CGA Unfiltered: 3/27/26

“Runaway Season” — AJ Pearl Sounds Off After CGA Teams Draft Results

Posted: 3/27/2026

They really gave us an A-minus.

Pearl couldn’t help but laugh when he saw it.

“A-minus?” he said, leaning back like a man who already knows how this movie ends. “That’s fine. They’ll fix that by midseason.”

If there’s one thing the inaugural CGA Teams format needed, it’s a villain—or at least someone bold enough to act like one. Enter Pearl, Ballz Deep’s resident agitator, already declaring what the rest of the league is too cautious to say out loud:

This season isn’t going to be close.

“We’re not just winning,” Pearl said. “We’re running away with it. Different level.”

It’s not hard to see where the confidence comes from. Ballz Deep is anchored by captain Noah Alviti, widely considered the most consistent force in the league. Add in Jake Cleary’s steady presence and Matt Palardy—who Pearl called “the most disrespectfully underrated closer we’ve got”—and suddenly that A-minus starts to feel like a misread.

But make no mistake, Pearl isn’t here to talk about balance or floors or “grinding out points.”

“That’s what everyone says when they don’t have killers,” he shrugged. “We’ve got guys who show up when it matters.”

And then, of course, he went there.

On The Fore Fathers:
“Yeah, yeah, ‘most balanced team.’ Cool. Balanced gets you second place. You need guys who can take an event over. Let’s see who actually does it.”

On The Sandbag IV:
“Best trio? Maybe. But this isn’t a 3-man format. You’re only as strong as your weakest score, and we all know where that pressure’s going every week.”

On Putt Stuff:
“That team is a coin flip. Heads they’re dangerous, tails they’re cooked. I don’t gamble on coin flips—I beat them.”

Pearl paused, smirking.

“And we’re going to beat them. A lot.”

The new CGA Teams format rewards depth, consistency, and timely spikes—three things analysts aren’t convinced Ballz Deep can deliver all at once. Pearl doesn’t buy that narrative for a second.

“Everyone keeps saying we don’t have upside,” he said. “That’s crazy to me. We’ve got four guys who can pop in any event. The difference is—we’re also not putting up disasters. That’s how you stack wins.”

And stacking wins, in his mind, is exactly what this season will look like.

“By the time we get to the CGA Teams Championship, it won’t even feel like a race,” Pearl said. “It’ll feel like everyone else is trying to catch something that’s already gone.”

Bold words for a brand-new format. But if CGA Teams is about building rivalries, creating drama, and giving players something bigger to chase—AJ Pearl just lit the fuse.

Now the rest of the league has to decide:

Is Ballz Deep really that team?

Or did Pearl just give everyone else a reason to come for them?

Either way, the message is clear.

Ballz Deep isn’t here to compete.

They’re here to take over.

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