Round 12: Tate Drops a Net 62, Barney Holes Out, and the Pot Tops Three Grand

Round 12 brought Net 3-2-1 to the Dutch (Red/White nines) — best three net balls count on holes 1–6, two through the middle stretch, and just one coming home. Translation: the early holes forgive nobody, and down the stretch one hero ball wins it or one blow-up sinks it. Seven teams, twenty-six players, two blind draws, and by the end of the night one man had rendered the whole format academic.

🏆 The Winning Team: 129, and It Wasn't Close

Jim Bender, Jack Freeman, Jason Jackovich, and Tate Motschenbacher posted 129 (−14) to win by three — a runaway by this format's standards. Tate was the engine (more on that in a second), Jim Bender's steady 78 kept the counters full, Jack Freeman's 81 stacked ten pars, and Jason Jackovich… well, Jackovich did the Jackovich thing: a 94 that played to a net 73 off his 21. That's now three straight weeks a 90-something card has counted toward a winning or podium team. The man has turned "most useful bad round" into a personal brand — and ten more points just moved him into the season's top five.

🚀 Tate Goes Nuclear: The Net 62

Tate Motschenbacher shot 73 off his 11 — a net 62. Thirteen pars, two birdies, a deuce on the 17th, and exactly one blemish worse than bogey all night. That ties the second-best net round of the entire season (only Luke Ostrowski's net 60 back in Round 6 beats it), and it came one week after his net 65 led Round 11. Two straight weeks as the field's best net player, ten team points, and a jump to fourth on the season board. The handicap committee has been notified. The handicap committee is Tate's problem now.

🦅 Barney's Masterpiece, Wasted

The shot of the night belonged to Barney Miller, who holed out on the par-4 4th for eagle. A walk-off 2 on a par 4 — the only eagle on the property. Now, the full Barney experience: that eagle sat on a card with a gross 87, zero birdies, four doubles, and a triple, and his team finished fifth. Greatest single swing of the evening, net result: four team points and a story he gets to tell forever. Honestly? Fair trade.

And about that 4th hole — it got absolutely mugged. Nine birdies and Barney's eagle — ten of twenty-six players beat par on it. If you made a 4 there Thursday, you lost ground to the field.

🎯 Low Gross: Heitkamp's 71

Justin Heitkamp posted the round of the night from the scratch end — a 71 (net 69) off his 2, with birdies on 5, 12, and 13, twelve pars, and not a single double on the card. Cleanest sheet in the field. His squad (Neitzke, Hoppe, Snider) rode it to a tie for third at 133. Timmy Johnson gets the honorable mention: a 74 off zero strokes with a deuce on 11, worth eight points on the runner-up team. The scratch life giveth nothing, but Timmy took it anyway.

🥷 The Net Board

Behind Tate's 62: Dave Thomes turned an 82 into a net 66 off his 16 — seven bogeys, nine pars-or-better, and eight points that keep his season title hopes alive. Heitkamp and Michael Martin posted net 69s, and Landon Snider squeezed a net 70 out of an 86 that included five doubles. Meanwhile Peter Dahl continues to pay the scratch tax: a 77 with three birdies and two deuces played to a net… 77. He's now made deuces on three different par 3s in two weeks and gotten approximately nothing for any of them.

🎯 Nine Deuces, Zero Aces, $3,018

This Dutch routing serves up five par 3s, and the field treated them like a buffet: nine deuces on the night. Four on the 17th alone — Tate, Hoppe, Pietig, and Sourdiff all stuffed it. Dahl made two by himself (9 and 11), Timmy and Neitzke doubled up on 11, and Charlie Geraets tapped in on 15. Nine balls inside a few feet, and the cup dodged every single one. The pot crosses the line into serious money: $3,018 — over three grand for the first time in league history. Five par 3s a week. Somebody end this.

🔥 The Hall of Pain

Your author — 90. Zero birdies, ten bogeys, two triples, and our team finished dead last even though we were handed Jim Bender's 78 as our blind draw. Jim won the tournament in person with Team 1 and still couldn't save us as a ghost. That's not a blind, that's a donor organ we rejected.
Jesse Johnson — 103, six triples-or-worse. Last week his 106 won a championship in Stableford; this week the same golf in a net game bought his team sixth place. Format is destiny, Jesse.
Matt Means — 95, eleven bogeys and three triples, contributing enthusiastically to our last-place effort. Solidarity.
David Anderson — 86 with fourteen bogeys and two pars: the most relentlessly consistent card imaginable, just consistently one over. And because golf is a team sport, it came with eight points and a runner-up finish.
Jason Sourdiff — 89 with five doubles, but a deuce on 17. One perfect swing per week is the ratio we've come to expect and respect.

🤝 Season Team Points: Martin Holds, the Pack Tightens

Twelve rounds down, best 8 count, and the top of the board is getting crowded:

Michael Martin — 62 (8 rounds)
Dave Thomes — 60
Mark Pietig — 58
Tate Motschenbacher — 57
Jason Jackovich — 52

Martin's team took fifth Thursday, so his lead shrank from four to two — Thomes banked eight, Pietig six, and Tate's ten-point night vaulted him within five of the top. Four players inside a five-point spread with eight rounds to play. And lurking in fifth: Jackovich, who has scored double-digit points in back-to-back weeks without breaking 90. The best-8 math is about to get very interesting.

⛳ Next Up

Round 13 goes Thursday, July 30, on the Dutch — White/Blue nines. A two-point season lead, a four-man dogfight, and $3,018 sitting on every par 3. Swing easy.