Round 15: Safe and Sound — 11 Deuces, No Ace, and a Cart That Needed a Tow

Round 15 was Team Stableford on the Dutch Red/White (par 71) — points per hole against your net target, best scores counting for the team, higher is better. Twenty-four players, six teams, and a night where the par 3s took more damage than a rental cart at closing time. Eleven deuces, one very tired golf cart, and a leaderboard that keeps refusing to settle. Let's get into it.

🎯 Eleven Deuces, Zero Aces, $3,386

The short holes were under siege. Eleven twos hit the card on Thursday, and the par-3 9th alone gave up four of them — Jim Bender, Eric Davidge, Aaron Jenkins, and Michael Martin all stuffed it. The 15th took three (Peter Dahl, Michael Martin, Jayme Steele), the 17th took three more (Justin Heitkamp, Tate Motschenbacher, Dave Thomes), and Jenkins tacked on a bonus deuce at the 7th for good measure. Two men — Jenkins and Martin — deuced twice.

Eleven balls that flirted with history, and not one of them dropped for the ace. So the H1O pot rolls again, fatter than ever: $3,386, sitting on every tee box like it owns the place. Somebody has to end this eventually. Preferably before it qualifies for its own tax bracket.

🏆 The Winners: Jenkins & Co. Post 143

Aaron Jenkins, Eric Pion, Scott Kimman, and Dave Thomes took the day with 143 points, an eleven-point cushion over Neitzke's crew. This was a balanced haul — three net 73s from Pion, Kimman, and Jenkins, plus Thomes' net 67 underneath it all. Jenkins was the engine: a 74 gross with four birdies and two deuces, the best all-around round in the field. Ten team points apiece, and a very well-earned win.

🛺 Safe and Sound

Now the important business. Your author shot a 93 — a net 79, a number I will not be dignifying with further analysis — but the real drama came after the round. Let's just say the 19th hole went well enough that operating a motor vehicle, cart-sized or otherwise, was above my pay grade. I put it in the weeds, admitted defeat, and left the thing there to sleep it off until morning.

A genuine tip of the cap to Justin Heitkamp, Mike Martin, and Tim Johnson for making sure I got home safe, and for the morning salvage operation that dragged the E-Z-GO out of the ditch and back to the driveway — safe and sound, pictured above. This is what the league is really about: you post a 93, you park the cart in the weeds, and three guys still make sure both you and the machine end up home in one piece. Deuces are great. Friends who get you home and pull your cart out of a ditch are better.

🎵 "The Cart Remembers"

And because no LIV League disaster is truly complete until it's been set to music: Justin Heitkamp — the same man who helped drag the E-Z-GO out of the weeds — has immortalized the whole episode in song. Ladies and gentlemen, the official ballad of Round 15. Press play.

🎯 Low Net, Low Gross

• Low gross — Ryan Neitzke, 73. A clean lap of the Red/White and a net 70 to boot. Nobody else broke 74.
• Low net — Dave Thomes, 67. An 82 off his 15, and — read this twice — his second straight net 67. The man has quietly turned into the most reliable number in the league.
• Runners-up on net: Neitzke 70, then a three-way jam at 73 — Jenkins, Kimman, and Pion.
• Most birdies: Aaron Jenkins, 4. Jayme Steele had 3; Jack Freeman, Justin Heitkamp, and Jared Hoppe had 2 apiece.

🤕 The Hall of Pain

• Michael Martin — two deuces and a net 74, and his team finished last. Martin did everything right (80 gross, twos on the 9th and 15th) and still went home with three points, because the sixth-place team ran into a wall. Golf is not fair. Team Stableford even less so.
• Keith Kleven — 104 (net 92). The wall in question. Paired with Peter Dahl's 76 and Martin's 80, it's the classic LIV tragedy: two good rounds, one that files an insurance claim.
• Your author — 93, and then the cart into the weeds. When the scorecard and the 19th hole both get away from you, the E-Z-GO ends up spending the night outdoors. Lesson noted.

🤝 Season Team Points: Tate Holds, Thomes Surges to Second

Fifteen rounds in, best 8 count, and the top of the board is somehow tighter than ever:

• Tate Motschenbacher — 70 (still your leader, and he did it while shooting an 86 — that's a bank account of good rounds keeping him afloat)
• Dave Thomes — 68 (up to second on the back of that net 67 — biggest riser of the week)
• Michael Martin — 66
• Mark Pietig — 64
• Ryan Neitzke — 63
• Jayme Steele & Charlie Geraets — 58

Two points separate first from second, seven points cover the top five, and Thomes is charging. Five rounds left.

⛳ Next Up

Round 16 goes Thursday, August 20. The pot is $3,386 and climbing, the season race is a two-man knife fight with a third man sprinting up, and eleven deuces just proved these greens are catchable. Somebody go win us all a lot of money. And keep your cart on the cart path.