The 2026 Sweet Sixteen at Blackheath Golf Course in Rochester delivered exactly what the preview promised and then some. Cold. Windy. Overcast. Rain coming sideways off the open fairways. If there was a Scottish coastline somewhere in the distance, nobody could see it through the weather — but the conditions were authentic enough that nobody needed the view. The Mulligan Tour brought its A-game to a B-weather day, and by the time the wind stopped howling long enough for the scores to be tallied, one player had separated himself from the entire field with a round that nobody in the gallery — such as it was on a grey April Saturday — was going to forget. Anthony Dean. Two birdies. Two eagles. Net 73, two under par for 18 holes. A first career Mulligan Tour victory in just his second season on the tour. The 2026 Sweet Sixteen belonged to him, and it wasn’t particularly close.
Let’s put Dean’s round in context. Blackheath in links conditions is not a scoring paradise. The format already demands precision — drop your two worst scores to par and post your best 16 holes — but add wind, rain, and the kind of cold that makes a golf grip feel like a steel pipe, and the field’s scores showed exactly what this day demanded. Dean didn’t just survive it. He attacked it. Two eagles on a day when making par felt like an achievement. Two birdies. Otherwise consistent enough to protect what he’d built. His net 73 (-2) was the only sub-par score in the field by a margin, and it came on a course that sent several respected veterans scrambling just to post something respectable. First career win. Second year on the Mulligan Tour. That’s a story.
Chasing him home at tied second were two players who know Blackheath as well as anyone alive — Eric Birkle and Rod Theunissen. Birkle, who has now won or finished top-two in all three 2026 Mulligan Tour events he’s entered, is quietly building a case as the most in-form player in the field right now. Tin Cup Classic champion. Sweet Sixteen runner-up. That’s a résumé two events deep. Theunissen, who won this event outright in 2025 and owns two Sweet Sixteen titles on his career sheet, came back to defend and very nearly did it — sharing second with Birkle, proving he knows every inch of this course, and leaving Rochester with a check and the kind of performance that suggests he’s not done competing for trophies in 2026.
Fourth place went to Noah Kline, who fired four birdies and posted a net 77 (+2) — a genuinely impressive round on a day that demanded patience. He’s been building momentum across the early season and that kind of output on a difficult conditions day is exactly how you announce yourself as someone to watch. Scott Wilsey checked in fifth at net 78, steady and workmanlike in the wind.
Tom Carroll was the story of the middle of the leaderboard. Sixty-two percent fairways hit. Five birdies. Net 80 for sixth place. When the wind is blowing and the fairways are slick, hitting 62% of them is a number that earns respect — and Carroll backed it up by converting those positions into five red numbers. That’s ball-striking. That’s scoring. Tied for seventh, Kevin Gregoire carded a net 81, and Kelly Scheff turned in one of the most complete rounds of her Mulligan Tour career — 77% of fairways hit, three birdies, and a net 80 that earned her a share of seventh and a check. That kind of driving accuracy in those conditions is elite. Scheff’s round was the kind of performance that changes how people think about a player heading into the rest of the season.
Tied for ninth: Joe Brandenburg, Willi Hesse, and Chuck Withey — three experienced players who know how to grind through a bad weather day and leave with something. Jonathan Barnes, Rich Dunmore, Greg Kline, and Tim Markel shared twelfth. For Kline, still hunting that $3,000 career earnings milestone, no check Saturday means the pursuit rolls to the next event. He’s close enough that one strong Sunday ends it — but Pine View and beyond await.
The rookie class is building. Mike Wassman placed 16th and continues to develop a competitive record event by event. Vinnie Calles, John Donitzen, David Jarboe, and Nancy Wright all posted rounds and added to the competitive histories they started just three weeks ago at Q School. These are the rounds that matter — not the scores necessarily, but the reps, the course management, the experience of playing in conditions that make amateur golf feel serious. Every bad-weather round you finish makes the next one easier.
The 2026 Sweet Sixteen is in the books. Anthony Dean gets the headline, but this was a day where the whole field showed up, battled Scotland-by-way-of-Rochester, and earned whatever they shot. Vinnie Calles gets the $20 Tour Credit for Closest-to-the-Hole on number 7 and Scott Wilsey takes home a crisp $10 bill for his efforts on #12. The Mulligan Tour heads to Pine View Sunday for the Pine View Classic — one of the original six tournaments that started it all in 1999. It’s been raining. It’s been cold. Nobody has left a tournament early. The season is exactly two events old and already delivering. Season 28 is right on schedule.