The Glitch Crashes Our Server 🛠️

sighs in elvish Seven mercenaries reported to Jones Park for the Holly Springs Shock, and the thermometer treated 97.7°F like a personal challenge. Two weeks of environmental chaos — radioactive creek, wind rifts in the back nine — and now the season pivots hard: a rival faction called The Glitch has arrived, attempting to hack the Relic frequency itself. Forget ambient hazards. This is a new chapter, and the heat cooked scorecards across all four divisions before anyone even got near a chain.

One-Man Party, Half the Detonation

Bradley Bushman remained the entirety of RPA, taking the win by default at -5 with a 960-rated round — respectable, but a serious comedown from last week's career-best -11 detonation. Two separate hot streaks stalled out at exactly three holes apiece (2-4 and 9-11), and the round finished 27 points below his 987 PDGA rating. Still Round of the Day in RPA, still the cash-line hero, still wire-to-wire — but "solo victory" is doing a lot of narrative heavy lifting after last week's fireworks.

The Frequency Keeps Flipping

This one actually had teeth. Jared Zimmel grabbed the lead after hole 1, then tied with Christopher Webb and Travis Preston after hole 2, before Zimmel retook sole possession after holes 4 and 6. Webb finally seized control for good on hole 8, and the door slammed shut on hole 9 when Preston bogeyed out of the tie. Webb closed at -5 (960-rated) for the win — a real drop from last week's 1015-rated masterpiece, but a win's a win. Preston locked the final cash spot in 2nd at -3 (938-rated, a stunning +23 over his 915 rating), while Zimmel set a personal best at -2 but landed painfully on the cash bubble in 3rd. Troy Toler quietly climbed into 3rd on hole 12 behind a clean back nine before sliding to 4th at the finish.

Another Empty Throne Room

John Shearin stood alone again in RAH, claiming the win by default at +3 with an 874-rated round. He rode a par train through seven straight holes (9-15) before a cold streak snapped things open on holes 16-18, finishing 61 points below his 935 rating. Compared to last week's furnace-collapse round — 847-rated, 82 points under average — this is genuine, if modest, progress. The throne's still empty except for him, but at least he's sitting a little straighter in it.

Containment Failure, Round Two

Brian Taylor took RAF by default at +9, opening with a par train through holes 1-5 and snapping a cold streak on 12-14 — only to finish cold again with three straight bogeys-or-worse across holes 17-19. The scorecard reads rough, but the rating tells a better story: 809 this week versus a disastrous 735 last time out, a +74 rating jump even as the score only improved by five strokes. Containment may have failed on the back nine, but the reactor's running hotter than it was.

Hole Three Bites Back Again

The 97.7°F heat spike didn't stop three RAD competitors from torching their PDGA numbers: Webb finished +33 over his 927 rating, Zimmel matched him at +33 over his 895 (and banked a personal best while doing it), and Preston ran +23 over his own 915. Meanwhile Toler caught the day's worst luck, bogeying the Super Ace hole (3) and watching a shot at the growing pot evaporate. Sole birdies on hole 5 (Preston) and hole 14 (Zimmel) stood as the only under-par scores recorded on those holes across the entire field — everyone else just admired the view.

The Pot Splits, Nobody Wins

The Super Ace Pot rolls on unclaimed — five contributors chipped in $10 apiece, pushing the balance from $154 to $164 with the split-pot structure still intact. No ace materialized to break it open, and Toler's hole 3 miss remains the closest anyone got to the jackpot. The vault grows. The suspense, presumably, grows with it.

The Void Echo Holds Its Breath

Bradley Bushman defended the Void Echo in Pool A despite a 55-point rating drop from last week's -11 masterpiece down to this week's -5 — the violet lightning stays lit, because in the Underdark, "not losing ground" still counts as a defense. Over in Pool B, Brian Taylor holds the Hollow Crown, and under the AllIn reshuffle his rating rebound (735 to 809) pulled him up the standings after last week's near-catastrophic showing. Two relics, two very different weeks — that's the Underdark for you.

The Glitch Isn't Done With Us

Six weeks remain before Week 10's season-ending reckoning, and The Glitch's frequency-hacking attempt at Holly Springs Shock leaves the standings unsettled without derailing the arc. Bushman and Webb still set the pace in their divisions even in cooler weeks, while Taylor and Shearin show real signs of climbing out of their respective slumps. Next week, Jones Park's ambient noise reaches a deafening roar, forcing mercenaries to communicate by hand signals alone — and drops dungeon voice the relic demands a sacrifice of your stroke count, but apparently now also your ability to yell about it.