If John Brinkman earns anything more than 4 points in his match versus Tom Freiburger in Week 17, he can go ahead and put the champagne on ice. Although he won't be playing golf at Hickory Hills in Week 18 (bye week), he will earn 6 points for not showing up. Brinkman has not missed a week of action this year (except for his first bye week) and has had such a strong season that his current fourth-worst score was a 6 point effort in Week 4 versus perma-sub Eric Osborn. Therefore, when he takes a zero in Week 18, the 6 points from Week 4 will be added to his Total Points. By my estimation, 11 more points for Brinkman puts him out of reach of everyone else....save for a 14 point performance from Freiburger in the final week, 25 points from Jay Feller over the final two weeks, or 25.5 points from Pete Ebel over the final two weeks. Neither Feller nor Ebel has had consecutive weeks totaling that many points this season. Brinkman currently holds a 12 point lead over Steve Porterfield but Port will be on a bye in Week 17.
As for the team race, there are still four teams (possibly five) that have a legitimate shot at the title. That makes it tough to analyze all the possibilities at this point, so following are the top 5 teams and their remaining schedule. You do the math.
- Chubba Bubba 2.0 (368.5 points): Slice and Dice, Bye
- Tony Subprano (364.5): Bye, Hear Ye!
- Two Hearted (342): Hear Ye!, Pro B1's
- Slice and Dice (339): Chubba Bubba 2.0, Non-Alcoholic Brew
- Peter Piper (327.5): Pro B1's, Pistachios