Banter Golf Club - League Tour

The wait is over. Banter Golf Club heads to one of Northeast Ohio’s toughest and most historic tests.

🏆 Banter Golf Club • Member-Guest
📍 Sleepy Hollow Golf Course
⏰ First tee time: 8:30 AM

This week, the individual race takes a back seat.

It’s all about finding the right partner, surviving 18 holes, and posting the lowest best-ball score on a course that rarely gives anything away.

Sleepy’s early summer greens are beginning to wake up. The fairways are generous enough to tempt you into aggression. The greens will make you regret it.

One hot player can carry a team.
One bad swing can change everything.

And this year’s field is stacked. Hometown buddies, brothers, father/sons, college friends, etc.

18 pairings will tee it up. Only one leaves with the title.

Can a favorite live up to expectations?
Will a sleeper team catch fire?

Or will Sleepy Hollow do what Sleepy Hollow always does and humble everybody?

The Arrowhead Series is officially underway.

Stop No. 1 took us to Seneca Golf Course, one of hidden gems and a course that rewarded patience a lot more than power.

And from the start, Brian Groves was on another level.

Brian posted an 82 gross and the low net round of the day at 68 (-4), separating himself from the field and grabbing an early lead in the Arrowhead standings. He hit more than half of the fairways, kept the ball in play all day, and avoided the costly mistakes that Seneca can punish so quickly.

Right behind him was Kyle Castro with one of his best rounds of the season.

Kyle carded a net 70 to finish second in the Arrowhead standings for the day, a huge performance that helped him climb out of the bottom of the season-long standings and build some momentum heading into the heart of the schedule.

Jake Marianut continued his strong run of form as well, keeping himself at the top of the season long standings.

The Metroparks challenge showed up quickly.

Miss the right spot and recovery became difficult. Miss the green entirely and bogey was suddenly a good score. The scorecard might say par 72, but Seneca made everyone earn it.

Low Gross Leaderboard:
🔥 Brian Groves, 82
🔥 Jake Marianut, 82
🔥 Bobby Albino, 85
🔥 Matt Fritz, 85
🔥 Josh Porto, 87
🔥 Mark Lhotsky, 87

Arrowhead Series Standings after Event 1:
🥇 Brian Groves, 68
🥈 Kyle Castro, 70
🥉 Jake Marianut, 72

With only the best 2 of 3 Arrowhead rounds counting, nobody has locked anything up yet. Chippewa and Manakiki are still waiting, and one hot round can completely change the standings.

Now the attention shifts to Sleepy Hollow.

The Member-Guest is next, and if Seneca was a warm-up, Sleepy is the main event.

Early summer conditions.
Fast greens.
Severe slopes.
One of the toughest tests on the entire schedule.

Chaos feels very possible.

Event 3: Bunker Hill was a completely different test.

No best ball safety net.
Just straight-up stroke play in cold morning conditions and one of the tighter setups we’ve seen so far this season.

And from the opening tee shots… Jake Marianut looked locked in.

Jake posted the low net round of the day at -2 (70) while also taking low gross with an 81, controlling the event most of the morning and never really giving the field much of an opening.

What made it even crazier?
Jake played the entire round hitting 3-iron off the tee.

No driver. No hero ball. Just committing to position all morning and trusting the strategy. On a course like Bunker Hill, it ended up being the perfect play.

Pat Butterfield backed him up with a steady round of his own, finishing solo 2nd at +3 net (75) and making it a clean 1-2 finish for the first tee group that went off at 7:00am.

Meanwhile, the middle of the leaderboard was chaos.

Brian Groves and Matthew Casella tied for 3rd at +4 net (76), while Josh Porto and Cory Sussel stayed in the mix all day at +5 as well after battling through a bunch of momentum swings on the back nine.

The conditions made things weird early.

Cold start. Damp turf. Greens rolling slower than expected.
And Bunker Hill punished anybody chasing pins too aggressively.

The front nine was mostly survival.

Then the round started opening up late.

Jake stabilized.
Pat stayed patient.
Everybody else started leaking shots.

That was the difference.

KP’s:
🎯 Jake Marianut (8)
🎯 Matthew Casella (17)

Skins were everywhere with 11 total paid out, including multiple from Casella, Jake, Cory, Mark L, and Kyle Castro.

Low gross leaderboard:
🔥 Jake Marianut, 81
🔥 Pat Butterfield, 82
🔥 Josh Porto, 85
🔥 Cory Sussel, 85
🔥 Mark Lhotsky, 86

Three events in… and the season standings are starting to take shape.

No easy rounds. No easy points.

Next stop: Pine Hills Major.

Event 2: Boulder Creek was soaked before anyone even hit a tee shot.

Guys rolled into the parking lot thinking we might be in for a grind… wet fairways, soft greens, muddy lies everywhere.

Then the weather broke right as the first group teed off.

And suddenly it turned into a shootout.

The opening groups set the pace early, with Jake & Pat and Josh & Brian hanging around the top of the board most of the morning. Wet conditions and shorter rough made Boulder Creek gettable if you stayed out of trouble… but one loose stretch still had the ability to wreck a team score fast.

Meanwhile, the final group was quietly lurking.

Matt Fritz & Cory Sussel teed off last at 8:10 and slowly started tracking teams down. No panic, no huge front-9 fireworks… just steady golf and timely birdies while the leaderboard kept shuffling.

Then the back nine happened.

Birdies at 13, 15, and 17 gave Fritz & Cory the separation they needed, and unlike most of the field, they avoided the late blow-up holes that Boulder Creek usually delivers.

That was the difference.

🏆 Matt Fritz & Cory Sussel win Event 2 at -3 (69)

Jake Marianut & Pat Butterfield finish T2 at -2 after one of the steadiest rounds of the day, while Josh Porto & Brian Groves matched them at -2 after a late push coming home.

Low gross rounds of the day:
🔥 Bobby Albino, 78
🔥 Matt Fritz, 80
🔥 Jake Marianut, 82
🔥 Josh Porto, 83

KP’s:
🎯 Cory Sussel (7)
🎯 Ryan Budzik (17)

Two events down.
The standings are tightening up.
And now everybody’s realizing there are no easy weeks in this league.

Next stop: Bunker Hill.

Event 2.
2-man best ball.

Find a partner.
Make birdies.
Don’t screw your teammate.

Season opener at … and the new guys didn’t waste time.

Matt Casella shows up for his first BGC event and wins it. (-3 net 68)
No warmup phase, no “getting a feel for the league”… just took it.

Started steady on the back, stayed out of trouble, then separated late on the front when everyone else started dropping shots.

Right behind him, Jake Marianut (-1 net 70) making a statement. Part-time guy last year… now taking 2nd and beating out a lot of familiar names in the process. Just a steady, no-mistakes kind of round.

Josh Porto (+2 net 73) rounds out the top 3 with one of the better grinds of the day as things got messy across the board.

Starting on the back 9 showed early… a few doubles, some cold swings, and the leaderboard was wide open quick.
Front 9 is where it flipped.
Matt stayed clean… others didn’t. That was the difference.

KPs go to Jordan Deck (6) and Jameson Altier (12)
Skins getting paid early… Matt C (3), Al M (2), Kevin S (2)

Week 1 in the books and the vets are already chasing.

On to Boulder Creek tomorrow.
2-man best ball. Bring a partner… or find out you picked the wrong one.

Banter Golf Club kicks off the 2026 season

It’s Masters week, it’s cold and wet but the boys are ready to get things going!

⛳️ The 2026 Banter Golf Club schedule is officially set.

15 events @ 15 courses public across Northeast Ohio.
3 majors, multiple team events, a member-guest, and a season finale. 🏌️‍♂️

A mix of some of the best public tracks around the region. Every course brings something a little different, which means the leaderboard will take shape over time.

Gross. Net. Skins. KPs. Season-long points.

Same crew. New season.


Boulder Creek Golf Club & Event Center
Bunker Hill Golf Course
Pine Hills Golf Club

Chippewa Golf Club
Ellsworth Meadows Golf Club
Grey Hawk Golf Club & The Nest Restaurant
Little Mountain Country Club
Sweetbriar Golf
Shale Creek Golf Club

Valley of the Eagles