A New Chapter, Same Red Tape
sighs in digital captivity Six Delegates took Alexander Park in Lawrenceville on Wednesday, September 30, with temperatures between 84.0ยฐF and 84.9ยฐF and wind topping out at 5.1 mph. Week 4's "Cracks in the Marble Mosaic," where challengers tested the advantaged, has given way to Week 5 of 7, the Seal Dispute, in which the wax seals are supposed to change hands as the hierarchy destabilizes. ๐ The field grew from the four Delegates of Weeks 3 and 4 across RPA, RAE and RAD. Two of the additions, Eric Gladden and travis schriver, have no prior-week entries in our continuity file. Whether the seals actually moved is the question the rest of this ledger answers.
An Eagle Lands in the Throne Room ๐ฆ
Griffin Fox carded an eagle on hole 3, a par 4 of 282 feet, and the rest of the RPA card was just as clean. He won at -8 on 49 strokes without a bogey, with a clean front nine and a par train across holes 12 through 16. The only scores under par on holes 1, 11, 17 and 18 were his, and the birdie on 18 sealed the outright win. He was the only player in the division, so the lead was never in danger. The 924 round was RPA's round of the day, yet it still came in 52 below his 976 rating. It follows his 948 at -2 last week and his -5 in Week 3, so the ledger keeps showing a better score than the rating decree admits. โ๏ธ
The Opposition Files a Tied Appeal
Chris Griffin took the RAE lead after hole 3 and held it, finishing at -8 with a bogey-free card and a personal best at this course. A three-hole hot streak through 1 to 3 opened the round, and sole birdies on 8, 9, 14 and 17 kept the card tidy. His 924 round sat 74 above his 850 rating and well up from last week's 897. travis schriver and bryce fox tied for second at -5 on matching 884 rounds. bryce fox, who was +8 and third last week, set a course personal best with a clean front nine, an eight-hole par train from 3 through 10, and the only birdie on hole 12 in their pool. travis schriver ran a par train over holes 5 through 10, then closed with a clean back nine and a sole birdie on 16 to climb from third to second. ๐๏ธ
Debut Delegate Takes the Gavel
Eric Gladden, new to our books this week, took the RAD lead after hole 9 and finished at -5 on an 884-rated round, 27 below his 911 rating. A three-hole hot streak on 2 through 4 opened the round, and he was the only RAD player under par on holes 2, 4, 10, 12 and 15. Philip Duval answered with a bogey-free -3 for second place. His own hot streak ran through holes 6 to 8, with the only RAD birdie on 6, and then a ten-hole par train from 9 through 18 closed the card. Nobody dropped a stroke on the back nine, which makes it a quiet kind of consistency. โ๏ธ The gap between first and second was two strokes.
Pond Hole Pays Tribute Anyway
Hole 17 is the Pond Hole, a 423-foot par 4 that has claimed more than a few discs, and today it handed out birdies. Griffin Fox and Chris Griffin each posted the only birdie on 17 in their pools. Chris also owned the sole birdie on hole 9, "The Gift," while Griffin Fox took the only one on hole 11, "The Monster." bryce fox and Eric Gladden each had the only birdie on hole 12, a 121-foot par 3. Griffin Fox, Chris Griffin and Philip Duval all went bogey-free. The six scores averaged -5.7, and the rating swings ran from Chris's +74 to Griffin Fox's -52 and Eric's -27. ๐ No throw-level stats came in this week, so I can't tell you who scrambled or putted best. If you track your rounds on PDGA Live, the recaps get richer, and your narrator gets a little less bored.
The Treasury Takes a Small Deposit
Griffin Fox also won the $6.00 closest-to-pin prize, which his hole 11 birdie suggests was no accident. The Super Ace Pot, a split pot, grew from $314.00 to $316.00 after a $2.00 contribution. Nobody threw an ace, so the suspense carries into Week 6. ๐ฐ No other payouts are claimed here.
Provisional Seals, Provisional Everything
The biggest National story of the night belongs to bryce fox, whose 884 round beat an established League Program baseline of 762 by +122. That was the best baseline beat and the largest National rise at this event. Their 50 National points moved their score from 70 to 120 (net +50). They went from 3 to 4 valid rounds (4 required), qualified, and went from unranked to position 1 on the National Leaderboard, newly ranked and in the provisional paid cohort. Chris Griffin had the hottest National-entry round, a 924 against his official PDGA baseline of 850 (+74). That earned him 50 points, moved his score from 65 to 115, qualified him, and put him at position 2, also in the provisional cohort. David Pionke of Brighton, CO, sits at position 3 with 63, which is 57 points behind bryce fox and 52 behind Chris. ๐ On the ghost side, bryce fox's ghost rating was 774, they threw 884, beat it, and their ghost grew stronger to 788. Chris's ghost was 857, he threw 924, beat it, and it grew stronger to 861. Griffin Fox also threw a round marked hottest, a 924, but it earned 0 National points (score 0 to 0). His valid rounds went from 1 to 2 of the 4 required, he is still unranked, and his ghost held at 976. The board is not final, the paid cohort is only a provisional projection, and payout delivery has not been confirmed.
The Silent Arbiter Stays Silent
Griffin Fox defended the #1 Silent Arbiter tag in the Driftwood Syndicate pool for the fourth straight time. The previous holder was himself, and the rank change was 0. The tag history titled the week "A Better Score, A Rough Rating Decree": his 49 beat the 51.7 field average by 2.7 strokes and his own 51.8 average by 2.8, even though the 924 round sat 52 below his 976 rating. ๐ญ The Arbiter is the incorporeal guardian of the Alexander Accord's continuity, armed with a stone gavel and a featureless mask, and it speaks only through rustling red tape. It had nothing to say about the paperwork this week, which seems fair. AllIn mode reshuffles every tag each event, but the top one stayed put.
The Veto Holds Under the Canopy
In the Canopy Consortium pool, Chris Griffin sits atop the AllIn reshuffle with the #1 Obsidian Veto, backed by a bogey-free -8 and a personal-best round. A tag called Veto holding off its challengers is the kind of irony I'd have written myself, if my contract allowed me to write anything. ๐ก๏ธ No tag swaps or challenge margins came through this week, so the ledger ends there.
Park Crisis: A Crisis Scheduled With Registration
Week 6, "Park Crisis," arrives Wednesday, October 7, 2026 at 5:30 PM, back at Alexander Park on the Long Tees with no venue change. The thread to watch is Griffin Fox's 924 round, which landed against a ghost rating of 976 that simply held. Long Tees is his next chance to beat his own ghost rating, and in RPA he is the only one racing him. The storyline promises finale-proximity volatility, with only the throne still undecided and the remaining challengers putting reputation and nerve on the line. ๐
Only in disc golf does a "crisis" come with a sign-up page, and apparently I'm the one who has to narrate it.