Towel Dominion

coughs on pixel dust Welcome back to the booth, where my gills are filing a formal complaint about this digital drought. Seven survivors rounded McCormick’s wooded gauntlet for “Towel Dominion,” the penultimate carve-fest before the final ledger locks. Weather: polite 66 °F, 3 mph breeze, clouds acting like they’re not enjoying the show. Let’s see whose territorial claims just got etched in pixelated stone. 🗺️

Week Seven: Where Claims Get Carved 🪓

McCormick’s winter layout (par 60) played its usual tight-fairway mind-games—poison oak on the perimeter, rock-ringed baskets in the interior, and zero forgiveness for anyone gripping late. Only seven discs answered the starter’s bell this Monday, which means every stroke carried the weight of a missing chorus; the frontier felt intimate, the drama anything but. Absences elsewhere registered as silent forfeitures while our wagon train rolled hole-to-hole, scorecards ready to be notarized.

Cartographers Draw A Tie 🧭

Division RAH turned into a three-way surveyor’s duel. Eric Sherman and John Cairns finished dead-level at even-par 60, both logging identical 948 ratings—mirror-image scorecards that felt like the algorithm shrugging. Meanwhile David Loucks fired a +1, 24 points north of his player rating, the biggest deviation of the night. The lead swapped more times than a UDisc map refresh: Loucks opened -1 through 5, Cairns swiped it with a textbook 30-foot death putt on 7, then Sherman birdied the 484-ft par-4 9th while the rest coughed up +0.6 dust and suddenly we had co-captains on the flagpole. From the booth it looked like three drafters arguing over the same pencil—nobody could pull away, nobody would break. Honors? Flip a coin; the ledger just wrote “TIE” in indelible ink.

Fresh Blood, Old Scores 🔥

RAD belonged to newcomer Tim Rinehart, who treated McCormick like he’d already downloaded the course file. Even-par 60, 948-rated, zero bogeys on the back nine—clean enough to earn Division Winner, First-Time Player, and Friend-of-a-Friend badges in one swoop. He trailed Timm Derrickson (great name collision potential) by two at the turn, then torched 12-17 for a six-stroke swing. Derrickson still pocketed the Birdie Bonanza, stringing three circles on 12-14 like a flare gun, but Rinehart’s closing 2-2-3-2 sealed the territory. Shibley Burnett added a par train (1-7 blemish-free) and the loud solo bird on 18 to protest the finish order—too late, the map was already inked.

One Commander, No Competition 🏹

RPA’s “battle” was Aaron Sturgeon versus the scorecard and his own expectations. Solo field, +1 total, 939-rated—29 points south of his usual zip—yet he still planted the flag wire-to-wire. After a double-touch on the treacherous 9th he answered immediately with a circle-3 on 10, the kind of resilience the frontier demands when nobody else shows up to challenge your claim. From the booth it sounded like shadow-boxing with tree branches: exhausting, occasionally bloody, technically a victory.

Birdies Were Lonely This Week 🐦

Seven different holes produced exactly one birdie apiece—no sharing, no parties. The honor roll: Rinehart (5), Sherman (9 & 11), Derrickson (14), Loucks (15), Cairns (16), Rinehart again (17), and Burnett (18). Statistically that’s a 12% success rate on a layout that usually punishes greed; PDGA Live data says the rest of the field averaged +0.4 on those same pins. Translation: lines were tight, nerves tighter. Loucks’ +1 round still out-paced his rating by two dozen points—the booth’s unofficial “most improved pixel cowboy” award. Derrickson’s front-nine 27 versus a back-nine 35 showed McCormick’s rear half still demands rent, even in dry conditions.

Tallow Revenant Burns Another Night 🕯️

Tag spotlight lands on Eric Sherman, who defended the #1 “Tallow Revenant” token for Cartographers pool—first successful guard since claiming it. The Revenant, that walking campfire of rendered fat and stubborn perseverance, keeps whispering survival arithmetic into his ear: miss the fairway, boil the mistake, march on. Sherman’s ledger now reads one down, one to go. Over in Pool B, Eileen Chow got ghosted by absence; All-In rules shoved her tag to the cellar without a single thrown disc. The frontier takes what you give it—sometimes that’s blood, sometimes it’s just your Monday.

Week Eight: Where Legends Are Carved 🏆

One expedition remains: “Frontier Crown” closes the saga next Monday. Rankings calcify, stories fossilize, and every lingering territorial dispute meets its chisel. From the booth the forecast shows possibility of actual moisture—imagine that—but the real storm will be scorecards hitting the table for the last time. Keep your powder dry and your discs flat; the ledger’s waiting to etch final dominion. See you at the finish, assuming my gills survive the pixel dust.