Through 12 rounds • Orlando stretches his lead, log-jam in the middle
Happy July, everyone. Twelve rounds in and the top five is starting to feel like a very polite traffic jam — five players within 6.5 points of each other, everyone waiting for someone else to blink. This week Andy Dean hit the best net score of the season, Orlando did what he does, and Todd Sewell kept his title hopes alive by beating a ghost. Let's get into it.
📊 Week 12 Results
Andy Dean
7.5
–
Jason Maxwell
2.5
Brit Harvey
7.0
–
Jeff Hunt
3.0
Dennis Candelaria
5.0
–
Thomas Jaramillo
5.0
Tom Pehr
6.5
–
Jeff Kardas
3.5
Paul Rael
8.0
–
Jimmie Rains
3.0
Orlando Flores
6.0
–
Joe Olson
4.0
Todd Sewell
4.0
–
Orlando's card
6.0
† Todd Sewell played as the odd player this week, competing against Orlando's card score. Orlando played his actual match against Joe Olson.
🏆 Prizes
🎯 Closest to Pin — Hole 2: [TBD]
🎯 Closest to Pin — Hole 8: [TBD]
⭕ Longest Putt — Hole 9: [TBD]
🔥 Nuggets
Andy Dean shot net 33. On a par-35 course, that's 2 under net. His 38 gross is the best ball-striking round of the season, and the low net 33 is in a category all its own. He put Jason Maxwell away 7.5–2.5 — Jason, to his credit, had no good answer for Andy going birdie-birdie-birdie on him. Dean sits 9th at 50.5 pts; if he keeps roping it like this, that ranking won't hold much longer.
Paul Rael is a different golfer in the second half of the season. An 8–3 demolition of Jimmie Rains — who shot 56 gross and was never really in it. Paul's net 42 earned him the low-net bonus for the week, giving him a rare pair total of 11 points distributed. His points-per-round average just climbed back above the league-average line. Jimmie drops to 5th at 61.5, stung for the second straight week.
Orlando and Joe Olson both shot net 37 — and then split the low net bonus 0.5 each. Tied at net, they each got half a point extra on top of the match result. Orlando won the H2H 6–4, doing what he usually does. Meanwhile Todd Sewell played Orlando's card and lost 4–6 against a score that was never going to fight back. Todd stays alive at 61.5 but has now played the card twice — he'll want a live matchup against Orlando before the end of the season.
Tom Pehr is climbing quietly. A 6.5–3.5 win over Jeff Kardas — their second meeting, Pehr wins both — moves Tom to 6th at 58.0. Kardas drops to 3rd-tied at 62.5, which sounds fine on paper, but Tom Pehr taking 6.5 points off the man tied for the lead is the kind of result that moves the needle. Also: Pehr's net-ringer is the tour-quality hole-by-hole stuff you'd expect from someone shooting 39s.
The standings are a mess and that's great. Orlando leads at 68.0. Then: Jason Maxwell and Jeff Kardas tied at 62.5. Then: Todd Sewell and Jimmie Rains tied at 61.5. Six-point gap from 1st to 5th with three months left. Everyone in the top five has played roughly the same number of rounds. Nothing is settled.
📈 Standings (Through Week 12)
1
Orlando Flores
68.0
2T
Jason Maxwell
62.5
2T
Jeff Kardas
62.5
4T
Todd Sewell
61.5
4T
Jimmie Rains
61.5
6
Tom Pehr
58.0
7
Paul Rael
56.5
8
Thomas Jaramillo
52.0
Full standings and stats at the league site.
Top 5 squeezed into 6.5 points. That's a one-good-week swing for anyone in that group.
👀 Matchups We Still Haven't Seen
Twelve rounds in — these need to happen:
Jeff Kardas vs Jimmie Rains — #2T vs #4T, never played. Kardas is 62.5. Jimmie is 61.5. They've played everyone else in the top five but somehow never each other. Kardas won both meetings against Tom Pehr... until this week. Jimmie just got run over by Paul Rael. When these two finally line up, it's going to tell us something.
Jason Maxwell vs Todd Sewell — they played once back in May, Jason won 6.5–3.5. Todd is now 1 point behind Jason, tied for 4th. A rematch would settle nothing and decide everything. Todd has a better points-per-round average than Jason on the season. Jason has the head-to-head edge. One match left to play between them.
Orlando Flores vs Todd Sewell — they've never played live. They've collided via card (twice, actually — Todd played Orlando's score in May and again this week), and the card went 6–4 against Todd both times. An actual tee-sheet matchup between the league leader and the #4 man hasn't happened. Orlando leads 68–61.5. At some point it has to.