Eleven teams were within two shots of the lead heading into Tuesday’s final round of the 2026 MGA Senior Four-Ball Championship at Forest Hills Golf Club. Then the rain arrived, falling over the final five holes and adding another challenge to an already close finish.
Heading into the 18th hole with a one-stroke advantage over Brad and Joel Johnson, Phil Ebner and Jeff Nielsen needed just a par to claim the title.
Instead, Ebner gave them a little more breathing room.
Both Ebner and Nielsen came up short of the green with their approach shots, leaving a difficult up-and-down to a back-left hole location.
From 25 yards short of the green, Ebner chipped in for birdie to secure a two-shot victory with a two-day total of nine-under-par 135 and the first senior state title for both players.
Talking about his partner’s winning chip shot, Nielsen said, “Phil hit an incredible pitch shot. It hydroplaned off the water, used the bounce well and down the jar it went. Great way to finish the tournament for us.”
The win came in Nielsen’s first senior event, just 10 days after he became eligible by turning 55.
Ebner and Nielsen have plenty of experience to draw on. The two were teammates on the University of Minnesota’s golf team in the early 1990s and later competed together in MGA Four-Ball Championships in the early 2000s.
“We were actually excited about the rain,” Ebner explained. “Being the rookies on the senior circuit we knew we could grind through it – we played a bunch in college in the rain together.”
Ebner and Nielsen opened with a par on the first hole and a birdie on the par-4 second, followed by pars on the next four holes. A bogey at the seventh put them in a tie for first with Brad and Joel Johnson and Michael and Patrick Smith at five-under.
The duo bounced back with a birdie at the ninth to reclaim the solo lead at six-under, a lead that they would not relinquish for the rest of the round after playing bogey-free golf from there on in.
Ebner and Nielsen used a stretch of three consecutive birdies from the 12th through 14th holes to further separate themselves from the field.
The hot stretch started with a little motivation from Nielsen on the 12th tee.
Ebner got the momentum started after hitting his approach shot to tap-in range on the short par-4 12th and converting the birdie putt.
“We stood on the 12th tee, and Jeff said ‘we haven’t had a tap-in yet for birdie’. So I do that,” explained Ebner.
“After Jeff said that, I said, we haven’t made a birdie on a par-3 three yet.”
Nielsen went on to make a long birdie putt on the challenging par-3 13th.
To cap it off, they made birdie on the par-5 14th to extend their lead to two over Brad and Joel Johnson.
"We were just plotting along," Nielsen said. "It's tough out there, the greens are small and the weather was coming in. The three birdies were huge for us to give us some momentum going into the last four knowing we'd probably be in the mix."
The Johnson team birdied the 16th hole to cut the Ebner-Nielsen lead to one but could not convert on birdie putts on 17 or 18.
The team of Michael and Patrick Smith finished in solo third after finishing at 5-under while the duo of Greg Miler and Brian Woodbury finished in fourth with a two-day total of 4-under 140.
Four-time defending champions John Brellenthin and Tim Anderson finished in a tie for fifth at 3-under.
In the Masters Division, David M Anderson and Tim Giebler claimed the title with a two-day total of 5-under, two shots better than the teams of Carl Horsch and Mark Knutson and Brian Reagan and James Steiner.
Ken McIntosh and Ronald Miller won a scorecard playoff to win the Net Division over the duo of Paul Korman and John Welton.