where a team piles up 137, a two-point margin is one lipped-out par away from a tie. Martin (75, net 67) and Sam Geraets (84, net 73) did the heavy point-scoring, Scott Kimman (85, net 74) kept the meter running, and then there's Jesse Johnson — more on him in a second, because his scorecard is the best argument for this format you'll ever see.

🧮 Stableford Saves the Day: The Useful 106

Jesse Johnson shot a 106. One hundred and six — six triple-bogeys-or-worse on the card — and his team won the tournament. That is Stableford in one glorious sentence: his good holes counted, his six disasters each scored a clean zero and vanished, and the damage never touched the team total. In stroke play a 106 is a group text apology. In Team Stableford it's a contributing member of a championship squad. Last week we celebrated Jason Jackovich's "most useful 98." Jesse just took the belt.

👑 A New King: Martin Seizes the Season Lead

We called it in the Round 10 recap — "if Martin keeps showing up, the math gets scary." Reader, the math got scary. That winning ten points vaulted Michael Martin to the top of the season Team Points board at 58, and he's done it in just seven rounds played — three fewer than the men he passed. Dave Thomes wore the crown a week ago; he's now tied for second. The efficiency is the terrifying part: Martin isn't grinding out a full slate, he's just winning when he shows up.

🎯 Low Gross: Hoppe's Clean 74

Jared Hoppe posted the round of the night — a 74 (net 71) off a 3, with birdies on 5, 8, and 13 and exactly one double all day. Tidiest card in the field by a mile. The cruel twist: in a team format, one great round can't outrun three ordinary ones, and Hoppe's squad (with Pietig, Snider, and Thomes) landed in third at 124. Golf's a team sport this week, and the team didn't quite hold up its end.

🥷 Low Net: Tate's 65 and the Bandit Report

Best net of the entire night belonged to Tate Motschenbacher — a 78 that played to a net 65 off his 13, with birdies on 2, 6, and 15 (that 6 was a deuce). That's the engine that dragged Neitzke, Sourdiff, and Jackovich to second at 135. Speaking of Jackovich — he did it again, turning a 93 into a net 70 off a 23. The man is allergic to a good gross number and immune to a bad net one.

🐦 The Birdie Board (and a Deuce Party on 6)

No eagles anywhere on the property this week — a quiet contrast to last week's twin 3s — but six different players carded three birdies apiece: Hoppe, Martin, Tate, Peter Dahl, Phil Ferguson, and Luke Ostrowski. The par-3 6th was the place to be: Dahl, Tate, and Ferguson all stuffed it for deuces. Three 2s on one par 3, and the cup still stayed hungry. The 5th and 15th also gave up a pile of birdies for anyone keeping a hit list for next year.

⛳ Dahl's Scratch Tax

A week after his 69, Peter Dahl is now playing off scratch — a zero handicap — and Thursday he learned what that costs in a net format. A perfectly respectable 76 (three birdies, a deuce on 6) played to a net… 76. No strokes to bank, no cushion to spend, and his team finished fifth. Shoot the second-lowest gross of your life and get nothing for it: welcome to the scratch tax, Peter. This is what you wanted.

🔥 The Hall of Pain

Team Stableford is merciful, which is the only reason some of these cards can be printed in public:

Your author — 100, broken by exactly zero strokes. Zero birdies, three pars, seven doubles, three triples-plus. Last week I hid behind the Benders; this week I dragged Dahl, Barney, and Dustin to fifth all by myself. Accountability.
Landon Snider — 99, seven doubles and three triples, and still counted for a third-place team. Bless this format.
Barney Miller — 93, a card of pure attrition: eleven bogeys, five doubles, and two lonely pars. Death by a thousand paper cuts.
Jason Sourdiff — 95, seven doubles — and, because Stableford, a runner-up medal for his trouble.

🎯 The Hole-in-One Pot

Four par 3s on the Lehman, three deuces on the 6th alone, and not one of them found the bottom of the cup. The money lives to fight another Thursday. The pot climbs to $2,903 — members get the full ride. Somebody flush a 7-iron and end this thing.

🤝 Season Team Points: New Name on Top

Eleven rounds on the calendar (ten actually played — the sky ate one), best 8 count, and the board has a new leader:

Michael Martin — 58 (in just 7 rounds)
Mark Pietig — 56
Dave Thomes — 56
Tate Motschenbacher — 48
Luke Ostrowski — 47

Pietig and Thomes are knotted at 56, two off the lead and both with more rounds banked than Martin — which means the leader has the shorter to-do list and the higher ceiling. Over in the net-average race, Mark Pietig and Justin Heitkamp are dead even atop the qualified board at 70.88 — that one's going to the wire too.

⛳ Next Up

Round 12 goes Thursday, July 23, back on the Dutch 27 — Red/White. Two-point margins, new season leaders, a $2,903 pot begging to be claimed. Same tee, same time. Bring a net game.