by Todd Dobson
The Swamp Dawgs have been soul searching ever since Billy Hanes’ infamous putt hit the bottom of the cup in the 2024 GL Championship. Their best finish since has been a T9 at the 2025 GL Summer Grind by none other than Billy Hanes and Dan Buchner. After yet another slow start to the season and a lackluster performance in the GL Match Series…the rubber has finally met the road.
Enter Brandon Harkins, who will be playing alongside captain and franchise owner Ben Herman. Harkins enters the Grass League with one of the most decorated resumes. He’s played between the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour since 2017, notched his first professional win at the 2021 TaylorMade Pebble Beach where he bested the likes of Harry Hall, and followed it up the next year with a win on the Korn Ferry Tour. Harkins made his major championship debut at the 2016 U.S. Open held at Oakmont, where he finished T59.
Despite all the professional tour accolades, the thing that jumps off the page the most to me is the fact that Harkins has been a regular in the par 3 money games hosted in Phoenix, which Golf Digest dubbed “the underworld of professional golf.” In other words, a par 3 contest isn’t foreign territory.
No one expects Harkins to feel the nerves entering a Grass League event, but then again, he’s walking into a unique situation. He’s been called in to save the franchise.
If Harkins has one of the most impressive professional resumes, Scott Harvey has one of the most impressive amateur resumes.
Unlike Harkins, Harvey joins a Minnesota Muskies team that has begun to right the ship. Like the Swamp Dawgs, following their 2024 Grass Clippings Open Championship, the Muskies swam to the depths of the Grass League with little hope of return. So far this season, the Muskies have undergone a bit of a resurgence. They left the Grass Clippings Open ranked 5th in the season long points race and just recently advanced to the GL Match Series Semifinals, set to take place after the Summer Grind in mid September.
As for Harvey, he has two USGA championships: the 2014 U.S. Mid Amateur and the 2019 U.S. Amateur Four Ball…which makes him one of only two men in history to win both. He holds the U.S. Mid Amateur record for most times advancing to match play (fourteen), most times as stroke play medalist (four), and the longest semifinal ever played (nineteen holes). He’s a 2015 Masters competitor and a 2017 U.S. Open competitor. But maybe most impressive, Scott Harvey was a part of the 2015 Walker Cup team, where he played alongside Bryson DeChambeau, Denny McCarthy, and Maverick McNealy.
Although the recent resurgence may just be a flash in the pan, Scott Harvey clearly helps the argument that the Muskies are here to stay.
You could argue that the LA Roses didn’t need to shake up the roster. Hell, they won the 2025 GL Championship, but great sports franchises always look for a way to improve. The Roses surely did that with the latest acquisition of Luke Kwon.
The average golf fan sees the signing of Luke Kwon as a publicity stunt. Just another “YouTube golfer,” but not all YouTubers are built the same. Yes, Luke Kwon has a likable personality, evidenced by his large online following, but he’s played on the Korn Ferry Tour, won on PGA Tour China, beat Scottie Scheffler 4&3 in match play at the 2016 NCAAs while a member of the Oklahoma golf team, and continues to play alongside some of the best golfers in the world.
The part that makes the signing even more polarizing is the fact that Kwon will be pairing up with the #1 player in the world, Ryan Ruffels, at the Summer Grind. Regardless of what you think of YouTube golf, Ryan Ruffels and Luke Kwon can flat out play the sport. Hell, they may even use that description as a chip on their shoulder.
Here’s my favorite kind of signing: the one where a franchise finally goes and gets a player whose actual skill set matches the actual golf we play. Brady Calkins is the best mini-tour player most of you have never heard of. Three straight Dakotas Tour Player of the Year awards, 2018 through 2020. Nine career wins out there. Two U.S. Opens of late: Brookline in 2022, where he was co-medalist at final qualifying, and Oakmont in 2025. Last August, he won the Western North Dakota Charity Pro-Am at 28-under, opening 63-63 with thirty birdies or better in 72 holes. That’s not a golfer. That’s a birdie machine that occasionally stops for gas.
The road here has been gritty. He turned pro at nineteen in his mother’s kitchen, lived in his car in California parking lots, worked in a cart barn, did hydroseeding, and worked construction shifts under a bridge in his own hometown of Chehalis, Washington. Now look at the fit: his strokes-gained profile says his weakness is off the tee and his strength is on approach. A par-3 scramble deletes the driver from the equation and hands the man his best club. And the man he’s partnered with at Goat Hill? His best friend, Mike Glennie, the guy who runs those same Scottsdale money games where Calkins reportedly goes seven to nine under and, per Golf Digest, somehow never wins a skin.
Scottsdale finished eighth last year in the season-long points race, and they just added the format’s natural predator to a Strikers team that feels like it’s on the upswing. You could make a case that he deserves to be atop this list.
Another savvy pickup for New York that has flown under the radar.
Colin Featherstone isn’t the flashiest name on this list, but he might be one of the best fits heading into the Summer Grind. He’s a former Korn Ferry Tour player who earned his card the hard way, came back to professional golf after actually quitting the game, and in 2023 posted a T4 on the Korn Ferry Tour and shot a career-low 63 to take the first-round lead.
But here’s why I have him on the list: he already knows the Grass League, and he definitely knows Goat Hill.
Featherstone has played three Grass League events for the Hollywood Hitters and has never finished worse than 13-under. He finished T8 in his debut at the 2025 Grass Clippings Open and then T9 at last year’s Summer Grind at Goat Hill. Now he comes back as a member of the New York Blue Birds and gets paired with Alex Chiarella.
And Goat Hill isn’t just another golf course for Featherstone. He grew up in Fallbrook, lives in Oceanside, and is a member at Goat Hill Park. This is his backyard.
The Blue Birds already have plenty of firepower. What they added in Featherstone is a guy with professional experience, a high floor in this format, and more familiarity with the Summer Grind venue than almost anybody in the field.
Why the Hitters didn’t bring Featherstone back is a mystery to me, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
