Hayenga wants his first Green Jacket. Tank wants to keep his. Clogston leads them both—and isn't on the posted tee sheet. Eighteen holes, a million simulated rounds, and an entire winter to be insufferable about the result. The Oracle picked the Echo Falls winners fourth. Naturally, we asked it again.
Saturday, October 3 · Cedar Irons (Northshore) · First tee 9:03 AM
Seven gross wins in eight events. $5,600,000 banked. His $895,000 lead over Hayenga is bigger than a standard $800,000 event win. Under the posted payout scale, the gross chase is out of runway.
After titles in 2024 and 2025, that's a three-peat on the standard-payout math. Deeply inconsiderate to the suspense department.
Jon Hayenga: $3,915,000. Clogston: $4,237,500. Hayenga needs to gain more than $322,500 on the leader to pass him. His last chance leaves the tee at 9:39.
His first Green Jacket is the prize. Mr. Saturday has one Saturday left. The branding department could not have drawn this up better.
Chris Tank: $3,592,500. He needs to gain more than $645,000 on Clogston, and finish ahead of Hayenga in the final totals. He starts at 9:03. A big round would give the last group something unpleasant to think about.
The defending Green Jacket champion already won the Bellingham Calcutta this summer. Apparently the trophy shelf has an extension planned.
Standings: September 13 rankings; champions: official archives; field: September 19 draw. Clogston is not listed; that does not confirm he will earn $0. League rules allow last-place credit for a paid absent member using a non-member substitute. These are the gaps to close, not an official title declaration. Full money lists →
We actually played this field through a million computer-generated rounds using 203 recorded player-rounds from seven events this season. The machine has had more practice than all twenty of you combined. It still cannot find your ball.
Low-gross win share. With Clogston off the posted sheet, Mr. Saturday gets the favorite's chair. It comes with absolutely no protection from the first tee.
Low-net win share; 13.4% in gross. Everyone is talking about the jacket. Kibbee has a perfectly good opportunity to win the actual golf tournament while they're measuring sleeves.
Low-net win share; a top-three net finish in 13.2% of runs. Enough hope to show up. Enough restraint to leave the acceptance speech in the car.
Individual event forecasts, based on the September 19 field. Tied wins split the model's credit equally. These percentages are entertainment estimates; the million runs reduce computer noise, not golf's capacity to humiliate us.
If Clogston gets no more SONY money: Hayenga takes the season net title in 82.9% of simulated finales, Tank in 8.9%, and Clogston hangs on in 8.2%. Tank needs a big finish and a little help from the man who tees off last. The Oracle recommends making Hayenga check the board at the turn.
If Clogston receives $270,000 in last-place substitute credit: the model flips to Clogston 59.9%, Hayenga 40.1%; Tank cannot catch that total on the standard payout scale. Apparently paperwork has a better short game than several of us.
Two conditional scenarios using the same million rounds, the posted 20-player field, and standard payouts. Clogston's attendance, payment, and substitute eligibility are unconfirmed. The $270,000 scenario assumes twentieth-place credit. A changed field, different credit, or his return changes the forecast. Model ties share title credit; league tiebreaks are not assumed.
Pick two players. Hand the phone to the one who loses.
Head-to-head win shares from the same million simulated rounds, with ties split evenly. * denotes fewer than three recorded rounds; those estimates are especially uncertain.
| Player | Past rounds | Gross win | Net win | Net top 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Hayenga | 6 | 23.8% | 14.0% | 32.1% |
| Pat Bangasser | 7 | 14.2% | 7.5% | 26.7% |
| Todd Kibbee | 5 | 13.4% | 10.7% | 30.1% |
| Tanor Johnson | 5 | 13.0% | 6.8% | 25.9% |
| Chris Tank | 6 | 10.6% | 8.4% | 27.2% |
| Matt Uhlar | 5 | 5.5% | 1.7% | 8.7% |
| Tom Mahaffey | 5 | 5.1% | 3.8% | 16.4% |
| George Siemens * | 1 | 4.8% | 8.6% | 24.9% |
| Peter Quaeck * | 2 | 2.8% | 2.4% | 10.5% |
| Jeff Johnson | 4 | 1.6% | 4.0% | 16.2% |
| Trevor Johnson | 3 | 1.2% | 3.7% | 13.2% |
| Rick Haughian | 5 | 0.8% | 6.2% | 24.1% |
| Todd Thoreson | 4 | 0.8% | 2.7% | 9.9% |
| Warren Berger | 6 | 0.6% | 7.8% | 26.6% |
| Rick Loya | 6 | 0.6% | 2.8% | 10.5% |
| Bob Sikma * | 2 | 0.5% | 5.2% | 18.8% |
| Bill Morgan | 4 | 0.3% | <0.1% | 0.4% |
| Fred Miller | 4 | 0.3% | 0.5% | 2.4% |
| Steve Tarr | 6 | 0.1% | 2.4% | 13.2% |
| Bill McCarson | 4 | <0.1% | 0.8% | 3.7% |
* George Siemens (one round), Peter Quaeck and Bob Sikma (two each) have thin histories. The model gives them broader uncertainty. Top three includes ties; win percentages split ties. Rounding can keep columns from adding to exactly 100%.
Actually run: 1,000,000 complete 20-player fields, seed 20261003. Inputs are the published gross and net scores from Chambers Bay, Appletree, Maplewood, West Seattle, Echo Falls, Snohomish and Cedarcrest: 203 player-rounds. Bellingham's multi-round format is excluded.
We compare each score with that event's middle score, then blend a player's form toward the field average using three prior rounds. Round-to-round variation comes from the recorded results, with more uncertainty for short histories. Gross and net scores move together in each simulated player's round. Scores are rounded to whole strokes; tied places share the relevant SONY payouts.
This is a simple form model, not a Northshore course model. Changing field strength can affect the comparisons. It does not know current course handicaps, weather, injuries, which driver you bought Tuesday, or whether a breakfast sandwich is currently resolving a personal crisis. The two-man team scoring format is unconfirmed, so these forecasts cover individual scores and the two stated title scenarios.
See the complete simulation results and source data · The Oracle's Echo Falls predictions · The evidence against it
The league office posted the draw on September 19: ten teams of two, five groups at nine-minute intervals, beginning at 9:03 AM. Check the official pairings for any changes before the round.
Green fee: $82 · Cart not included · Driving range available.
Pat built the league. Tank keeps trying to take the contents home. The first group is basically a trophy-storage meeting.
The Chief Justice has court at 9:12. Berger's handicap strokes have already been entered into evidence. Kibbee and Tanor may prefer to settle it on the course.
Dad won their 2023 Match Play final. Trevor gets a nine-minute head start on Jeff this time. Meanwhile, The Other Uhlar won with his teams at Echo Falls and Cedarcrest. The nickname committee may need to reconvene.
Jeff and Tank won Bellingham together. Today Tank tees off 27 minutes ahead of Jeff. The trophy-sharing arrangement was apparently not renewed.
Hayenga brings the title chase home. Mac brings the reminder that the computer got a million practice rounds and the rest of us did not. Someone ask the committee about that.
Matt Uhlar, Greg Seeley, Rick Haughian and Erik Harris won with 128 Stableford points. Chris Clogston took low gross at 75; Harris took low net at 63. Both the team and gross winners were still behind through sixteen holes.
Read the Cedarcrest RecapGross: Clogston. Again. Chris Clogston posted 77 for his sixth gross title in seven starts — at this point the Commissioner's Cup engraver is just working in pencil until October. Jon Hayenga's 80 took second, the league's most faithful pursuer keeping the gap honest, and Gray Griswold's 82 claimed third — and Griswold's day was only getting started.
Net: a crown shared. Cam Kashfia and Griswold both signed for 71 — Kashfia going back-to-back after his Echo Falls 70, Griswold completing the day's rare treble: third in gross, a share of first in net, and the team title. Warren Berger's 72 took third outright, the strokes earning their keep as ever.
Team: Griswold & Berger, 61. The 11:39 partners lapped the field by two over a three-way pileup at 63 — Tanor Johnson & Kashfia, Hayenga & Tom Alvis, and Tom Colleran & Lucas Hufford all a card-flip short. $120 to the winners, $60 apiece to the trio, and nothing but memories for everyone else.
The margins: the sixteen-team sheet became fourteen by Saturday, and with twenty-seven players making an odd number, Jerry Nakata pulled honest double duty on two teams. Bill Morgan gave the field a 108 and still cashed $200,000, because in this league even the hard days pay. And Hayenga stuck the 13th to 4' 2" for the pin of the afternoon.
The 1-2-3 best ball went to the 10:30 group — Gray Griswold, Jeff Johnson, Matt Uhlar and Mike Woerner at 133, clear by two — after the Clubhouse Oracle simulated a million rounds and picked them fourth. Cam Kashfia's 70 took low net, Chris Clogston's 75 low gross, and the algorithm's one framed-and-hung call was the basement. The full reckoning is preserved on the event page.
Three days, three courses, one runaway. Tank & Jeff Johnson led the $3,040 Calcutta wire-to-wire, closing at 284 — six clear of the Fagan brothers. Berger & Mischke's 89 at Lake Padden was the low round of the entire trip. The complete 54-hole leaderboard, championship payouts, and round-by-round notebook are preserved on the event page.