Buckle Up - here we go!

We start off this season at the Arnold Palmer. It’s a PGA Signature event. Top 50 plus ties and anyone within 10 shots of the lead will make the cut. Sorry Kevin - no Tiger; no Lefty and no surprise. My boy Don Henley is defending champ. Expected to play: (and hopefully I haven’t screwed things up too much)

Manager

Golfers expected to play 

B.T.O.

Hideki Matsuyama, Harris English,  , Akshay Bhatia, li Rickie, Billy Horschel (Homa 1st alternate)

Jim

Tommy Fleetwood Mac, Pete Rose, Justin Thomas, Maverick McNealy

Jaustin

Xander Schauffele, Alex Noren, Milton Bradley, Patrick Cantlay, Jimmy Conners, Sungjae Im

Doug

Collin Morikawa, Chris Gotterup, Ben Griffin, Shane Lowry

PAK-Mon

Rory McIlroy, Cameron Young, Matt Fitzpatrick, Jake Knapp,  , Keith Mitchell

Commish

Russell Henley, Sepp Straka, Ludvig Aberg, Sam Burns, Kurt Kitayama

Big J

Robert MacIntyre, Viktor Hovland, Jacob Bridgeman, Min Woo Lee, Jason Day, Jordan Spieth

Kevin

Scottie Scheffler, Sahith Theegala

FGL kicks off 28th season!

Hard to believe! I never would have guessed it would have lived this long. But Sunday afternoon, TopGolf hosted our illustrious group for the 2026 Draft. Special thanks to Ashley for her IT help in getting everything set up and pulling Jim & Dave in. Food was really good and the boys certainly enjoyed “trying” to hit golf balls later. Then again, many of the rest of us “tried” too. Much of it was not pretty.

Yep - this is my typical result from the fairway

THE BET!

Cleveland played amazing in September and squeezed ahead of the Tigers to claim the division championship. BUT…….with a 5 game cushion - Doug still wins THE BET. Right down the end - well done boys.

25 years!!!!

Yep - that’s how long it’s been since Dave won his only FGL championship. And that was back before the Tommy O Award existed. His line-up that magical year?

- Ernie Els, Tom Lehman, Jeff Sluman, Stuart Appleby’s, Freddie Couples and Steve Flesch

Congrats B.T.O. On a championship that wasn’t much in doubt in recent weeks. Scottie alone played in 13 FGL events. He won four of them; then 7 Top 10’s Plus 2 top 20’s. He never finished outside the top 20 nor did he miss a cut. I’d say that was pretty good!

What does 2nd place look like?

Congrats to Manager Jim. His 2nd place finish wasn’t much in doubt either with Rory’s steady play. And yet, an unusual spot for Jim. He’s won the Tommy O 3 times but until now never came in 2nd place. Congrats.

A good week by Doug and Jaustin helped boost them a bit on your leaderboard. On the other hand, manager Big J stumbled his way down to 7th place - assuring him the second pick in next years’ draft.

NEXT YEAR‘S DRAFT WILL BE SUNDAY AFTERNOON, MARCH 1ST. (Not sure where)

A few other updates (mostly medical) before I sign off for the season:

- my favorite topic - Me! I “graduated” from all my open heart rehab stuff last week. Only took the entire FGL season to do it. Might have to have another surgery on a cyst that keeps popping up. I’ll learn about that on Wednesday.

- Mrs. Commissioner has finished her chemo. Scans have shown that her cancer is now half the size it was when all this started in April. Wednesday will also be when we find out how intensive of a surgery will be needed likely later this month. Open heart will then be scheduled for her in early 2026. But for now, she sits in the hospital where she’s been since Friday. Hopefully discharged Monday. Likely pneumonia. Never boring here.

Eli - Brelley’s new adopted son - was finally discharged today in Jacksonsville. Heroin withdraw from his mom really beat up his little body. They’ll spend a few more days in Florida getting paperwork finalized and then fly back.

I must correct an earlier error I implied about Manager Jim. He “only” had one knee replaced,, not both. But that completely screws up my vision of him running like the Bionic Man. Instead, it’s fast, slow, fast, slow, etc. I’m sure it makes things quite difficult. I even heard his wife Barb refuses to go with him to the grocery store. He keeps pushing the cart in a circle.

Finally - wishing the best to Manager Big J who is doing fun things. He’ll be off to Scotland as well as checking out the Panama Canal this Fall. Enjoy!

No plans for any rule changes next year. But everyone please keep in mind anything we can do to stick it to Kevin! It’s the little joys that mean so much anymore!

The Bet!

Tigers have bounced back leaving Dave running out of time.

A trip to TopGolf the other night

Julian’s first trip. He was pumped up! This first picture shows such an innocent, cute boy.

But then this picture seems to show a more ornery side of this lad

Squeezed in Eaglesticks in Zanesville Thursday

Too many rain-outs. It led to a desperation Thursday outing. A downpour came down before we tee’d off. Dry skies and then rain right when we finished. Sometimes you get lucky. On this hole, I know I’m not in the fairway, but I did par the hole.

Big J was his consistent steady self. Would you expect anything else?

Quiet tournament at 3M

If you add up all the points scored from all teams, it totals just 2 points. All of which means nothing changed. B.T.O. Picked up 3 points and Dave and Jim appear to have locked in 1st and 2nd place this season on your FGL leaderboard.

Had amazing plans to get Manager Doug and Big J out to Darby Creek Sunday. It’s been forever since the three of us have been out on a course. But on-going nasty pop-up storms put an end to the dream. I blame Dave. I don’t know why but it’s weather related so it just kind of makes sense.

One more tournament left. Line-up is already listed below. For the Tommy O Award and more likely 2026 draft position for the rest of us.

Three Dog Night predicted it long ago

Several years ago, Monica and Doug joined us at Picnic with the Pops to see 3 Dog Night. Great entertainers. One of the best shows I’ve seen in years. One of the songs they threw our way was “Eli’s Coming”. They were right. Last Tuesday, 7/22, Brandon & Kelley (Team Brelley) got a call that a mom just outside of Jacksonville, FL had delivered a baby boy and selected Team Brelley to be the parents. They flew down Wednesday and named him Eli John. Because of his biological mom’s substance abuse issues, little Eli is still in NICU and going through seizures and difficultly with most everything. But each day gets a little better. Brelley hopes he’ll be discharged sometime this week. Liam & Luke have been bouncing around houses all week and that “fun” is starting to get old for them. It’s never boring. The Commissioner’s office now has 5 grandkids - all boys!

Tigers struggle

They’ve gone 1 - 9 in the last 10 games. That doesn’t help the cause.

Time to wrap up this season at Wyndham Clark Hotels

Manager Golfers expected to play 

B.T.O. Max Homa, Jordan Spieth, lil Rickie, Henrik Norlander  

Jim   Captain Kirk, Beau Hossler  

Big J   Matthieu Pavon

Commish  Denny’s McCarthy, J.T. Poston 

Doug   Max Greyserman, Eric Cole, Matt Fitzpatrick, Aaron Rai  

Kevin Wyndham Clark Hotels, Tom Kim, Milton Bradley

Jaustin   Akshay Bhatia, Cameron Young, Byeong Hun An,  

PAK-Mon Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Tony Finau, Nick Dunlap, Adam Scott

Oh Ozzy!

Hulk Hogan is gone. Theo Huxtable of the Cosby Show passed away. And also Ozzy. As local news reported below, Ozzy and Black Sabbath had an interesting adventure in Columbus back in 1997. OzzFest at Polaris Amphtheather. Lots of metal bands all day. I was in the VIP section with Kurt Haag who had the connections. We mostly had that section to ourselves. When it got to be around 9:00 and we all expected Ozzy to come out, the lead singers from the other bands came out and started singing his songs; as they tossed bottles of Jack around to each other. We were confused. Why would they play Ozzy’s songs if he’s about to come out? Then we noticed helicopters overhead and someone mentioned all the concessions were closed up. We later learned Ozzy was too hung-over to make it to Columbus. A riot followed. At 11:05 that night, my dad called from Findlay. “Your mother just saw a concert riot on the news and figured you might be in it.” Yep - about the 5th row!

A hot Wednesday at Shaker Run!

Thanks again to Woody as we played in the Pipe and Plumbers golf outing near Lebanon, OH, Shaker Run on a hot Wednesday. We ended up middle of the pack. Big J and I were both able to totally screw up some easy shots! He did much better with the hard ones. A good fun day!

What's left to say?

It’s inside 1 minute left in the 4th quarter and the game is a blow-out. And the announcers have run out of things to say. That’s kind of where we’re at. This season is pretty much done. Scottie alone has scored over 110 points and Bastard Team O’Brien is sailing along. Even won the Major sidebet. And Jim looks to have 2nd place locked up. Top two ranked PGA golfers (Scottie and Rory) are aligned with the top two managers on your FGL leaderboard. Coincidence. Clearly they must feel blessed to be with the best managers around.

In just a couple of weeks, Big J has jumped from 4th place to just one point ahead of 7th place. A brilliant pre-2026 draft move!

Bryson and Wyndham Hotels were both so far out of the tournament after Thursday that I chalked them up as missing the cut. What a turn-around. Both ended up in the top 10.

Okay - that’s all I’ve got. We’re off to the 3M Open -wherever that is.

Manager Golfers expected to play 

B.T.O.   Max Homa,  lil Rickie Fowler, Henrik Norlander,  

Jim   Captain Kirk, Beau Hossler, Max McGreevy

Big J   Matthieu Pavon

Commish  No one 

Doug   Max Greyserman,  Eric Cole

Kevin Wyndham Clark, Tom Kim, Maverick McNealy

Jaustin   Akshay Bhatia, Byeong Hun An

PAK-Mon  Sungjae Im, Tony Finau, Nick Dunlap!!!!, Adam Scott