TST #9 Through the Smoke: Myer Takes the Lead, Dodd Breaks ThrougH
The Okanagan valley was wrapped in a ghostly filter when Twlv Stix rolled into Fairview. Wildfire smoke settled low, turning blue sky into a milky wash. The sun was just a bright smudge overhead. A couple players didn’t even tee it up, choosing lungs over leaderboards, and for those who did play, finding a golf ball against that backdrop felt like chasing shadows. Every swing started with hope and ended with squinting into the haze.
Inside that surreal stage, the storylines shifted in big ways. Guest Bryce Woodward grabbed Gross at +2, his round shaped by brilliance early, two under through twelve, before a stumble with bogey, double let the field breathe again. The door opened, but no one could step fully through, and Bryce closed just firm enough to claim the win. Guests weren’t just visitors at Fairview; they crashed the top end, four of them inside the Gross top eight.
Still, the headline wasn’t Bryce, it was Chris Myer. He looked like he might run the table until a back nine unraveling left him four over coming in, capped with a bogey on 18. It was a stumble, but Bryson stumbled harder. His T6 against Chris’s T2 finally flipped the Gross race. Bryson’s long grip on first is over. Chris now leads by 15, the hunter turned hunted.
In Net, the day belonged to Ben Dodd. After months of bold talk about this being his week, he finally cashed the promise. A -3 round, tucked safely in the house before a storm swept in with rain and whipping wind, gave him his first Twlv Stix victory. It felt earned, but also touched by fortune, the weather holding the door shut on anyone chasing him down. Behind him, Adam Kondra finished close again, another near miss that keeps him in the conversation. Bruce Kristinson’s steady finish let him leapfrog Fred Winters back into second in the standings, while Evan Koppa quietly finished T24. His 100-point cushion still holds, but the battle just beneath him is starting to boil.
Reid McIntyre added grit to his growing reputation. Four straight bogeys to start looked like a disaster round, but he clawed back, rallied, and finished T3 at +4. Mark Johnson teased brilliance too, leading the field at -2 after nine, before turbulence on the back nine left him in 13th. Both players look less like side notes now and more like men who will shape how this season closes.
And Fairview gave the gallery its sparks: not one, but a string of shots that flirted with perfection. Every closest-to-the-pin was absurdly tight, the kind of swings that made players shake their heads in disbelief. Daryl King nearly jarred one on 15, Evan York followed him in close, and Jonny Lali came closer still on 10, his ball stopping millimeters from vanishing into the cup. It felt like the whole course was holding its breath, with stories of near-aces rippling quickly through the field.
Fairview didn’t crown a regular, it crowned a guest and reshuffled the leaders at the top. Chris Myer walks away with the Gross lead at last. Ben Dodd walks away with proof that bold talk can end in bold print. And with only two events left, the race is now stripped down to its sharpest edge: who can finish what they’ve started.
