2024

“And that’s just twenty-four inches away from a green coat.”

“Which is a career…”

“A lifetime”

“A career in one putt”

“Faldo studying, shaking his head a bit, obviously disappointed. Straight and firm Scott, right in the heart… He’s missed it and he’s knocked it… he’s knocked it three and a half feet past the hole!”

“I don’t believe it! I do not believe it!”

— Commentary of the 1989 Masters Tournament

The Wheel of Time turns ever onward, and the echoes of Danzas past fade into legend—memories becoming stories, stories transforming into grand tales. With each passing year and every retelling, the drives grow ten yards longer, the match-clinching putts stretch five feet farther, and the turkey that once soared over West’s head mid-swing evolves into a majestic Bald Eagle. Yet, embellishments aside, it is these very tales that keep the spirit of the Danza alive. The lore itself fuels the fire within eight fine gentlemen, reigniting their passion on a cyclical basis. And as the days dwindle before this now-mythical tournament, that fire blazes brighter and hotter than ever before.

One year removed from yet another thrilling playoff finish in Dallas, the boys were primed for a milestone event—the fifth installment of the series. This time, the chosen battleground was Seven Springs, PA. The group opted to skip the flights and stay closer to home, making a conscious nod to the newest fathers of the bunch. Since the last Danza, Trey had welcomed his third daughter, Gemma, while Storm, West, and Felton had each stepped into the world of fatherhood for the first time with the arrivals of Olivia, Cameron, and Carson, respectively. Now, with half the crew donning the title of “Dad,” a new generation of Danza babies had been ushered into the fold—setting the stage for an edition unlike any before.

Danza Eve

We arrived on a rainy, chilly day in the mountains of Western Pennsylvania. It wasn’t exactly the same feel as the cooking temperature of Dallas, TX or Myrtle Beach, SC, but it didn’t matter. We were all back together under one roof again and no amount of rain or cold could wipe the smiles off the faces of these eight men on Danza weekend. Christmas in June was here. We ran the generator for rooms, admired the mounted hippo head on the chimney, exchanged a few group gifts, played a little ping pong, and did a lot of BS’ing before the Pre-Tournament Dinner. It was good to be back. I wish there was more to write, but honestly that covers it, it was just simply good vibes.

Pre-Tournament Dinner

The Champions Pre-Tournament dinner was to take place at Out of the Fire Café. As expected, our arrival drew the usual curious stares. Right on cue, a woman approached us asking what the deal was. West, ever the ambassador, gave her the rundown and casually asked for her prediction. Without hesitation, she replied, “Blue Team.” A safe bet. A wise one.

Midway through our lavish meal and cocktails, a familiar melody floated in through the restaurant speakers. One by one, we fell silent, tuning our ears toward the faint tune overhead. It was Tiny Dancer. The room paused. We looked around, eyebrows raised—and then, as if scripted by fate, we all belted out in perfect, ridiculous harmony: “When I say softly, slowly… HOLD ME CLOSER, TONY DANZAAA.”

The moment was pure magic—a break from our standard Smash Mouth A cappella—not that we didn’t also sing that, because of course we did, we are not barbarians, we are elegant men of tradition. But the surprise didn’t end there. As Tiny Dancer faded, the unmistakable opening chords of John Daly’s Hit It Hard roared from the speakers. The Blue Team’s official anthem. Our jaws collectively hit the floor.

It was uncanny—too perfect to be coincidence. It wasn’t until Toby Keith’s Shitty Golfer came on next that we realized the restaurant staff had to be in on this. Moments later, our waitress gleefully returned and asked if we’d caught Tiny Dancer—it had been her special request, after learning she was serving none other than the participants of the most prestigious amateur golf tournament in honor of an 80s sitcom star in the country. She’d taken it upon herself to curate a worthy playlist.

What a wonderful night it was. We talked rules, potential future rules, locked in our bets, and came to the realization that our famous “double decker multimodal bet” had been lost to the sands of time, as it had been two full years since its inception and none of us could remember what it even entailed anymore. But that’s just the way of the Danza—a legacy so rich, we’ve forgotten more lore than most amateur golfers could ever hope to leave behind.

Well woud you look at that. This restaurant was meant to be.

“If it goes right, it’s a slice. If it goes left, it’s a hook. If it goes straight, it’s a miracle.” — Unknown

Day I

Round I: Best Ball – Totteridge Golf Club, Greensburg, PA

[Disclaimer: round was played back to front, teeing off on #10 and finishing on #9]

It was that day of the year again. The Day. Unlike last year’s idyllic backdrop in Dallas, where blue skies stretched endlessly, the sun cast a golden warmth, and a gentle breeze whispered through the fairways, this year delivered the opposite. Western Pennsylvania greeted us with its finest offering: cold rain, winds that howled through the hills, and a gloom that seemed stitched into the clouds. But it didn’t matter. On this sacred day, weather be damned. As long we’re not in an active war zone, golf will be played. And in order for golf to be played, someone has to take the first shot. That duty would fall upon the shoulders of reigning MVP of the Blue Team, Jeremy Hardy.

A piss-missile down the middle. Not surprising, as driving has become the most formidable weapon in Jeremy’s arsenal over the past year. What was surprising, however, was the fact that the tournament’s opening drive, traditionally a flubbed shot of some variety, was anything but. This wasn’t just a solid start; it was, without question, the finest opening tee shot in Danza history. The ever eventful—and often gloriously chaotic—C/D matchup would lead the charge, carrying the torch of the Danza pack on a grueling 72-hole odyssey of triumphs and tribulations until one team would remain standing. And through one shot of an eventual collective ~2000+, the Blue Team was off to a good start.

The Red Team did not have such a start. Storm’s shot left nothing to be desired and Johnny’s went OB left. Storm proceeded to hack his ball around a bit, never threatening to take the hole. Johnny did manage an excellent recovery shot to the center of the green after taking his drop, and then just barely missed his par-putt, resulting in a tap-in bogey. Meanwhile Jeremy went full “old man boring”—fairway, green, two-putt—taking the opening hole for Blue. In the four years of this particular C/D matchup, the opening hole has been halved only once. Then again, halved holes are an endangered species in the beautiful carnage that defines this matchup.

Both Storm and Jeremy piped drives straight down the middle on #2, which quickly became a two-man race for the hole, as Blatt didn’t show out his best work and Johnny slipped mid-swing and face-planted on his tee shot, once again sending his ball OB left, deep into the wilderness. Following up their solid drives, Storm and Jeremy each landed their approach shots on the green and two-putted for par to halve the hole. If halved holes are an endangered species, then halved pars are the woolly mammoth DNA encased in permafrost begging to be cloned. 

They say bad things happen in threes, and if that’s so, Johnny wanted to prove it true, hitting his third straight tee shot tragically left out of bounds. Three drives, three balls lost. Despite this, he did his best to recover and had a bogey putt to potentially halve the hole, but ran it by and missed the double bogey putt coming back, and gave Jeremy the nod to pick up his bogey putt, giving Blue a 2-Up lead. Hole four was met with a double bogey by Red, while Jeremy managed to two-putt from roughly forty feet to earn his par and the Blue Team another hole, going 3-Up.

Jeremy opened this round like a man possessed, but he finally had his first moment of weakness, as he and Blatt triple bogeyed the par-3 fifth, opening the door for Red as they took it down with a bogey. Red claimed the sixth hole as well with a par to Blue’s bogey after Johnny yelled out in distress over what he thought to be a skulled 9-iron approach shot, only for it to be his best shot of the round thus far, landing dead center of the green to set himself up for an easy two-putt to cut the deficit to one. On the par-3 seventh, all four gentlemen missed the green, but it was Jeremy alone who was able to get up and down for par to extend Blue’s lead back to two. On the intimidating dogleg eighth, both Jeremy and Johnny bombed drives to the middle of the fairway and followed up with excellent approach shots to the green. After watching Jeremy and Storm each run their balls well-past the hole, Johnny picked up on the tip that this particular green was playing much faster than the rest. He tapped his ball with a feather and it gently rolled up to a six-inch tap-in for par. Jeremy missed his par-putt coming back and Red took down the hole, cutting Blue’s lead back to one.

Closing out the opening nine, all four lads had rather errant tee shots. Following his topped tee shot that traveled all of forty yards, Johnny had a good recovery 4-iron shot from the fescue, and from 136-yards out, he stuck a 9-iron approach to four feet. After Jeremy tracked down his tee shot that had gone way left into the thick stuff, he too had a great recovery shot to just off the green. Still left with a tough chip, Jeremy displayed beautiful touch and put his ball to five feet. He was able to clutch up and make the putt for par, shifting the pressure over to Johnny. Clearly feeling it, Johnny let his nerves get the best of him, as he missed the four-footer to have the hole, making waste of his best best shot of the day. Blue would close out the first nine with a 2-Up lead.

The back nine kicked off with Johnny topping his tee shot while the three other gentlemen had solid pokes. Despite the poor start he would have a good recovery shot, but followed with chipping over the green. Jeremy sent his approach shot pretty far left, near OB in someone’s back yard, but managed to keep it just in play. He proceeded to flub a couple chip shots before finishing with double. Johnny had a great chip to five feet to give himself a chance to take the hole. It was a dead straight putt, and with an opportunity to redeem himself from the last hole, he failed to rise to the occasion, pushing the putt right. What could’ve been a critical momentum shift instead turned into a confidence-crushing misfire, keeping the Red Team down two.

Blue parred eleven to Red’s bogey to take a sizable 3-Up lead. On twelve Johnny went OB right off the tee, and following a great tee shot, Storm also went OB right on his approach. Cool as a cucumber and riding the high that a three-stroke lead will provide you, Jeremy would once again play old man golf—fairway, green, and then with a very makable birdie opportunity, he chose to play it safe and just gently brush it down to tap-in range to take an even more commanding 4-Up lead. What started as a promising hole on thirteen quickly went sour for the Red team, finishing with a lackluster double bogey on a par five. Watching the Red Team’s mistakes, Jeremy played it extra safe all the way up the hole and made a bogey to give Blue a 5-Up lead with five to play.

On the par-3 fourteenth, both Blatt and Stormed duffed their tee shots, Johnny sailed his long, and Jeremy pulled his left. Jeremy recovered nicely, chipping his to six feet, while Johnny answered with a nice chip of his own to five feet. Jeremy missed the par-putt and tapped in for bogey. Johnny faced a must-make putt in order to keep play alive for Red’s miracle hope of rattling off five straight holes to halve the match. It was a tricky putt, and it broke harder right than Johnny anticipated, leaving him for bogey to halve the hole and end the match with a 5&4 victory for the Blue Team. Capitalizing on Johnny’s missed short putts on nine and ten, the Blue Team didn’t just seize momentum—they turned it into a sheer punishment for Red. And with that, Blatt and Jeremy remain undefeated as partners. Johnny and Storm will have to wait another year to seek the sweet taste of victory.

The group to follow were the primetime players. The highest quality round of the tournament on an annual basis, the A/B matchup. Kicking off the round in similar fashion to the C/D pairings was the Blue Team taking the opening lead on the first hole with a nice, crispy par from Felton. But a par would only whet Felton’s appetite, and he was craving more, so he decided to knock in a birdie on two to snatch another hole for Blue, giving them an early 2-Up lead. Continuing his hot streak, Felton landed another green in reg on three, but this time his putter betrayed him; needing not one, not two, but the ever-dreaded three putts to bring his ball home. A bogey for Blue, a par for Red, and the match was within one.

A pair of bogeys on four and five would leave the score where it was at, but this is around the time the rain stopped and Felton finally started to cool off. Further proof that rain is Michael’s Secret Stuff. Each team would par the par-5 sixth and bogey the seventh before Blue would take another hole on eight to extend their lead back to two. But the two-hole cushion was short-lived, as Red parred the ninth hole to Blue’s bogey, bringing the match back within one to close out the front (or in this case, the back).

Both teams started the second nine—as Augusta so reverently calls it—with back to back pars, neither team flinching. They traded bogeys on twelve, matched steady pars on thirteen, and found themselves locked in a dead-even tug-of-war, with neither team gaining an inch. Around this time, the C/D group had prematurely finished up their match and decided to stick around for ring-side seats to the heavyweight fight that was taking place. The fourteenth, a punishing par-3, had already humbled the C/D crew with exactly zero greens hit. Proving that the C/D boys weren’t just a bunch of shlubs, the A/B boys would all miss the green as well. Following everyone’s chip shots, the Blue Team was unable to find pay dirt on their par-save attempts, and tapped in for bogey. With a chance to take the hole and get the match back to even, West had a nearly identical putt to the one Johnny had misread just a moment ago. Tournament tradition strictly forbids finished groups from offering any advice to those still playing, and Johnny had to summon every ounce of discipline not to break protocol and warn West about what was coming. The putt appeared tame at first, but just as Johnny feared, it snapped violently at the end. West hadn’t played enough break, and the chance to pull even slipped away. Another bogey. Another halved hole. That made five in a row, and the tension was mounting with every step toward eighteen.

Completely in sync, the boys matched each other shot for shot to par fifteen, making it their sixth straight halved hole. Just three to play, it was onto the par-5 sixteenth. After good drives from each team, it was West who seized the moment, sending an absolute torpedo towards the green, where it would nestle just on the fringe, setting up a look at eagle. Potentially rattled by West’s piss-missile of a second shot, the Blue Team faltered, a series of missteps forcing them to limp in for bogey. This allowed West an easy three-putt for par to take the hole and put an end to the Blue Team’s fifteen consecutive hole lead. All square with two to play. 

Riding a high, West hit arguably the only shot better in the round than the one he just hit on the previous hole, throwing a dart to five feet on the long par-3. Doing everything they could and still playing well, Blue knocked in for par. With the pressure cranked up to eleven, West banged in the birdie putt and gave the Red team their first lead of the day. There is never a bad time to take your first lead of the round, but if it doesn’t come early on, then I’d say hole seventeen is about as good a time as any.

Unsurprisingly, this match would once again be settled at the eighteenth hole. Keeping the momentum going, both West and Trey had great tee shots in the fairway. James and Felton each went left into the rough, but still very much in an okay position. Felton, coming up clutch, stuck one to fifteen feet. James wasn’t able to do much with his, making Felton their best bet at birdie. Trey hit a good shot but came up just shy of the green, still perfectly fine for making par. Going last, West landed his approach shot to inside ten feet. Not necessarily a dagger, but also not want you want to see from the Blue Team’s perspective.

Following Trey’s chip onto the green, it was all coming down to Felton to make this putt and put some serious pressure on. He gave it a solid run, but it wasn’t to be, missing just left. He tapped in for par and the rest was mere formality. Left with a very makable birdie putt, West wasn’t taking any chances. He gently tapped the ball, purely advancing it rather than trying to make it. He got it to within a few inches, tapped in, and another heavyweight clash was in the books—a 1-Up Red Team victory.

There is never a short supply of drama in this round, and you can essentially bank on it finishing on the eighteenth hole. When the boys are playing well, you can count on there being fireworks, and that was certainly the case this year. Felton brought his A-game on the front nine, propelling Blue to an early lead, but it was West who brought his A+ game on the back nine, shooting a +1 and coming up clutch on back to back holes down the final stretch to steal the lead right out from under the Blue Team. From those observing, it was one of the best individual performances in any Danza round ever, and from his own testimony, one of his personal best golf rounds in years, period.

West/Trey vs. James/Felton – 1-Up Red

Johnny/Storm vs. Jeremy/Blatt – 5&4 Blue

Red Team: 1

Blue Team: 1

“There is no such thing as natural touch. Touch is something you create by hitting millions of golf balls.” – Lee Trevino

Round II: Scramble – Highlands Golf Club, Champion, PA

After four years and eight fiercely contested scramble rounds, the series remains locked in a 4-4 stalemate. Trey and Johnny had a hot start together in this event, opening at 3-0 through the first three installments, but last year in Dallas was enough of an ass-kicking put on by the Blue Team that it felt like they made up for all three previous losses at once. Meanwhile in the other matchup, the Felton and Blatt duo continue to reign as the fire-breathing dragon of Danza partners, hoarding their ever-growing collection of victories and leaving behind ashen corpses and melted swords of the brave knights who dare try and slay them. With their 4-0 record coming from three straight scramble wins and a best ball win in year one, Storm is the only unfortunate participant to be behind all four of those losses—an inverse perfect 0-4 record—the only of its kind between two individuals in Danza history. Tough, but so it goes. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

The first grouping out was West and Storm vs. Felton and Blatt. The opening stretch was a cautious dance, with both sides playing it safe—trading pars over the first four holes, staying all square and waiting for someone to blink. That moment came on the par-5 fifth, where the Blue Team struck first with a birdie to Red’s par, drawing first blood. Both sides stumbled with bogeys on six, steadied with pars on seven, and then came the real fireworks. On the par-5 eighth, both teams rolled in birdies—a thrilling exchange for spectators (if there were any), but a gut punch for the Red Team. Historically, they’ve struggled to keep pace with Blue in this matchup, and when even a birdie isn’t enough to gain ground, the frustration starts to boil. That frustration showed on nine, as Red faltered with a bogey while Blue stayed composed, dropping their par to take a 2-Up lead heading into the turn.

Both teams started with bogeys on ten, and then Red just decided to keep the bogey train going for two more holes after that while Blue managed a pair of pars on eleven and twelve to take a commanding 4-Up lead. At this point, the wheels were all but off for the Red Team, as they proceeded to triple bogey the par-5 thirteenth to Blue’s routine par, leaving Blue 5-Up with five to play—putting the match firmly on life support. 

Blue would finally relinquish their first hole of the day on fourteen with a bogey to Red’s par, keeping the match a live a little bit longer. On the par-3 fifteenth hole, both teams would miss the green. The Blue Team chipped on to about six feet, giving themselves a nice look at par, but West answered with a laser, sticking one to three feet, giving Red an even better look. In what was quite the twist, given how this round was going, both Blatt and Felton missed the par-putt. The Red Team drained their three-footer and clawed their deficit to 3-Down with three to play—and, at least for the moment, keeping hope of a draw alive.

It was Red’s honors on the par-5 sixteenth. West’s tee shot sailed out of bounds right, and Storm followed with a low, skidding burner that traveled just fifty yards into thick rough. The struggles continued, as both players chunked their next shots, barely advancing the ball another fifty yards before finally getting one back up to the fairway, just ahead of Felton and Blatt’s tee shot. Blue then advanced a decent one up the fairway—nothing that set the world on fire, but given they had a two-stroke cushion at this point, it was a perfectly fine and safe shot. Red then did the same. Shooting for par, Red finally put their ball on to the back of the green. Blue left their approach about ten yards short. Facing a long putt for six from the back, Storm ran his attempt past the hole and off the green, while West lagged his to about four feet. Blatt then chipped his shot to the same distance, and with no hope to salvage the hole, Red conceded. A 4&2 victory the Blue Team.

Felton and Blatt extend their partnership record to 5-0, remaining the only undefeated pairing left. They simply played consistent, nearly mistake-free, dominant golf start to finish. Nothing flashy, but no self-inflicted wounds. West and Storm on the other hand cannot say the same thing. They just shot themselves in the foot too many times and let it get away from them once again. If you’re going to take down the indomitable Felton and Blatt, four consecutive bogeys followed by a triple certainly ain’t gonna cut it. Slaying that dragon will have to wait another year.

There are a couple notes and funny observations about this round. First and foremost—and let me be very clear, there are no excuses at the Danza, and this is not one either, but it’s worth mentioning—West had an adverse reaction to his medication the night before, which resulted in a bit of a panic attack, causing him to sleep exactly zero minutes and zero seconds the entire night. In an attempt to compensate for his early morning fatigue, he downed four cups of coffee, which ended up totally shocking his system. It didn’t help his body that the first round of the day required 100% focus and intensity for four straight hours. He had to keep himself from puking on the drive to the second course, and during the lunch break, his resting heart rate was 120 bpm. Not great! By the time the round kicked off, he was completely drained. With that said, tank on empty or full, there was no beating Felton and Blatt today, they were just simply too solid all around. 

The second notable takeaway from this round, was that despite West’s overall fatigue and reduced quality play, there was one thing he was exceptional at: chipping. For those unfamiliar—and I know there are DOZENS of loyal readers here—West has a very specific technique for short, green-side chips: he grips the club as low on the shaft as physically possible. And on this day, it was the only thing keeping Red from getting completely buried early on. Time and time again, West managed to nestle every single chip inside four feet, much to the growing frustration of the Blue Team, who felt like they should’ve had a much larger lead by the turn than they did. So much so, that at one point between holes, West caught Felton practicing the low-shaft grip, swinging mock chips like Shooter McGavin mimicking the Happy Gilmore walk-up swing. But hey—this is the Danza, there’s no shame in stealing anyone’s style. Win by any means necessary.

Following the B/D matchup was the A/C crew, consisting of Trey and Johnny vs. James and Jeremy. The opening hole was met with a pair of pars, after the Red Team had a great opportunity to take the hole with an eight foot birdie putt, but neither guy could get it to fall. The green was a little shaggier than expected, so each putt was going to require a little more force than the boys got used to at Totteridge. Still feeling things out, number two was also met with pars from each side. Blue was tired of being patient and decided to escalate first, rolling in a birdie putt on the par-4 third hole to take a 1-Up lead. The advantage was short-lived, as they missed their par-save putt on four, bringing the match back to all square. 

On the par-5 dogleg left fifth hole, Johnny blasted his tee shot down the left side, as close as it could get to the trees, and somehow narrowly missed every branch, cutting the corner as perfectly as possible. Trey went next and tried to rip one but he sent it way right. While it was in the air, the guys joked that the only way that ball stays in play is if it hits that porta potty up ahead. And sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Both James and Jeremy sliced their tee shots out of bounds right, placing Red in the driver seat to take their first lead of the day. After taking their drop, the Blue team had 260 yards to the green. James and Jeremy then put on a 3-wood clinic, each sending an absolute rocket towards the green that would put Astrobotic’s Peregrine to shame. They came up just shy of the green, but were still able to putt. The Red team only had 160 yards to the flag from Johnny’s tee shot and were hoping to set themselves up with an eagle look. Johnny duffed his attempt and Trey sent his approach to the right side of the green, pin-high. Red placed their chip shot to six feet, while Blue hit a solid lag putt up to tap-in range for par. With a six-foot birdie attempt to take the lead, Trey and Johnny’s putters once again betrayed them. The hole was halved with pars, and while neither team gained any score advantage, it definitely felt like the Blue Team stole one, and everyone could simultaneously feel the momentum shift.

After a halved sixth hole with a pair of pars, it was on to the first par-3 of the round. Still feeling the momentum, Blue went pin-seeking. They knocked in their birdie putt and once again took a 1-Up lead. They immediately followed with another birdie on the par-5 eighth to go 2-Up, and just for good measure to close out the front nine, they went pin-seeking once more on the par-3 ninth and drained a third consecutive birdie to increase their lead to 3-Up at the turn. 

Desperate to halt the bleeding, the Red Team opened the back nine with a glimmer of hope—Johnny mashed a drive dead center down the fairway. Trey sent his ball OB right, but Red was in good shape. That was of course until they drove up there and learned that the golf gods vaporized Johnny’s ball into atoms and the universe reclaimed the matter. Had the Red Team possessed a larger net worth, a fleet of drones and a chopper would’ve been dispatched for a search and rescue mission. Instead, bound by the most heinous law in the Danza rulebook, Red sadly took their drop. They hit their approach shot to the green and two-putted for a crowd-pleasing bogey to drop their fourth consecutive hole. For Red, if disaster were a faucet, the golf gods broke the handle clean off.

On the par-3 eleventh, James’ birdie attempt rimmed out—denying him a perfect 3-for-3 on the day’s par-3s. Taking out their anger of going two consecutive holes without a birdie, Blue responded by committing putter-based violence. Calm as a monk and deadly as a sniper, Jeremy rolled in an insane 25-foot winding putt from the fringe for birdie, marking their fourth in six holes to take a 5-Up lead. 

On the par-5 thirteenth, both teams striped drives down the fairway. Red had a textbook second shot that came up just shy of the green. As for Blue, not so textbook. They were faced with a blind second, and Jeremy’s shot wasn’t his best work. He told James the aiming line and James let one rip that fanned out to the right. James was pissed at himself for the bad shot and Jeremy too was mad he didn’t give themselves anything to work with either. Then they got to the green. James’ garbage shot? Resting five feet from the hole. Turns out, Jeremy gave James the wrong aiming point, and based on the line he was given, James hit a bad shot—perfectly. The Red Team couldn’t help but laugh, it was as if two wrongs teamed up for an eagle opportunity. Sometimes you crawl through a river of shit and come out feeling like Andy Dufresne. 

Red needed a miracle at this point. Anything less than chipping in for eagle wouldn’t suffice. Johnny stepped up and hit what looked like the miracle they were asking for. Tracking perfectly, it rolled up to the cup, and then cruelly rimmed out. Story of the round. Trey gave it a go, but the golf gods were already popping champagne. They tapped in for birdie and watched on as the Blue Team sank their eagle putt to end the match 6&5.

Dominance. Merciless. A clinic in firepower, fortune, and fate. The Blue Team once again used their putters not as tools, but as weapons. It was a dead even match until they suddenly won six of seven holes, shooting -6 during that stretch to prematurely end the round and snatch Red’s soul along the way. There was nothing the Red Team could do but watch as every putt from Blue found the button of the cup. It was 2023 all over again. Red shot even par through the thirteen holes that were played—obviously didn’t set the world on fire but they sure as hell didn’t play bad golf. They just couldn’t make a putt to save their lives. Meanwhile Blue played the par-3’s at -2. Hell, Jeremy even solo birdied back to back holes. And just to prove they could do no wrong, they sealed the match with what began as a potential disaster and ended as a divine accident. The golf gods didn’t just bless the Blue Team this day, they baptized them in birdie serum and built a cathedral from Red’s missed putts—each stone a lip-out, each stained glass pane a memory of what could’ve been.

West/Storm vs. Felton/Blatt – 4&2 Blue

Trey/Johnny vs. James/Jeremy – 6&5 Blue

Blue Team: 3

Red Team: 1

Day II

“Someone once told me that there is more to life than golf. I think it was my ex-wife.” – Bruce Lansky

For the second straight year, the Blue Team jumped out to a thundering 3-1 lead over the Red Team, once again flexing their Day I dominance like it was muscle memory. At this point, they’re not just in the driver’s seat—they’ve adjusted the lumbar support, synced the Bluetooth, and asked Siri for directions to the winner’s circle. Meanwhile, the Red Team’s metaphorical shovels are looking more like spoons—chipped, bent, and barely hanging on from yet another year of digging out of a self-inflicted pit they seem to have on a timeshare plan. But, they were able to force the playoffs last year despite the deficit, why not again? Or at least, that’s what they kept telling themselves between deep sighs, forced smiles, and motivational speeches that were starting to feel more like fan fiction. Still a lot of golf left, and everyone knows Day II is where the tournament really begins.

Round III: Alternate Shot – The Madison Club, Madison, PA

The modified alternate shot round of the Danza is everyone’s favorite for one simple reason: it’s gracefully unpredictable. It’s the only format where trust is mandatory but entirely unreasonable—where your perfectly striped drive can be undone by your partner’s approach shot that travels approximately six feet and lands in a bunker named Regret. There’s an art to the alternating rhythm: one player sets the stage, the other tries not to trip over the curtains. And that’s the magic of it—every hole becomes a high-stakes duet, equal parts harmony and sabotage. You cheer, you cringe, you laugh, you blame—and by the end, win or lose, you’re closer than ever, mostly because you’ve emotionally blackmailed each other for 18 holes.

The first grouping out was the B/C matchup consisting of West and Johnny vs. Felton and Jeremy, but we’re going to come back to this one and talk about the second pairing first. The second pairing was the ever-eventful A/D matchup comprised of Trey and Storm vs. James and Blatt. If consistency is king, the A/D pairing is staging a coup. They specialize in high highs, low lows, and absolutely zero predictability. But despite the sheer inconsistency of each round, if there is one thing that stays the same, it is that all four matches have been blowouts. As it stands, the Red Team holds a 3-1 series lead in this matchup, coming off two straight wins. But every year is a clean slate. Every round a mystery.

Things started peacefully with a halved first hole—everyone still smiling, still hopeful, still pretending this might go the distance. But then Blue took the second. Then the third. And like that, the tone shifted. James and Blatt weren’t here to trade polite bogeys—they were here to apply pressure like a chiropractor with a grudge.

Hole four was Red’s one brief flirtation with actual golf, as they managed their only par of the day. But even that modest achievement was immediately undercut when Blue matched it and the hole was halved—a rare Red highlight that still felt like a missed opportunity.

Then came hole five, a trainwreck in two parts. Both teams limped in with matching double bogeys, a halved hole that looked more like mutual surrender than shared competence. After halving six with bogeys, Blue pressed their gas peddle to the floorboards, taking hole seven with style, dropping the only birdie of the entire match to extend their lead to three, and padded the lead yet again on nine to head to the turn 4-Up.

But oh, hole eleven. The lone bright spot on Red’s otherwise stormy scorecard—won with a triple bogey. Yes, you read that right. A victory so hideous, it belongs in a museum of modern golf disasters. Blue answered with an even more grotesque quadruple bogey, making Red’s win feel less like a rally and more like surviving a car crash slightly better than the other guy.

James and Blatt, unfazed by the horror show on eleven, responded with a businesslike win on thirteen, and dropped the guillotine on fifteen to end it with a commanding 5&3 victory.

If golf matches were meals, this one was a slow-cooked brisket—tender, deliberate, and by the end, completely devoured by James and Blatt. The Blue Team duo served Trey and Storm a heaping portion of methodical dominance, wrapping things up before the eighteenth flagstick even had a reason to stand up straight. Red had one measly par, a singular won hole that was so ugly it could’ve been censored, and a handful of halved holes that felt more like ceasefires than comebacks. Meanwhile, Blue played just clean enough, just sharp enough, and just deadly enough to keep Red gasping for air from the second tee shot on. 

By Trey’s own admission, this wasn’t his finest hour. Storm played well enough, doing everything that was asked of him to put Red in a position to win, Trey just couldn’t hold up his end of the bargain—mainly due to his poor putting and inaccuracy with his driver and irons. Or in other words, all of his clubs. And that’s what I meant when I said this round was a duet—one voice sings, the other hits a sour note, and suddenly you’re less Simon & Garfunkel and more two guys drunkenly fighting over a karaoke mic. The Red Team just never found their rhythm. The Blue Team on the other hand? They were Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. It was Islands in the Stream out there—if islands were greens, and the stream was a smooth, unbothered current of two-putt pars. 

A wire-to-wire win. A tactician’s triumph. A textbook example of how to win ugly, but win big. And just like that, another chapter in the ever-chaotic, always-lopsided A/D alt-shot saga was written in blue ink.

Back to the B/C grouping… The course’s opening hole was a par-5, leaving some slack in the line for the boys to toes wet before really digging in. But the Red Team said nah, let’s start this thing with a sledgehammer. Following some decent, but not great, tee shots, Red elected to play West’s drive and Johnny advanced the ball up the fairway. It was by no means a world-beater of a strike, but the ball traveled from point A to point B well enough. It was West who ignited the fire, hitting an approach shot from roughly 150 yards or so to—wait for it—six inches. Nearly holed the damn thing. Johnny tapped it in and Red took an early lead with a birdie on the first.

It was onto the dogleg right, par-4 second. Each team had solid drives down the middle. Playing West’s again, Johnny had a nice approach shot that come up just shy of the green. Electing to play Felton’s tee shot, it was Jeremy’s responsibility to hit the approach. He had a clean hit, but sent it out to the right towards a hillside. Fortunately for the Blue Team, Jeremy’s membership dues must’ve cleared, because the golf gods blessed him with the kind of bounce usually reserved for cartoon physics. Kicking off the hillside toward the promised land, Jeremy’s ball came to a rest a mere three feet from the hole. Felton knocked her in and the match was back to all square. Two holes, two birdies. The boys were buzzin’ like they’d just mainlined Red Bull and good vibes. 

The third and fourth holes were halved with pars. On the dogleg left fifth, Blue sent their tee shot OB right. Red played it safe and sent a nice, easy drive right down Broadway. Johnny cut the angle nicely on the approach, but came up forty yards short. Following their drop, Blue had an amazing recovery shot to the green, placing the threat of a potential halved hole on the Red Team. West overcooked his chip shot, sending it hot off the pan and past the green. With a very difficult downhill chip coming back, it was going to be very tough to get the ball to stop within range of a makable putt. With maybe a three to four foot circle of forgiveness to work with, Johnny hit the chip shot of the day, landing it with pinpoint accuracy right at the crown of a subtle mound, taking the speed off it and letting it trickle down, breaking right to left and nestling two feet from the cup. West tapped in for Red and the Blue Team was unable to make their hole-halving putt for par, giving Red the lead again.

Red settled for bogey on six, and with Blue having a chance to halve the hole with a four and a half foot putt, Jeremy heartbreakingly burnt the edge, tapping in for double and giving Red a 2-Up lead. Moving to the par-5 seventh, following their tee shots, both teams faced approximately two-hundred yards to the flag. Johnny was debating between hitting his 3-hybrid or his 5-iron. Talking with West as if he was his caddie, West gave his best Steve Williams impression and all but physically removed those clubs from Johnny’s hands and told him to lay up and hit an 8-iron. Johnny, never a fan of laying up, but not wanting to upset his now-volunteer caddie, reluctantly agreed. He struck it clean and the ball landed pin-high, ten yards off to the right of the green. Johnny apologized for his original call and thanked West for the caddying advice, but even still, both guys seemed bewildered on how his 8-iron travelled 3-hybrid distance, but they certainly weren’t complaining.

Meanwhile, the Blue Team started to unravel. Their approach went way left, OB. After taking a drop, Jeremy S-worded one right. Felton then chipped over the green. Praying for a miracle chip-in, the golf gods left Jeremy on read. West chipped on and Johnny lagged it up to a couple feet, and Blue finally waved the white flag. 3-Up Red.

Each team bogeyed the eighth. To close out the front, Red got themselves in some trouble. After leaving their approach shot ten-feet short on the apron, Johnny attempted to putt. But he left it six-feet short of the cup, like the ball just lost interest halfway there. West was unable to convert the par, taking a sad bogey. With he opportunity to take the hole, Jeremy once again had a four and a half foot breaker, and once again he burnt the edge. Red felt like they got away with petty larceny, and yet again, they would be filing no formal complaints.

Ten was halved with pars. And with a 3-Up lead, I guess Red (or maybe I should just say Johnny), decided things were getting a little too comfortable, and wanted to spice up their match—by singlehandedly detonating their lead on holes eleven through thirteen. While Blue rattled off three straight pars, Red played them at double bogey, bogey, bogey. It was as if Johnny’s swing had been abducted—Space Jam-style—and he completely lost his driver and irons, duffing shot after shot. The match was even again, and just like that, Red went from cruise control to mayday.

On the par-4, dogleg left fourteenth—continuing to ride this wave of momentum—Jeremy hit the drive of the day. Evidently using the Hammer of Thor, he pounded his drive overtop the trees, cutting the angle out entirely, and landed just twenty yards off the green. West also blasted one in his own right—not quite Norse god-level blasting, but definitely demi-god adjacent—leaving Red with just forty-five yards to the green. Seemingly returning to form from his athletic leave of absence, Johnny hit a buttery pitch shot to five feet. Felton answered right back, chipping theirs to four feet. Despite only having five feet for birdie, Red’s line to the hole had so much curvature and illusions it looked like the ball had to cross a mini-golf course designed by M.C. Escher. West gently tapped his ball and it embarked on an odyssey—navigating breaks, bumps, and subtle tilts—before finally arriving at the lip of the cup… pausing… thinking about it… and then dropping in with the slow-motion drama of Tiger’s famous Nike ball. The Red Team gave an enthusiastic Tiger-like fist pump to go along with it. With four feet left to tie the hole, Jeremy stood over yet another short putt—his personal nemesis at this point. The stroke looked decent, but for the third time, it cruelly burnt the edge… The cup might as well have had a restraining order against him.

The fifteenth was a 180-yard par-3, but with the wind howling in our faces, it was playing closer to 200. West rose to the challenge, hitting a brilliant shot that held its line and found the far right side of the green. Jeremy, on the other hand, pulled his tee shot way left, landing it atop a hill that looked like a guaranteed bogey waiting to happen. But just like on hole two, with his membership card laminated and firmly in his back pocket, the golf gods escorted his ball to the dance floor like it was being chauffeured in a golf cart made of clouds, rolling to twelve feet with zero interest in physics or fairness. Johnny lagged his birdie putt to a cozy three feet. Felton had a clean look at birdie but couldn’t convert. West calmly stepped up and knocked in his putt to secure the halve and maintain their 1-Up lead with three to play.

Sixteen was a dogleg right par-3, West pissed on his drive and put it to 35-40 yards out. Felton had a solid tee shot in his own right, leaving Jeremy with a 100-yard approach. Jeremy put it on to the back left of the green. Johnny skulled his pitch shot a bit, sending his ball quickly skidding past the green like it was late for a meeting. From fifty feet out, and in dramatic fashion as always, Felton buried the long snake of a putt for birdie and gave the biggest fist pump this side of Augusta. The momentum had once again shifted in Blue’s favor. But Red wasn’t quite done yet. Lining up his chip from roughly five yards off the green, West gave it his best effort to make it, and he one-hopped it to the cup, only for it to brutally rim out—a theme he had been doing a lot this Danza. The golf gods couldn’t make up their minds who they wanted to punish most, and at this point it just felt like they were having a good laugh.

All square as the boys headed to seventeen, tensions at an all time high. The boys were staring down a 125-yard par-3, with wind absolutely whipping in their face, making the hole play more like 160—an angry little beast of a hole disguised in a short yardage number. Jeremy led off, and he caught his shot a little thick, leaving it just short of the green—but with a brutal downhill slope protecting the green, his ball rolled all the way down and stopped just at the base of the hill, staying in bounds by the skin of his teeth. Felton hit his right of the green, landing in a little gulley. West uncorked a full-blooded pitching wedge and caught it clean as a whistle, but the gusts punched it right back in the face and dropped it cruelly into the front bunker. Having just seen the brutality of the wind’s wrath, Johnny went back to the cart and switched out his 8-iron for his 7. He too, struck his ball silky smooth, and what looked like a perfect shot destined for the green, also ended up in the bunker. Seventeen hadn’t even blinked and it was already leaving bruises.

The boys had some decisions to make—this wasn’t just golf anymore, it was chess with wedges. The Blue Team elected to play Felton’s ball. It was pin-high, sure, but the pin itself was tucked all the way on the other side of the green, like a dare. Doing his best to judge the speed and downhill slope, Jeremy crossed his fingers and gave it a whack. Just a hair too much hot sauce, he sent his ball over the green to the rough on the other side. Back to the Red Team, they took their time deliberating. West’s ball was in a better position, but Johnny didn’t feel confident in his bunker-shot game. Usually a picker out of the sand, that shot wasn’t going to play here, as it was a dome-shaped bunker with a large wall that would take some serious elevation to clear. West is clearly the better bunker player, but the problem was that Johnny’s ball was against the back wall—a horror show that required a miracle of geometry and core strength. This match is equal parts decision making, equal parts execution, and ultimately, putting his ego on the shelf, Johnny made the executive call to hand the reins to West.

West climbed into the bunker like a man entering the ring. He braced himself—hind leg anchored on the ridge, lead foot buried deep in the sand—his stance looked more like a yoga pose than a golf shot. West, summoning every ounce of torque and fury in his body—no, his soul—unleashed as fierce and violent a swing as he ever had before, ripping through the sand and resulting in an explosion, sending his ball soaring thirty feet in the air and about a bucket’s worth of sand out onto the green. His ball landed the green and hopped into the rough. Honestly as a good a result as Red could have hoped for.

Felton chipped his to six or seven feet. Johnny putted from the rough and rolled it up to three feet. Clutching up big time, Jeremy drained a very difficult, downhill breaking putt for bogey. West knocked in his to match, keeping it all square. Neither team willing to give an inch. Eighteen was calling…

By this point, the group behind had finished their round and joined the party to kick back, have some popcorn, and watch the show. The eighteenth was a mammoth of a par-5 with wind in the group’s face the whole way. The whole gang hit solid drives to the right of the fairway. Red chose to play West’s drive, and with water lurking ominously to the left, Johnny stepped up and delivered an absolute missile—a 190-yard 4-iron striped up the right side, hugging safety, and landing with authority. Easily his best iron of the day, and maybe of the tournament.

Felton followed with a gutsy shot up the high right side that took a friendly bounce off the hill, found the cart path, and then caught a free ride up to about eighty yards out—sometimes fortune favors the bold… and the bounces.

From ninety-three yards, but with the wind howling in their faces and adding twenty to thirty phantom yards, West grabbed his sand wedge and flushed it. Off the clubface, it looked perfect. But perfection is relative in a windstorm. The ball flew deep and settled on the very back edge of the green. Jeremy followed with a clean approach of his own—same story, same ending: back of the green.

Then came Johnny, facing what could only be described as a sadistic putt. Downhill. Breaking like a drunken snake. Forty-plus feet away and barely able to see the line, he studied the green like he was cramming for a calculus final—reading every ridge, every slope, every grain of grass. Then, with a surgeon’s touch, he gave it the softest of taps as if he were only trying to hit it six feet or so. The ball crept up to the ridge, hesitated… and then gravity took over. It caught the downslope and trickled… and trickled… and trickled… until it came to rest just three feet from the hole. The gallery—now thick behind the green—was holding its breath.

Felton followed but left his putt well short, the speed just never there, as if the downhill slope outright conspired against him. Jeremy’s downhill breaker came in hot and ran past, and Felton’s comeback attempt from six feet grazed the edge but refused to drop.

With two strokes in hand and three feet between him and victory, West needed only one. He calmly stepped up and knocked it in with authority—slamming the gavel down, signaling to all watching that court was officially adjourned, case closed, match over. 

This was one of the best matches ever played at the Danza. All four guys seemed to be rolling on all cylinders, and any match that comes down to the eighteenth is always going to be an electric finish. I know the Danza is a match play event and we rarely talk about the actual scores because that’s irrelevant, but I think it deserves mention that the Red Team shot a 79 and the Blue Team shot an 80. For a modified alt-shot round, that’s pretty incredible. This match could’ve easily gone either way, but this time, it went in Red’s favor, extending West and Johnny’s partnership record to 4-1, cementing them as a formidable force.

West/Johnny vs. Felton/Jeremy – 1-Up Red

Trey/Storm vs. James/Blatt – 5&3 Blue

Blue Team: 4

Red Team: 2

“I’m going to work so that it’s a pure guts race at the end, and if it is, I am the only one who can win it.” — Steve Prefontaine

Round IV: Individual – The Highlands Golf Club at Seven Springs, Champion, PA

The final round at the Danza isn’t a golf match—it’s a reckoning. A 1v1, mono-e-mono crucible where every match feels like a bare-knuckle brawl dressed in polos and spikes. By this point, it’s not about technique—it’s about who wants it more. Sheer survival takes precedence over style. Four matches. No teammates to lean on. No second chances. Just pride, pressure, and the long shadow of the Danza Cup looming over every shot.

The Blue Team entered the final round with the Cup in their sights, needing just one win and a tie to seal the deal and etch another notch into their dynasty. Red, on the other hand, stood on the edge of a cliff—needing a clean sweep, or at the very least three wins and a tie, to rip the Cup away from Blue’s hands. And if history was any indicator, the probability of this bordered on impossible. In the four-year saga leading up to this moment, these very matchups held a lopsided record of 10-4-2 in favor of Blue. The odds weren’t just stacked, they were practically welded shut. But the Danza has never been polite to expectations. Cups have slipped. Leads have vanished. In this final round, truly anything can happen. The Danza doesn’t hand out legends—it forges them.

Red needed the impossible.

And sometimes, impossible is just another word for destiny waiting its turn.

West vs. Felton

Felton came out swinging, striking first blood on the opening hole and briefly setting the tone. But West responded immediately on the second, evening the match before the two settled into a stalemate over holes 3 and 4.

Then came the turning point.

Starting on hole five, West caught absolute fire. Over the next five holes, he torched the course and left Felton spinning—winning five straight (holes five through nine) in what can only be described as a scorched-earth run. It wasn’t just solid golf—it was calculated punishment. Fairways, greens, putts—West put Felton in a blender, hit purée, and never looked back.

After the turn, Felton managed to steady the ship momentarily, halving the tenth, but the damage had already been done. West tacked on another win at eleven, pushing the lead to a commanding 5-Up with just seven holes to play.

To Felton’s credit, he didn’t fold. With his back against the wall, he mounted a late push, clawing back holes twelve and thirteen with grit and precision, then halving fourteen to stay alive. When he won the fifteenth, the whispers started—was a comeback actually in the works?

But the mountain was simply too steep, and Felton ran out of holes.

The sixteenth was halved, and West had put the final nail in the coffin. It wasn’t a knockout blow so much as a slow, strategic bleed—one that began on hole five and never truly stopped. Felton made him earn it, but West’s mid-round dominance had already scripted the ending. West wins 3&2.

Trey vs. James

In a tournament that never fails to deliver heart-pounding drama, the final round of the Danza brought forth a clash worthy of the spotlight. The A-players. Trey of the Red Team went toe-to-toe with James of the Blue in a pressure-packed singles match that carried seismic implications. The stakes? Nothing less than the momentum of the entire tournament. The history? A lopsided 3-0-1 record in James’ favor. But history has a funny way of folding when the moment is big enough—and on this day, Trey was determined to make it bend.

Trey struck first, and fast. He claimed the opening two holes with sharp, confident play, sending an unmistakable message: this would not be like the last four years. James, cool and calculated as always, absorbed the early blow and countered, winning the fifth and the seventh to even the match. The front nine ended with a string of tense halves, and the two turned for home deadlocked, both locked in and unrelenting.

The tenth saw James strike again, taking a 1-Up lead with a bogey to Trey’s double. But Trey didn’t flinch. He punched back immediately with a win on the eleventh. On the thirteenth, he edged James with solid course management and nerves of steel. And then came the defining moment: the par-3 fourteenth. With pressure mounting, Trey delivered the only birdie of the entire match to go 2-Up with just four holes to play. It wasn’t just clutch; it was seismic.

James, to his credit, refused to go quietly. He snagged the fifteenth to trim the lead back to one, once again putting the outcome in doubt. But Trey, channeling something deeper, locked in and refused to blink. They halved the sixteenth. On the seventeenth, Trey buried a wildly clutch fifteen-footer… for double bogey—enough to halve the hole. It’s not often that a double bogey warrants a thunderous fist pump, but in this particular case, it wasn’t just a justified response, it was the only response.

It was on to the eighteenth, with the match—and possibly the tournament—hanging in the balance. Trey hit a solid drive down the right side, just off into the rough, but within pitching wedge-distance to the green. James also had a solid drive, and both guys would hit their wedges into the green. James rolled up his birdie putt, but couldn’t get it to fall. James knocked in his parr-putt, and from there, Trey was just two putts away from tying a bow on this match. He lagged it up gracefully, and tapped it in. The final hole belonged to neither man, but the match belonged to Trey. A 1-Up victory.

With that victory, Trey did more than just topple a personal demon—he put the Red Team back on level ground. His win secured the fourth point, knotting the overall score at 4-4 with two matches still pending behind them. In doing so, he not only ended James’ unbeaten streak, but did it when it mattered most, with a birdie no one else could find and ice in his veins.

It was gritty. It was gutsy. It was redemptive. For Trey, it wasn’t just a win—it was a statement. And it echoed across the entire course.

Johnny vs. Jeremy

It was an ugly start for Jeremy, who sent his tee shot  way left onto the driving range. Took him a little while to sift through the different balls to find his own before taking another couple whacks to get it back into safe play. By the time Jeremy got his ball up to the green and tapped in for triple bogey, Johnny was already in with a clean par to take the opening lead. Shaking off the disgustingness that was his start, Jeremy bounced back with a par to Johnny’s bogey to even things off. But quickly reverting to poor form on the par-3 third, Jeremy launched his tee shot so far off-line his ball needed a passport. Johnny hit his perfectly to center green, and after Jeremy continued to flub it around some more, he decided it was time to concede the hole. Jeremy took the fifth, with stalemates on four and six, keeping the tension taut. Johnny took seven and eight, and with a halved hole on nine, he built himself a nice two-hole cushion heading to the back.

The tenth was halved in silence, the calm before another storm. Jeremy clawed one back on the eleventh, steadying himself with a composed par while Johnny unraveled into a double bogey. Just like that, the lead was trimmed to 1-Down, and the match felt alive again. The twelfth, however, was a shared stumble—both players dragging a double bogey across the finish line in what felt less like a golf hole and more like a mutual agreement to keep the chaos going. On thirteen, Johnny regained ground with yet another double bogey—this time to Jeremy’s even more embarrassing triple. If there was beauty in precision, this stretch was a gallery of abstract art.

Jeremy struck back with authority on the fourteenth, grabbing the hole and shifting the mood yet again. But Johnny answered immediately, delivering a clutch up-and-down on the fifteenth to steal the momentum right back. By now, the match was a seesaw of sloppiness, nerve, and resilience.

Then came the sixteenth—a hole that quickly descended into a mess of misfires and misfortune. Both tee shots veered wildly off course, and their so-called “recovery shots” only added to the madness. By the time they reached the green, each man was staring down their fifth shot. Johnny faced a delicate downhill roll from just off the fringe, and Jeremy had a nervy ten-to-twelve-footer to deal with. Johnny, clearly fearing the downhill speed, barely nudged his ball, advancing it just a couple feet past the fringe and leaving himself a testy seven-footer. Jeremy cozied his closer, leaving about four feet for his own bogey.

Johnny’s putt grazed the edge but refused to drop, and with visible frustration, he tapped in for double. Now Jeremy had a golden chance to close the gap to 1-Down—and possibly tilt the match heading into the final holes. But the putter that betrayed him in the alt-shot round came back for an encore, as his ball too burnt the edge. The hole was halved, but it felt like a loss for both.

Each man walked off the green wearing the same expression: disgust at their own short-game meltdown, paired with quiet relief that their opponent had imploded just as spectacularly. It was a strange cocktail of frustration and gratitude—a feeling only golf can deliver with uncanny regularity.

***I’m going to put this round summary on pause and come back to it after covering Storm and Blatt’s first sixteen holes, as the final two holes for each pairing are intricately tied to one another, as well as to the events up ahead.***

Storm vs. Blatt

Winless through the first three rounds of the Danza, Storm entered the day with one goal: don’t get swept. The last thing he wanted was to hand Blatt a ticket into the ultra-exclusive, gold-plated, bragging-rights-for-life 4-0 Club, alongside Felton. Determined to flip the script, Storm came out like a man possessed—firing on all cylinders and storming (no pun intended) out to a commanding 3-Up lead after just three holes. But just as quickly as the fire ignited, hole four brought a bucket of cold water. Perhaps a bit drunk on momentum, Storm’s game veered into chaos, and he posted a soul-crushing quintuple bogey. Blatt, never one to pass up a gift, took the hole with a humble double bogey, trimming the lead back to two.

Then came the par-5 fifth, and with it, pure disaster… for Blatt. What began poorly only got worse, and then somehow worse again. It was a slow-motion car crash on a fairway. Still, with the memory of once winning a hole against Storm with a 10 to his 11, Blatt knew better than to ever concede. But this time, the miracle never came. Blatt carded an 11—a score bordering on preposterous, while Storm made a workmanlike bogey to stretch the lead back to 3-Up.

On the par-3 sixth, things unraveled even faster. After missing the green, Blatt entered a sad little game of ping-pong across it, bouncing back and forth with growing frustration. With Storm safely on in regulation and looking steady, Blatt finally scooped up his ball and waved the white flag. Through six holes, Storm held a commanding 4-Up lead and the momentum of a man trying to erase three rounds of heartbreak in one afternoon.

Blatt momentarily stopped the bleeding with a win on the seventh—though it came via a triple-bogey eight to Storm’s quadruple-bogey nine, a scorecard only a mother could love. Storm rebounded and took the eighth, and during the ninth hole, as Johnny and Storm were driving their cart up the fairway, they quickly convened with their Red teammates to find out West was leading Felton by five holes and Trey and James were tied. Seeing as Storm was currently 4-Up and Johnny was sitting at 2-Up, they weren’t just looking to force the playoffs, they were now hyping each other up to go 4-0 and win the whole damn thing here and now. But despite the Red Team’s little pep talk, Storm ultimately gave the ninth away with a blow-up and concession, closing the front nine with a 3-Up advantage. Still, with neither man having halved a single hole to that point, and volatility reigning supreme, this match felt far from over.

The tenth finally brought something the match hadn’t seen all day: peace. Both players trudged off with matching double bogeys, finally halving a hole after nine rounds of haymakers. On eleven, Storm steadied himself with a par while Blatt doubled, pushing the lead back to 4-Up with just seven to play. Blatt responded on twelve, but Storm countered on thirteen, refusing to let the door open even an inch. With five holes remaining and Storm still 4-Up, Blatt was officially on the ropes. If he was going to tie or win the match, it would take a colossal effort—and Storm would have to hand-deliver the collapse on a silver platter.

Blatt took the fourteenth with a triple-bogey seven to Storm’s quad, cutting his deficit to three with four to play. On the par-3 fifteenth, both Storm and Blatt missed the green. After chipping on, Blatt was left with a long putt for par and Storm had roughly five feet for his. Blatt lagged it up and knocked in the bogey. Storm, now with a five-foot putt to win the match, consulted with Johnny to read the line. Johnny read it as left edge of the cup and told him to hit it firm. Nervous about hitting it firm and rolling it too far past the hole, Storm instead brushed it with a feather and left it short. He knocked in the bogey, and the match remained 3-Up in Storm’s favor with three to play. Mathematically out of reach for Blatt to win, all Storm needed was a single halved-hole and the victory was his.

On the par-5 sixteenth, Storm hit a ground-ball about fifty yards off the tee. Unfortunately for him, that would be the highlight of the hole for him. Blatt wasn’t exactly painting a masterpiece either, as both guys were dragging their ball up the fairway (and by fairway I mean rough) kicking and screaming. Blatt knocked his ball in for a triple-bogey eight, while Storm’s ball finally came screeching to a halt at the bottom of the cup for after a ten-stroke saga filled with sadness and regret. Storm’s lead now 2-Up with two to play.

***We are now merging round summaries***

Heading to the seventeenth, both Red players held 2-Up leads. With only two holes to play, neither could lose, but tying wasn’t part of the plan. Not knowing yet what was going on up ahead, Jeremy and Blatt were determined to win these last two holes and rip the rug out from under Johnny and Storm’s feet. Starting off on the right foot, Blatt put a decent one safely into play and Jeremy blasted one dead center down the fairway. Storm also hit a decent one out there. Johnny on the other hand, did not. He pulled his way left, which crashed into a tree about fifty yards away from the tee box, sending it twenty yards backwards. In case you weren’t doing the math, I’ll do it for you: it was a thirty-yard drive. Blatt and Storm each started to fumble it around from there. Johnny had a decent recovery second shot, but he was way behind the eight ball on this one. Luckily for him, Jeremy began to wobble, sending his next shot way right into dangerous territory. All four guys then more or less hacked their balls up towards the green, none of which in stylish fashion. 

By this point, the group up ahead had finished their round and came back to break the news that both West and Trey had won their matches. With the overall score now knotted 4-4 and Johnny and Storm each in an un-losable position, the Red Team found themselves staring down destiny. It was Danza Cup Champions or bust—time to end the three year losing streak. Two holes to finish out, all either man would need was to simply halve either hole. Just because I’m in the mood to continue with math lessons, that gave them four chances at glory… or four opportunities to let the moment slip.

Up by the green and perhaps a bit too eager to close the curtain, Storm began swatting his ball across the dance floor like he was trying to chase it off stage. What followed was a putting performance better suited for a blooper reel than a championship moment. After a series of clumsy whacks back and forth, he finally tapped in for a messy eight—not enough to tie Blatt’s gritty six. Bullet one of four: dodged by the Blue Team.

Meanwhile, Johnny was grinding his way toward a possible clincher of his own. One stroke behind Jeremy upon reaching the putting surface, he now stood twelve feet from destiny. Jeremy had just two-putted for double bogey, and the fate of the Danza Cup now rested on the edge of Johnny’s putter face. A left-to-right breaker stood between him and Red Team glory. He crouched, read it, lined it up, and gave it a confident stroke.

It rolled… it turned… and slid heartbreakingly past the edge. Bullet two: dodged by Blue.

The Blue Team had slipped the noose—twice—narrowly eluding defeat as fate held its breath. With the Danza Cup still delicately balanced on a knife’s edge, the tournament marched on to the seventy-second tee like the final page of an epic. One last hole remained—a single chapter left to write, where triumph and heartbreak waited side by side.

Hole Seventy-Two

All eight players now stood gathered around the final tee box, hearts pounding, breath held, adrenaline peaking. The Danza Cup hung delicately in the balance, and everyone knew it—this was it. The last hole. The final act. The closing scene of a four-round, drama-soaked saga.

The Blue Team led things off, and immediately, the chaos began. Blatt’s tee shot took a hard right turn into a thicket of trees, catching lumber on the way in and vanishing into a wall of bark and branches. Jeremy followed suit—also right—but at least managed to steer clear of the woods, keeping things… marginally playable.

Then came the Red Team, and Storm rose to the occasion. He absolutely stepped on his drive, launching it down the center of the fairway with purpose. Johnny followed with a near-carbon copy, his ball landing just ten yards left of Storm’s. Red was back in the driver’s seat—and this time, literally.

Blatt’s second shot? Tree branch. Again. It fell back to earth like it had hit a ceiling. His third? Another tree. But this one, mercifully, spit the ball out to an opening. Jeremy’s approach, meanwhile, shot way left—not at all in the direction he was hoping. The Blue Team was in full scramble mode.

Meanwhile, the Red boys were sitting pretty—150 yards out, middle of the fairway, eyes on the prize. Sensing the moment, Storm turned to Johnny and suggested laying up and playing safe. Johnny stared at him like he’d grown a second head. “We’re 150 out,” he said. “There’s literally nothing in front of us. Just hit your 150 club.”

Storm nodded, lined it up, and promptly hit a holy roller—a ground-hugging thirty-yard worm-burner that made everyone silently reconsider the lay-up plan. But no matter, Johnny was up next. All he needed was to hit the green and ice the Danza. He pulled a 7-iron, gave it a confident rip… and sent it miles right, burying it under a tree in deep rough.

Suddenly, the moment was slipping.

Blatt’s fourth settled just off the green. Jeremy, now hitting his third, found the green but left himself a long par putt. Storm, still deep in “holy roller” mode, chunked another one—still not on the green. Johnny, faced with an awkward lie and needing to clear a bunker to a short-sided pin, tried to feather a shot with finesse. The grass swallowed his club, and the ball dribbled forward fifteen yards, still shy of the sand. The Red Team’s dream finish was turning into a slow-motion nightmare.

Johnny’s next shot made the green but rolled out to fifteen feet, leaving a tough putt to save bogey. Blatt, who had been bushwhacking for most of the hole, found his game when he needed it most, hitting a silky chip shot to four feet above the cup, a perfect touch at the perfect time. Storm, now hitting his fourth, nudged a pitch just short of the green, but was puttable. He lagged it beautifully up there for a one-foot tap-in, finally showing some touch.

Jeremy lagged his bogey putt to three feet. With Johnny now facing a fifteen-footer for bogey, the spotlight shifted to him—make it, and the Danza was over. Miss, and the Blue Team lived to fight one more moment. Johnny crouched over the ball, studied every blade of grass between his ball and the cup, and stroked it with conviction… but it broke early and skated just right of the hole.

He tapped in for double—an anticlimactic end given the position he was in off the tee.

Jeremy, composed, banged in his three-footer for bogey, winning the hole and halving the match. Bullet three of four: dodged.

But it still wasn’t over. The Blue Team was hanging on by a thread. Now, it was all down to Blatt. His double bogey putt—four feet, downhill, nervy—would either extend the tournament one more swing… or end it on the spot. He stood over the ball, took a breath, and rolled it in with authority.

Now it was Storm’s turn. One-foot away. One single foot to glory. Trey and West stood in the foreground, ready to come sprinting onto the green to celebrate. And then, from behind, Johnny decided to crank up the tension to eleven.

“TO WIN THE DANZA!” he shouted like a gameshow host about to give away a car.

Storm froze. The moment swelled.

The three Red teammates were crouched with their hands on their knees, buttcheeks firmly clenched, eyes locked. Storm leaned over his ball, and visibly nervous, drew the putter back…

And tapped it.

Or at least… we think he did. It was the softest, most delicate attempt at a putt ever witnessed on a golf course. If a butterfly had sneezed on the ball, it might’ve gone farther. Just as the Peregrine came up shy of the moon, Storm’s ball came up shy of the hole—each crashing and burning in equal proportion. 

It rolled… six inches.

SIX. OF TWELVE. REQUIRED. INCHES.

The Red Team collapsed in disbelief. Hands on heads. Knees to turf. The Blue Team stood frozen—not celebrating, just stunned. This couldn’t be real. Storm tapped in the remaining half-foot for triple bogey, officially losing the hole… and halving the match.

Four out of four bullets: dodged.

At this point, in this twisted game of Danza Russian Roulette, the Blue Team began to wonder if they were playing with blanks.

And that was that. The final chapter closed. The individual round ended with two wins for Red, two halved matches, and three showdowns that went the full eighteen. After four rounds of passion, pain, and pure match play madness, for the third straight year—and four out of five—the Danza Cup ended in a 5-5 tie.

Apparently, even fate couldn’t pick a winner.

Johnny vs. Jeremy

Storm vs. Blatt

Storm vs. Blatt: All-Square

Trey vs. James: 1-Up Red

Johnny vs. Jeremy: All-Square

West vs. Felton: 3&2 Red

Blue Team: 5

Red Team: 5

“I went to play golf and tried to shoot my age, but I shot my weight instead.” — Bob Hope

Sudden Death Playoff

Two plus two equals four.

The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.

Objects fall to the earth at 9.81 meters per second square.

And the Danza Cup goes to the sudden death playoffs.

These are not opinions. They are laws—unchangeable, eternal, as reliable as a double bogey after a perfect drive.

It didn’t matter that the Red Team held two separate 2-Up leads with two to play. It didn’t matter that they had four chances—four!—to close the door. And it certainly didn’t matter that Storm was standing over a one-foot putt with the Cup within reach and the celebration already queued up.

Because in the Danza, fate has a funny way of tightening its grip when things seem all but over. And so, for the third straight year—and the fourth time in five—the final chapter wasn’t written on the seventy-second green. The score read 5-5. Again. Because just as sure as gravity pulls the ball down, the Danza pulls us into sudden death.

It was never a matter of if. Only how.

And as much as this is is a weekend golf competition amongst friends, the sudden death playoffs are anything but friendly. There are no co-champions of the Danza Cup. No splitting the Cup like a joint custody agreement. No, the Danza Cup is a zero sum game. There could be only one winner. And more importantly—one loser. And more often than not, the margin between triumph and heartbreak is often decided by a single swing. May the odds be ever in your favor.

…

The sudden death playoff was to be played on the par-3 third hole—a short, downhill 108-yard hole that played more like eighty yards. For the Red Team, still emotionally reeling from four missed chances to seal the tournament in regulation, it was time to shake off the ghosts. No more what-ifs, no more six-inch disasters. The only thing that mattered now was the swing ahead

After flipping a tee, it was the Red Team to go first. Storm led off with a mis-hit, catching it fat and coming up short. Blatt too followed with a miss. Despite hitting this exact tee shot to ten feet in regulation, Johnny couldn’t replicate—chunking his wedge and leaving his ball in the bunker, a cruel reminder that past success offers no protection in sudden death. Jeremy carded a DNF on this hole in regulation, so he wasn’t exactly feeling over-confident about it now. He gave it a swipe, and once again sent it right of the green. West was up next, and after deciding to club down, he hit what he thought was a perfect shot, but at the elevated tee, the wind was quite tricky, and ever the silent saboteur, it knocked his ball down into the front bunker—a tale as old as Myrtle. Two more feet in the air and it might’ve cozied up near kick-in range. But, no dice. Felton followed and he missed left of the green. So far, six gentlemen up on what was technically an eighty-yard par-3, and not a soul landed the green. 

For the third year in a row, Storm, Johnny, and West were now a collective 0/9 on hitting the green in the sudden death playoff scramble. In the previous two, Trey saved their asses by putting one on. And for a third consecutive year, he saved them again. Placing his tee shot to fifteen feet, he showed why he’s the A-player, coming up clutch when they needed him most. With the Blue Team not having a ball on the green, James needed to show why he too, is the A-player. And that’s exactly what he did. Although not nearly as good a shot as Trey’s, James put it deep back-left, leaving them with close to forty feet.

For the first time in four playoffs, Red had the closer ball, giving Blue the unwanted duty of putting first. One by one they went down the line, giving whack after whack. Still having flashbacks from James fifty-foot tournament winner in Myrtle, the Red Team held their breath on each one. Four men up, four missed putts. They were able to get one to three, four feet or so, and given the four man scramble format for the first playoffs, Red waved it off, knowing four guys weren’t going to miss from there.

At last, Red got to have the feeling of having the ball in their court on the final turn. Fifteen feet from glory, it was Storm to lead ‘em off. He had a decent run, leaving it to a few feet, and what would be considered a pick-up. That allowed the remaining three guys to give it a true run for the win. Johnny went next. After a few moments of studying, he found the line and gave it a strike. Right from the beginning, you knew it was on-line.  A slight left-to-right breaker, it was gradually making its way back to the hole. Johnny, starting to raise his putter in what he thought was going to be the highlight of his golf career, had to stop his premature celebration when his ball came to a rest mere inches from falling in. That alone was heartbreak. It was dead center of the cup, but just a revolution or two away from perfection.

Having given the perfect line to West and Trey, they still had two solid chances to bring this thing down, and raise the Cup. West, not having had to putt in quite some time now since his round ended a little early, didn’t have the right feel, and he left his putt several feet short. With one last hope, and yet another bullet for Blue to dodge—something they were getting good at at this point, Trey gave it his best. Unfortunately for Red, he ran it by the cup. Blue lives to see another round.

…

In previous years, the rules for the second round of the sudden death playoffs were that each team was to hold a democratic vote and send forth a single gladiator of their choosing to represent the entire team. Almost inevitably, it came down to the A- or B-players—whichever one was hotter at the time. But over steak and cocktails before this year’s Danza kicked off, a rule change was proposed.

Why should the top dogs always get the moment? What about the C and D players, those valiant soldiers in the shadows, forever grinding without glory? What about their shot at the spotlight? Feeling that such a moment should get to be experienced by everyone at some point, and knowing the unlikelihood that the playoffs would go four or five rounds, the C and D players wouldn’t have the chance to experience that moment (although Jeremy did nominate himself the year prior). So the boys made their votes, and with a majority, it was officially changed to having the two corresponding players of their respective letter-grade (A, B, C, or D) be randomly assigned via Johnny’s now-legendary generator.

So with that, Johnny whipped out the generator, plugged in the letters A, B, C, and D, and spun the digital wheel of destiny. As fate would have it, the ticker landed on… D. 

And just like that, the weight of the Cup fell on two men: Storm and Blatt.

For Blatt, it was a chance to keep the momentum going. For Storm, it was a shot at redemption. Incidentally, on this very hole earlier in the day, Storm had gotten the best of Blatt. But that seemed like a lifetime ago, given all the twists and turns that had happened since. 

The two boys got in their cart and rode back up to the tee box. They flipped a tee to determine order, and it was Storm to lead off. Having had a nice shot here earlier, he was hoping to repeat that swing. But pressure has a funny way of rewriting muscle memory. Storm skulled his tee shot, sending it well past the hole and to the right, not the start he was hoping for. With a clear opportunity to take complete control, Blatt lined up to hit his shot. As if the golf gods demanded symmetry, Blatt mirrored Storm’s shot, skulling it forty yards past the hole.

The other six guys couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The entire tournament rests on these two guys’ shoulders and these were the shots that would decide it all. West even yelled back to the guys on the tee box saying, “Just tee it up again!” since both men had identically piss-poor shots. But everyone else stepped in and said no, let it be. No mulligans, no mercy. This is a disaster, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. These were the D-players after all. This is the kind of carnage we signed up for when we voted on this rule change. It was beautifully catastrophic.

After making their way down the hill, both guys found their balls, neither of which in good shape. From their respective angles, the green sat perched on a steep slope like a fortress. Not only was Storm’s ball in the rough and staring up the steep hill, he also had tree branches hanging directly over his head. Like Scottie Scheffler at Valhalla, he was in jail. He attempted his best swing, and actually had a really clean hit. Unfortunately for him it was probably too clean, because it shot straight up and hit a tree branch, sending it right back down.

The door was now wide open for Blatt to make a move. Despite inconsistent play all day, Blatt rose to every big occasion when he needed to most. And this was the biggest occasion of them all. He hit one of his better shots of the day, clearing the hillside and landing it just a few feet shy of the green. He was still left with a difficult downhill chip, but simply clearing that hill was a win in itself, and he now had the upper-hand on Storm.

Once again needing to clear the hillside, Storm had a very similar pitch to the one Blatt just hit—just clearing the peak and settling on the fringe. Being a shot ahead, it was back to Blatt. With a slippery downhill chip shot that required maximum precision, Blatt hit his singular best shot of the day, gracefully landing his ball softly and letting it die four feet shy of the hole.

Back to Storm, knowing Blatt was a stroke ahead with just four feet to the hole, he realized he pretty much had to make it. It was a very difficulty downhill right to left breaker, and he gave it his best effort. And a good effort it was, but it wasn’t the result Red needed. It came to a stop a few feet from the hole. Storm marked his ball and it was back to Blatt.

In the infamous words of Johnny—TO WIN THE DANZA—Blatt had just four feet separating himself—and the Blue Team—from bringing the Cup home for a fourth consecutive year. But this wasn’t your ordinary four feet. This was a slippery downhill putt with some break to it. It would require the perfect blend of aiming point and pace to make it. Because the threat of running it by the cup to six feet past the hole was certainly a possibility. Not wanting to think too much about the ramifications of missing it, Blatt stepped overtop of it with brass balls and nerves of steel, and gave it a firm, confident hit. There was no letting it die in the cup, he had every intent to jam it right down the throat of that cup. And that’s exactly what he did. Game. Set. Match. Tournament.

The Danza Cup was heading back home with the Blue Team for the fourth year in a row. The Red Team snatched defeat from the jaws of victory—and then choked on it. What unfolded wasn’t just a collapse of composure, but a complete erosion of spirit. It was the kind of meltdown that gets etched into Danza lore with a chisel, not a pen. And the cruel irony? If they’d closed the door, we’d be calling it a Blue Team catastrophe for the ages. Blue entered the final round up 4–2, backed by a dynasty of individual round dominance. No one expected a 4–0 Red sweep—but when it got to seventeen, and Trey delivered a dagger to James, that fantasy started to breathe. The Red sideline began to twitch with life. The whispers became cheers. They started tasting champagne—imagining themselves drenched in glory, parading with the Cup high overhead. They saw the photos, the toasts, the legacy… and in that moment, they lost it.

Because while they were fantasizing about celebration, Jeremy and Blatt were sharpening knives. And in those final moments, Johnny and Storm couldn’t muster a single halved hole as they felt the walls caving in.  What Jeremy and Blatt pulled off wasn’t just heroic—it was biblical. A Lazarus-like resurrection. They didn’t rise because some divine favor allowed it—they forced it. They dragged themselves from the grave, fingers bloodied, will intact, and marched into sudden death like men who had already tasted it and spat it back. They didn’t survive the storm—they became it. And from the moment they crossed into the playoff, it was over. You could feel it. They weren’t there to tie. They were there to rip the Cup from Red’s still-warm hands, knuckles and all.

That’s why Blue now leads the series 4–1. They don’t hope. They hunt. Every year, the Danza edges toward chaos, beckons overtime, and every year the Blue Team walks out of the fire still holding the Cup. When Red gets close, they freeze. They romanticize the moment. They wait for fate to crown them. But fate is a coward here. At the Danza, nothing is given. You take. You conquer. You cut down your opponent while they’re still staring at the trophy. The Cup doesn’t care who deserves it—there are no sacred heirs. It rewards killers, not dreamers. And when Red dared to start to envision their victory on seventeen, they wrote their own eulogy.

At the Danza, hope is weakness. And weakness gets slaughtered.

First Playoff Round – Team Scramble: Halved

Second Playoff Round – Storm vs. Blatt: 1-Up Blue

“The older I get, the better I used to be.” — Lee Trevino

MVP

Jared Blatt

The previous two years, there was serious consideration and debate on the car ride to dinner over who was to be the MVP. There was no such consideration this year. The decision was made instantaneously and unanimously. It could be only one man: Blatt.

The man didn’t lose.

 Coming into the tournament, he was already the Danza’s all-time leading scorer, and all he did this year was extend the gap between himself and second even further. He delivered a dominant 3-0-1 campaign, a mark second only to Felton’s immortal 4-0 run. But it wasn’t just the fact that he held an unblemished record, it was his performance down the stretch in the individual round. The man was dead. He was a corpse. Down four holes with five to play, and yet he somehow didn’t lose. But not only was clawing his way back like that impressive in and of itself, he made that comeback when the Cup demanded it. If he slips on even one of those holes, the tournament’s over. 

And if chasing down Storm and forcing overtime on the seventy-second hole of the tournament still wasn’t enough, he decided to drive the nail in even further. In the head-to-head sudden death playoff, with the weight of the Cup balanced on a blade’s edge, Blatt faced Storm again—mano a mano—and finished what they started. With one final stroke, he slammed the door shut, carried the Blue Team over the finish line, and brought the Cup home once more. 

His resume was undeniable. This wasn’t just the best performance of the year, it was one of the greatest performances in Danza history. Period.

As if the sacred MVP Trophy hadn’t already cemented its place in the Hall of Infamy—as if Felton dropping and cracking it like the Liberty Bell during his MVP speech wasn’t enough—one final twist surfaced that would send shockwaves through Danza lore.

The golf ball signed by Tony Danza himself?

Forged.

Fake.

Fraudulent.

A myth. A mirage. A fugazi.

Like telling your kids Santa’s real.

To be clear—it was real. At one point.

Blatt, ever the man of ceremony, had purchased an authenticated, signed Tony Danza golf ball off some janky corner of the internet for $80. It arrived in the mail, a holy relic in bubble wrap. Blatt, in an act of tragic foreshadowing, set the package down next to a pile of other mail and miscellaneous junk to be tossed out… And, well, you know where this is going.

The Danza ball. The prized artifact.

In possession for all of two hours.

Straight into the bin.

Blatt tore through his house like a man possessed—overturned furniture, ransacked drawers, interrogated his lamp. He knew. Deep down, he knew. The Danza was in the landfill now, somewhere buried beneath coffee grounds and dryer lint.

Johnny and Blatt were the only two who knew about the ball initially (though Blatt did end up telling Jeremy about the original ball’s existence as well), as it was supposed to be a surprise—an iconic addition for the second ever Danza tournament. Blatt had the ball. Johnny had bought the glass display case. They were building something… special. 

And now? That something, was trash.

So when Blatt exhausted all possibilities of where it could be—other than going to the city dump to unearth it—he looped Johnny into this mess with him.

They were in too deep now—and they were in it together. Faced with limited time, zero alternatives, and the haunting knowledge that this might’ve been the only signed Tony Danza golf ball in existence, the boys did what any pair of panicked, trophy-less degenerates would do:

They forged it.

Originally, they planned to come clean at the 25th Danza—a silver-anniversary confession bomb. But ultimately, they decided that whenever Blatt won the MVP, that would be the time to break the news.

And so, here we are.

Blatt’s dominant 3-0-1 campaign earned him the MVP. And with it, he dropped the long-awaited bombshell. The room was stunned. Johnny and Blatt finally shed the crushing weight of their secret like two prisoners released from Danza’s purgatory.

Ironically… it only made the trophy better.

That thing has been through pure hell. On day one of its existence it was destroyed. 

Then falsely recreated. 

Then upon its initial presentation at the awards ceremony, Felton dropped and cracked it within two minutes of holding it.

Then Storm spiced it up by adding turf, glueing the ball to a tee, and glueing the case to its base, only for none of those enhancements to survive the flight to Dallas.

And now?

A full-blown fraud revealed in public.

A fragile glass corpse, barely held together by superglue, pride, and collective denial. Born out of lies, wrapped in deception, and encased in acrylic guilt. It was beautiful.

What’s next? Are we going to find out Tony Danza didn’t even sign the original ball either? That it was just his agent doing bulk autographs in a basement somewhere? At this point, nothing’s off the table.

One thing’s for certain: while being named the MVP by your peers is a sign of greatness achieved, the MVP trophy itself is anything but a symbol of greatness.

It’s a symbol of mayhem.

Of glorious, dumb, unforgettable mayhem.

And its twisted saga is far from over.

On being asked, before his final round, what he had to shoot to win the golf tournament: "The rest of the field." — Roger Maltbie

P.S. The only thing more intense than the competition of the Danza itself might be the ping pong series that followed. Look at these shirtless beefcakes, all sweaty. That’s every woman’s dream right there. Trey and Felton took down Johnny and West 4-3 in a best of 7 series. I’m sure ping pong is going to be a staple at the Danza for years to come. Wait til I start doing write ups about that too.

Final Results

Blue Team – 5 (1-Up Playoffs)

Red Team – 5

Best Ball: 1-1

Scramble: 2-0 Blue

Alt-Shot: 1-1

Individual: 2-0-2 Red

Playoff: 1-0 Blue

Individual Records

Blue Team

James McFadden: 2-2

Michael Felton: 1-3

Jeremy Hardy: 2-1-1

Jared Blatt: 3-0-1

Red Team

Trey Zambito: 2-2

Jordan West: 3-1

Johnny Belancic: 1-2-1

Eric Storm: 0-3-1

Leading Point Scorers:

Jared Blatt: 3.5

Jordan West: 3

Jeremy Hardy: 2.5

James McFadden: 2

Trey Zambito: 2

Johnny Belancic: 1.5

Michael Felton: 1

Eric Storm: 0.5

MVP: Jared Blatt