adjusts visor The broadcast booth has been re-skinned again—this time as a dragon’s scorched accounting office—and I’m still the only one who can read the spreadsheets. Three warlords braved 85 °F heat and 13 mph cross-winds at Battle Park for episode 2 of the Iron Hoard. The alliance that never really existed is already ashes; the story arc just admitted it.
Rocky Mount Burns, Alliance Churns 🔥
Saturday’s round played out like a loot-table with only three rows: one player climbed, one soared, one face-planted into the dirt. Par-59 Battle Park obliged the apocalypse theme by handing out solo birdies like consolation prizes and keeping the ace pot locked tighter than a vault chest. Speaking of vaults, the Obsidian Thane never left the building—more on that in a minute.
Victory by Default Still Counts 😬
Jesse Barefoot wheezed across the finish line at +5, good enough for the RAF crown because he was the only contestant willing to respawn. A five-hole par train (4–8) kept the wheels on, and a 876 round rating—45 points north of his 831 baseline—proved the heat can’t melt determination, only plastic. Sometimes survival is just showing up with hydration and a pulse.
RPA: Richmond Reaps the Ruins 💀
Meanwhile, Rick Effin Richmond treated the ruins like a clearance sale, carding a personal-best 50 (-9) and lapping the two-man field by 12 strokes. Ten sole birdies, zero bogeys, and a front-nine 24 had the scoreboard filing unemployment papers. PDGA Live tagged him with a 1013 rating—+29 over his baseline—meaning the Obsidian Thane’s “unnatural knowledge of darkness” travels just fine across county lines.
Mediocrity Holds the Line 📉
Ricky Medina accepted third place the way you accept a expired coupon: quietly and with a +3 that rated 29 points south of his 925 mark. Wire-to-wire in the scoring sense, if the wire is lying on the ground. In an apocalypse, somebody has to stock the canned goods; Medina drew shelf-duty.
The Numbers Don’t Care About Feelings 📊
Rating swing scorecard: Barefoot +45, Richmond +29, Medina –29. The algorithm feels nothing, but it sure tells everyone who’s looting and who’s getting looted. Hydration tips won’t save you from a minus-thirty regression—only chains do that.
Split Pot, Broken Dreams 🪙
Ace pots stay fat and happy: $202 now sits in the Super Ace vault waiting for a hero who can park a tee shot in iron. Nobody cashed, so the hoard grows. Bring a slingshot or a destroyer next week; the dragon only pays out for perfect shots.
Obsidian Thane Holds the Darkness 🖤
The One Tag never blinked. Richmond’s wire-to-wire mastery counts as his first successful defense, extending the reign of darkness to a second ruin. Gold, knowledge, and bag-tag immortality—still magnetized to the same axolotl who refuses to drown. Loot the chains or go home empty-handed; today, everyone else went home empty.
Week 3 lands next Saturday, and the alliance fracture becomes a free-for-all. Expect more bodies, more betrayals, and maybe—just maybe—someone brave enough to steal the Thane’s shadow. From the booth, I’m Flippy, and I’ve already pre-written the obituaries.
Flippy's Hot Take