Season Finale: Whiskey DT Sweeps Team Points and Net, Heitkamp Owns Gross, and $3,521 Rolls to 2027

Corrected Sept. 25: The first version of this recap had Ryan Neitzke's group winning the night and Neitzke winning Team Points. Their card had a scorekeeping slip — hole 8 still held the group's hole 9 scores when it was submitted — and Barney Miller's "eagle" on 8 was really a double bogey. Neitzke flagged it himself during the season audit. With the card fixed, Dave Thomes' team won the night and Dave Thomes is the 2026 Team Points champion. The story below has been updated.

That's the season. Round 18 was the final Thursday of 2026 — the last card anybody turns in until the snow melts — on the Lehman (Blue), par 72, under a buffet of a scoring format: three net balls counting on the par 5s, two net on the par 4s, and a gross-and-a-net on the par 3s. Twelve players, three teams — the smallest field of the season, smaller even than the 19 who came back for Round 17 — and by the time the last card was squared away, every trophy the league hands out had an owner.

The night gave up a three-shot finish, exactly one deuce, and the best individual round of the evening from a man whose team won it — and underneath all of it, the Team Points crown was decided by the final scorecard of the year. Let's send the year off properly.

🎯 Jared Hoppe Was the Best Player Here

Understand what Jared Hoppe did on Thursday. He shot 74 gross — two over par, the low gross of the night by three shots — with four birdies and nine pars on the card. Then, off a 3 handicap, that same round was net 71, the low net of the night too. Low gross and low net, the same man, the same scorecard. He also carded the only deuce anybody made all night, a two on the par-3 12th. There was not a better ball-striker or a better scorer on the property, in gross terms or net.

And this time it was enough. Hoppe drew Dave Thomes, Landon Snider, and Sam Geraets, they posted 149 (-15), and they won the night by three. In a format that counts multiple net balls per hole, one great round can only carry a team so far — you need three and four guys chipping in. Sam Geraets did his part with a net 73, Thomes chipped in a net 75, and Hoppe's round did the rest.

🏆 The Winners: 149, by Three

1st — 149 (-15): Thomes, Hoppe, Snider, S. Geraets — 10 points each
2nd — 152 (-12): Neitzke, Pion, Jackovich, B. Miller — 8 points each
3rd — 159 (-5): Motschenbacher, Anderson, Ferguson, C. Geraets — 6 points each

Three shots between first and second, seven more back to third. The whole night hinged on a handful of holes — and, as it turned out, so did the whole season. More on that below.

✏️ The Scorecard That Changed the Season

The first version of this recap had Neitzke's group winning by one. It didn't. Scorekeeping on the Golf Genius app got out of step early — hole 2 never saved, and the scores slid a hole — and when the card was fixed up on the 11th tee, hole 8 still had everybody's hole 9 scores on it. That's how Barney Miller ended up with an "eagle" on a par 5 he actually doubled. Barney caught it reading this blog; Ryan Neitzke caught it too and called Joel during the season audit — knowing the fix would cost him the Team Points title. Respect. That's the kind of thing that makes a league worth playing in.

With hole 8 fixed, the group drops from 148 to 152 and from first to second. And Jason Jackovich still deserves a mention: 101 gross, net 78 off a 23 handicap, and enough counting net balls to keep that team in it until the end.

🎯 Low Gross, Low Net

Low gross — Jared Hoppe, 74. Four birdies, nine pars, +2 on a par 72. Best round on the grounds, comfortably.
Low net — Jared Hoppe, 71. Same round. See above. The man swept his own two-category award and his team won the night.
Sam Geraets' net 73 was the next-best net of the night.
Most birdies: Hoppe, four. Nobody else had more than two.

🏆 The One That Got Away: No Ace All Year, and $3,521 Rolls to 2027

The four par 3s — the 3rd, 6th, 12th, and 14th — mostly bit back on the final night. The whole field produced exactly one deuce: Jared Hoppe on the 12th. And that was as close as anyone came, which means the headline number of the entire 2026 season is a zero: not a single hole-in-one all year. The pot chased somebody onto a green every Thursday from April to September and never once fell.

So the H1O pot closes the season at $3,521 — the biggest it has ever been — and, with no ace, it does exactly what the rules say: it rolls into 2027. Whoever finally knocks one stiff next spring is going to cash a check that took two full seasons to write. The pot lives to see another April.

👑 Your 2026 Team Points Champion: Dave Thomes

Eighteen rounds, best 8 count, and it came down to the very last card of the year. Dave Thomes and Ryan Neitzke walked into Round 18 dead tied at 70. Thomes' team won the night, so he banked ten; Neitzke's team took second, so he banked eight. That two-point swing — on the final scorecard of the season — is the entire margin. Dave Thomes is your 2026 Team Points champion.

🥇 Dave Thomes — 74
🥈 Ryan Neitzke — 72
🥉 Tate Motschenbacher & Michael Martin — 68 (tied)
Mark Pietig — 62
Jared Hoppe — 62
Charlie Geraets — 61
Jason Jackovich — 61

And he did it his way. Whiskey DT also led the league in bogeys (120) and double bogeys — a league-record 74 of them. He'll be the first to tell you he couldn't have done it without his teammates. Spare a thought for Tate Motschenbacher, who led this board for a big stretch of the summer and finishes tied for third — still on the podium, but caught and passed by the men behind him. And Michael Martin did it in just 11 rounds, three or four fewer than most of the names around him.

📊 The Other Two Crowns: Thomes Owns Net, Heitkamp Owns Gross

Net Avg — champion: Dave Thomes, 68.88. Sit with that number. On a course that plays to a 71 or 72, the man averaged a net 68.88 across his best eight rounds, and nobody was within three-quarters of a shot. Pair it with the Team Points title and Whiskey DT is, without argument, the most decorated player in the league this year — two crowns out of three.

🥇 Dave Thomes — 68.88
🥈 Tate Motschenbacher — 69.63
🥉 Jared Hoppe — 70.13 (his net 71 on the final night locked down the last podium spot)
Justin Heitkamp — 70.25 (missed the money by .12)
Mark Pietig — 70.38

Gross Avg — champion: Justin Heitkamp, 73.00. The purest ball-striker in the league takes the raw-score crown — and he clinched it without even teeing it up on the final night. His number was low enough to hold from the parking lot.

🥇 Justin Heitkamp — 73.00
🥈 Peter Dahl — 73.38
Jared Hoppe — 74.00 (top two take the gross money; Hoppe misses by a little over half a shot)
Ryan Neitzke — 75.50

Which makes Jared Hoppe the quiet star of the finale: the best round of the night, a team win, and third in both scoring averages — inside the money in Net, a half-shot outside it in Gross.

🍻 That's a Wrap on 2026

Congratulations to your champions — Thomes (Team Points and Net) and Heitkamp (Gross) — and to everyone who dropped a card in the box on a Thursday night this summer. Final payouts follow the season rules: Team Points top three, Gross Avg top two, Net Avg top three, for dues-paid members.

The pot's at $3,521 and waiting. The scorecards are in the drawer. See you on the first tee in the spring — and somebody, please, finally make a one.