Slow Growth, Sharp Elbows 😑
adjusts visor Eight claimants, 65°F, wind topping out at a lazy 7.3 mph — the Columbia Grove handed nobody an excuse this week. Week 2's creek-crossing chapter is officially closed; welcome to the Moss Trial, where the grove's living leaderboard stops rewarding daring fords and starts rewarding the boring, brutal work of grinding inch by inch across the rocks. Moss doesn't grow in a day, and as you're about to see, neither does a season lead.
Moss Grows Faster Than This Rivalry 🌲
John Cairns closed at -4 for a 976-rated win, but calling this a runaway insults the eight-hole tug-of-war that got him there. Cairns took the lead from Terry Rigdon after hole 5, Jon Wilson pulled level after hole 8, and from there it turned into a genuine staring contest — Cairns ahead after 11, Wilson tied after 12, Cairns back in front after 13, Wilson even again after 14, Wilson actually taking it outright after 16, Cairns clawing level after 17, and finally Cairns retaking it for good after 18 when Wilson's stroke wobbled into a bogey on the closing hole. Both men closed with clean, bogey-free back nines, which makes the finish feel less like a collapse and more like a coin flip that Cairns happened to win — his 976 sat 37 points above his 939 rating, Wilson's 967 landed 20 points over his own mark and banked him a personal-best -3. Nick Breninger, tracking his round on PDGA Live, finished +2 at 921 after an OB scramble on hole 7 dented an otherwise composed card, while first-timer McLain Westra — referred to the grove by Rigdon himself — closed +7 at 876, a 66-point gap from his 942 rating that even his card-mates couldn't talk him out of.
Redemption Needs No Roommates 🌿
Mathew Perrow was MPO's only entrant, which means the entire division's storyline belongs to him — and what a swing it was. A week after face-planting to +10 at 815-rated, Perrow closed at E for a 940-rated round, ten strokes and 125 rating points better in a single trip around the grove. He rode a six-hole par train from 7 through 12, took his lumps on the Super Ace hole 13 with a one-over that ended any shot at the pot, then answered with the division's only birdie on hole 18 — a 915-foot par 5 where the rest of the field averaged +0.3. New personal best for the course, round of the day for MPO, and a rebound arc that needed exactly zero teammates to complete.
A Lead That Slipped Like Moss 🍃
Travis Oakley also flew solo in MP40, and his round had bookends nobody asked for — an OB scramble on hole 1, an OB scramble on hole 18, and a lead through 18 that evaporated into a final +1 at 931-rated. Compare that to last week's ace-fueled -1 at 922, and the story is a modest 9-point rating gain wrapped around a two-stroke score regression — proof that even the round of the day in your own division can still feel like a fumble at the finish line.
Resilience Meets a Late Fade 🌲
Nathanial Dahrens was MA2's lone claimant, and his round told two stories at once. After going two-over on hole 5, he answered immediately with a birdie on hole 6 and rode a two-under stretch across the following three holes — the kind of bounce-back that should have set up a coronation. Instead, an eight-hole par train from 11 through 18 carried him to the finish, and a lead held through hole 18 slipped away to a final +3 at 912-rated, still 31 points above his 881 rating and good enough for MA2's round of the day.
The Grove Keeps Receipts 📋
Tip of the visor to Nick Breninger for logging his round on PDGA Live and earning the Statistician nod — more claimants tracking throws means more chains for me to actually analyze instead of just narrating vibes. The rating spread this week split hard: Cairns (+37), Wilson (+20), and Dahrens (+31) all played well above their marks, while Breninger (-31) and Westra (-66) found the opposite end of the ledger. MA1 handed out sole birdies on holes 3, 7, 9, 12, and 17 — hole 9 living up to its billing as the course's "breather" at just +0.21 average over par, a stark contrast to hole 8's reputation as the round-wrecker nobody wants to talk about. Personal bests for Jon Wilson (-3) and Mathew Perrow (E) round out a week where the record books did more moving than the leaderboard.
Patience Pays, Just Not in Aces 💰
Thanks to sponsor support, the Super Ace Pot grew again this week — five contributors chipping in $10 apiece pushed the running total from $322 to $332, and once more, nobody claimed it. The closest brushes came right on hole 13 itself, where both Mathew Perrow in MPO and McLain Westra in MA1 carded a one-over and watched the jackpot stay exactly where it was. The pot keeps simmering. The moss keeps growing. Somebody's going to cash in eventually — just not this week.
Next Up: The Grove Goes Vertical 🌱
Three weeks in, and the reputations still being built are earned the slow way — Cairns holding MA1 by the thinnest of late-round margins, Wilson banking a personal best in defeat, Perrow proving one bad week doesn't define a season. The Moss Trial rewarded patience, but patience has an expiration date: next week the standoff breaks as the ferns shoot skyward overnight, and suddenly every claimant chasing altitude gets their shot before the season's first real clash. sighs Back to you in whatever passes for a booth around here.
