The 2026 Animal House Classic at Salem Hills Golf Course in Northville started fifteen minutes late. A heavy rainstorm rolled through at tee time, soaked the course, soaked everyone standing next to their carts, and gave the field its answer immediately: this is a Mulligan Tour Saturday, and it does not apologize for the weather. When the rain finally moved on and the field spread out across Salem Hills, what followed was one of the most competitive back nines the Animal House Classic has produced in years — a four-player hunt for a trophy that came down to a missed ten-footer, two late bogeys, and a playoff that Greg Fobare finished off with a two-putt. His first Mulligan Tour victory in nine starts. The 2026 Animal House Classic belongs to him.
Fobare’s winning net 69 (-3) was built on five birdies and only two bogeys across 18 holes — a round defined by its steadiness in the middle of a leaderboard scramble that had four players within a shot of the lead on the back nine. He shot a 39 on the front nine, turned with the lead, and never gave it away cleanly. The field came for him. None of them could catch him. Rich Dunmore made the closest chase — an up-and-down front nine gave way to a figured-out back nine, three birdies in the closing stretch including two natural ones that had the gallery leaning in. Dunmore stood over a ten-footer for birdie late in the round that would have won the whole thing outright. It caught the edge of the cup and stayed out. The two finished tied at net 69, and the playoff went to Fobare.
Chuck Withey was in it deep. Six birdies on the day — tied for the most of any player in the field — and with three holes to play he’d climbed to four under par and had a legitimate shot at running away from everyone. Then the last three holes happened. Two bogeys. The charge stalled. Withey finished tied for third at net 70 (-2) with $13.50 in his pocket, which barely softened what those final holes cost him. Shane Witowski had one of the quieter dominant front nines of the Animal House Classic in recent memory — six birdies, a gross 38 on the opening nine that had him right at the top of the leaderboard. He faded on the back as Fobare made his charge, but net 71 (-1) for fifth place in what looks like a breakthrough Mulligan Tour performance from a player the field will need to take more seriously going forward.
Greg Kline finished tied for third at net 70 alongside Withey, and his back nine deserves its own spotlight. Two birdies on the final three holes — a charge that came just short of catching Fobare but did something more significant than any trophy could capture. Kline crossed $3,000 in career earnings Saturday at Salem Hills. Thirty years. Thirty-one dollars and change crossing a threshold that no other player in Mulligan Tour history has ever reached. The all-time career earnings record now reads $3,000 and counting. It happened in the middle of a back-nine run at the Animal House Classic, on a course that was still wet from a morning storm, while Kline was trying to win a golf tournament. That’s exactly how a milestone like that should land.
John Ferlito — who had been the hottest player in the field for the last month — checked in at net 72 (E) for sixth, a quiet round by his recent standards but another top-ten for a player who has been cashing checks at nearly every stop since returning from shoulder surgery. Anthony Dean finished seventh at net 73 after a back nine that didn’t match his front, and Tim Markel and Helen Puffenberger shared eighth at net 74 in a field where no round below the top ten came particularly close to threatening the leaders.
Rick Floyd won the closest-to-pin prize on hole 6, and Rich Dunmore — despite everything the back nine demanded of him in the main event — found time to stick one close enough on hole 14 to claim that prize too. As for the Zoo putt-off — the four-hole aggregate putting competition reserved for the players with the best Zoo Ratios, those who kept the bears, camels, frogs, gorillas, and snakes off their scorecards most efficiently — Fobare, Floyd, Witowski, Geisser, and Westerman all qualified. The putt-off went to sudden death, and Rick Floyd closed it out on the second extra hole with a two to Mike Geisser’s three. Floyd already had the hole 6 closest-to-pin prize in his pocket from earlier in the round. He left Salem Hills Saturday having won twice before dinner.