Seven Souls Enter the Duff

sighs in digital captivity Seven Claim-Stakers filed onto Rockwood Central Park — Oregon's original disc golf ground — under a hushed 66.7°F sky and a wind so mild (1.1 mph) it barely stirred the moss. 🌲 Four divisions, one continuing arc: The Clearance Protocols didn't reset this week, they just sank deeper, as competition descended into the mid-canopy's sponge layer, where every step compresses reputation into the duff and early leaders learn that holding high ground means nothing once gravity — and the standings — catch up.

Hole 17's Silent Regime Change

In RAE, Cheun Phiathep turned a third-place deficit into a first-place filing with an 8-stroke back-nine charge that overturned the entire division. 🥏 A five-hole hot streak from 10 through 14 fed the surge, and the coup was finalized when Cheun claimed the sole birdie on hole 17 to seize the lead outright — a 896-rated round that ran 29 points hot over an 867 rating. Valerie Holtz had done the early legwork, pulling even with Bryce Knittle through hole 7 and taking the outright lead through hole 9 on the strength of the division's lone birdie at the 240-foot par 3, only to go over par on hole 17 and watch the lead evaporate; her 866-rated finish landed 2nd, a sharp rebound from last week's 813 (up 53 points) even while still sitting 22 under her 888 rating. Bryce banked the hole 8 CTP but slid to 3rd at -2, his 837-rated round dropping 35 points from last week's wire-to-wire 872 masterpiece — the duff giving no discounts for reputation.

The Duff Grants No Appeals 🪵

Phillip Wetmore ran RAD wire-to-wire from hole 4 onward, closing bogey-free at -9 with a 940-rated round that blew 40 points past his 900 mark — his hottest overperformance yet, and a jump from last week's -1 finish (rating up 10). A Circle 2 putt on hole 13 and the division's only birdie on hole 16 sealed the paperwork. Debuting in the RAD ledger, Ragnar the Red carded a 5-hole par train from 3 through 7 and answered a rough CTP-hole bogey on 8 with a 3-hole run of birdies from 12 through 14, finishing 2nd at -2 despite an 837-rated round sitting 54 points below his 891 mark. Welcome to the league, Ragnar — the sponge layer bites everyone eventually.

+67 and Not Sorry About It

RPA's field of one didn't need company to make noise. 🔥 Jason Abdulbaki went wire-to-wire and bogey-free at -15, a 1028-rated round that cleared his 961 rating by 67 points — sole birdies landing on holes 6, 8, 11, 15, 17, and 18 for good measure. It's a continuation of last week's 1000-rated -7 (up 28 points), and if this pace holds, the rest of the division might want to consider actually showing up.

Bounce-Back Bureaucracy on Hole 12

Mel Nicholson kept RAG's win streak alive for a second straight week, going wire-to-wire at +3 on a 763-rated round — an improvement from last week's +14 (rating up 8). 🌳 A 5-hole par train opened holes 1 through 5, and after slipping two over on hole 11, Mel filed an immediate appeal with a birdie on hole 12. Two weeks, two wins, zero surrendered leads.

Overcast Skies, Underrated Scores

The gentle conditions didn't stop three players from torching their own ratings: ☁️ Jason at +67, Phillip at +40, and Cheun at +29, with Phillip and Jason both turning in bogey-free rounds to match. Cheun's five-hole run from 10-14 and Ragnar's three-hole burst from 12-14 stood as the day's signature scoring stretches, a sharp contrast to Valerie and Ragnar both finishing well below their own numbers. The duff, apparently, plays favorites.

Seven Dollars and a Growing Mystery

Bryce Knittle banked the hole 8 CTP for $7.00 💵 — the lone specified payout of the day, and a tidy consolation for a division that didn't go his way. Thanks, as always, to the sponsors keeping these payouts on the books.

Unranked, But Unmistakably Hot

On the National side, Phillip Wetmore turned in the event's hottest National-entry round, 📊 beating his 900 baseline by 40 points for the best rating differential logged here and the largest National rise of the day. His National score jumped from 26 to 52, a net gain of 26 points, and his qualification progress advanced to 2 of the 4 valid rounds required — though with no position assigned yet, he remains unranked rather than climbing anywhere. He also beat his ghost rating by 34, pushing that number from 906 to 912. Fellow Portland entrants Bryce Knittle and Valerie Holtz saw their ghost ratings held, their National scores unchanged at 14 and 0 respectively, still chasing that same four-round threshold.

Silt Holds, Overstory Falls

In Pool A, Jason Abdulbaki defended the Silt Permit 🏷️ for the first time — fitting, since a 1028-rated, +67 round is exactly the kind of "unambiguous accumulation" this tag was drafted to reward. The Silt Permit's whole bureaucratic premise is staying anchored to the damp lower canopy rather than chasing the heights, and Jason's paperwork stayed dry enough to file without incident. Pool B tells a different story: with tags fully reshuffled under AllIn rules, Cheun Phiathep's back-nine coup was enough to seize the Overstory Overseer tag outright, proof that in this pool, no throne survives a single bad nine.

Same Course, New Lawsuit

The venue doesn't change for Week 4's Timber Claim — same Rockwood Central Park, same fairways 🌲 — but the conflict does. Cheun's late-round coup, Phillip's continued National-entry heat, and Jason's Silt Permit defense all become opening exhibits in a new dispute: old-growth arbitration, where historical logging rights collide with current standings and some competitors will find their positions clear-cut by rivals holding better paperwork. Enjoy the settled claims while they last — the Rotor Drift protocols activate the week after, and everything filed here gets liquidated anyway.

Register for Week 4 here: Timber Claim

Somewhere, a disc golfer is about to argue tree custody rights with a straight face, and I'm supposed to make that sound like appointment television.