adjusts visor, squints at a scorecard barely bigger than a receipt Three acolytes answered the call for Week 3 of 10 at Pier Park's Winter 2026 Layout, and the grove had a new rite waiting for them.
Thorns Don't Care About Your Excuses 🌿
The Thornbound Tussle rolled in at a sun-baked 88.3°F with clouds overhead and just a 5 mph whisper of wind — comfortable conditions on paper, brutal on the ground once the thorny thickets forced every acolyte to pick a line and commit. This isn't Week 2's Mossy Mantle anymore; the season has turned a page, and this rite rewards precision over patience. Three players, three divisions, and a thicket that doesn't care how small the crowd is.
Clean Start, Thorny Finish
Tyler Samples ran away with RAD by default, which is easy when you're the only entrant, but the round itself deserves the ink — a 923-rated +1 that stood as the RAD Round of the Day. He drilled Circle 2 putts on holes 3 and 6, and the sole birdies to show for it: hole 3 and hole 8, both times the only player under par while the field average sat above it. A clean, bogey-free front nine set the tone, but the thicket bit back late — three bogeys or worse from hole 18 through 20, including a rough go on the Super Ace hole itself, dropped him to 2nd place event-wide, right on the cash bubble. Division champion, money-line ghost. The grove giveth and taketh in the same round.
The Verdant Throne Has a New Squatter 👑
Russell Heitkamp walked into his first league round and left with the RPA title, a -7, 996-rated wire-to-wire win that never let the field within shouting distance. Sole birdies on holes 4, 7, 12, and 19 padded a card that finished fully bogey-free — 7 birdies, 13 pars, zero blemishes — even with a front nine that ran three strokes hotter than the back. That's 31 points above his 965 rating, an inaugural course record for the books, and it all traces back to a referral from Eric Vandereems, whose own night looked nothing like this one.
The Referrer Gets Humbled 🌰
Speaking of Eric — Eric Vandereems posted a solo +6 in RAH, 877-rated, a full 46 points below his 923 rating, and still claimed the division's Round of the Day simply by being the only entrant. A cold streak spanned holes 2 through 4 before he found his footing again, but the damage was done. The irony writes itself: Eric's referral code brought both Russell Heitkamp and Tyler Samples into the league, and on debut night, both rookies outscored the recruiter. That's one way to build a legacy.
The Night the Recruits Ran the Grove 🍃
Tyler Samples logged full PDGA Live stats this week — Circle 2 putts, hole-by-hole birdie tracking, the works — and that's exactly the kind of detail that makes this booth's job easier, so consider this Flippy's gentle nudge for the rest of the field to start logging their throws too. The widest swings of the night belonged to the referral pair: Russell's +31 above-rating masterclass against Eric's -46 below-rating stumble, both wrapped in a rookie-versus-recruiter storyline nobody saw coming. Across the card, sole birdies landed on holes 3, 4, 7, 8, 12, and 19 — a pattern that says the thorny fairways only bent for the hot hands tonight.
The Pot Grows, the Suspense Grows Louder 💰
The Super Ace pot took in a single $2.00 contribution this week, nudging the balance from $228.00 to $230.00. No one threaded the needle on the Super Ace hole tonight — Tyler's late bogey there says plenty about how hard it's playing — but the pot keeps climbing, and somewhere out there an acolyte's about to have a very good night.
The Crimson Verdict Has a New Owner 🏆
Russell Heitkamp didn't just win RPA — he seized the #1 bag tag, The Crimson Verdict, on his very first night in the league. The tag's lore says it doesn't ask for respect, it commands it, reserved for those tested and found worthy — and a bogey-free, 7-birdie, course-record round is about as loud a knock on that door as you can manage. No prior holder to dethrone, no drama-laden handoff — just a clean, uncontested ascension straight to the top of the hill.
The Groves Have Bigger Problems Coming 🌲
Three rounds, one inaugural course record, and a rivalry between recruiter and recruits that's only getting started — Week 3 quietly reshapes the early standings picture while the Rootwarden-Canopykin tension simmers underneath it. Next week, the Stumpbreakers sabotage a basket, and suspicion is going to fall on both factions equally, forcing an uneasy alliance nobody asked for. Until then — keep showing up, keep logging those PDGA Live stats, and the road to the Verdant Throne keeps rolling whether I want to narrate it or not.
Flippy's Hot Take