Two World Champions Crowned, Nine To Go
Two World Champions Crowned, Nine To Go
For many, the gloomy, rainy skies this morning at the 2016 PDGA Professional Disc Golf World Championships presented by Dynamic Discs was much more of a relief than an annoyance. For the last week or so, the players here in Emporia, Kansas have been practicing and competing in scorching temperatures with high humidity. A break from the sunshine, even if it meant a bit of precipitation, was welcomed with open arms.
Competitors in nine out of the 11 divisions faced “moving day” this morning and afternoon on the sport’s biggest stage as the end of Round 4 meant the end of the tournament for those didn’t make the cut for semifinals or finals tomorrow (depending on the division). For the Senior Legends and Grand Legends divisions, an even more significant round was taking place, with both divisions set to crown new PDGA Professional World Champions at the day’s end.
Pete May and Carlos Rigby, World Champions Once Again
In both of said divisions, two not-so-new World Champions were crowned. Pete May #12700, playing his first and likely only PDGA-sanctioned event of the year, took down 13X World Champion Peter Shive #7240 to win by four in the Senior Legends division. Pete has now won four world titles as an amateur and two as a professional for a combined six world titles.
Pete May and his caddy (left) and Carlos Rigby with his granddaughter (right) during their final round at Peter Pan DGC.
Carlos Rigby #48542 was crowned champion in the Grand Legends division for his fourth world title since 2011. Carlos won in the Senior Legends division in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and now at the age of 82 won in the Grand Legends division (80 years old and above).
Congrats to Pete May and Carlos Rigby! We can’t wait to see you again at the PDGA Pro Masters World Championships next year!
Five Divisions Face Full Semifinal Rounds
The division breakdown continues. Of the nine remaining divisions, five will face both a Semifinal and Final round tomorrow to determine the world champion. The other four, due to the number of registered competitors, will see their top four advance directly to the Finals. The five divisions with Semifinals, all of which face shotgun starts tomorrow morning at 8:00am CDT are as follows: Open, Open Women, Masters, Grandmasters, and Senior Grandmasters.
Of those five divisions, the most contested battles for the Finals, which consist of only the top four players with the best scores are Masters, Grandmasters, and Senior Grandmasters. Heading into the semifinal rounds tomorrow morning, the Masters division has a tie for 4th place between Ken Climo #4297 and Chris Sprague #16425. In Grandmasters, 4th place Bruce Knisley #5079 is only two strokes ahead of a three-way tie for 5th place. And last but not least, the Senior Grandmasters division has 4th place holder Dr. Rick Voakes #2632 just one ahead of Jim Schultz #11741 in 5th place.
The Open and Open Women’s divisions aren’t as close as far as the Finals cutoff cusp goes, and the same can be said about the race for the title. Ricky Wysocki #38008 has been the dominant leader since taking the lead after Round 2.
Birdies for Paul McBeth and Nate Sexton on the island Hole 16. Par for Ricky. Bogey for Nikko. #2016ProWorlds pic.twitter.com/IrF7SrhjJW
— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) August 12, 2016
Open division lead card putts on the infamous island green of Hole 16 at Emporia Country Club.
In an even more incredible swing of events, after leading the event every day in the Open Women’s division, Catrina Allen #44184 had an uncharacteristic Round 4 that not only took her out of 1st place, but took her out of 2nd place as well. Both Paige Pierce #29190 and Val Jenkins #17495 finished their rounds at Jones East this morning with scores of six under par (55) while Catrina finished with a two over par (63). Paige now leads the division overall by four with Val in second and Catrina another two strokes back from Val. They’ll be joined by Sarah Hokom #34563 once again for a true World Champions card for the semifinals with a combined total of eight world titles between the foursome.
Straight to the Finals
The Finals for the four divisions skipping the Semis will begin at 11:00am CDT tomorrow on the nine hole Finals layout at Emporia Country Club. The finals will continue every thirty minutes and will finish with the Open division as the finale at 3:00pm CDT.
As an added bonus, the Open Women’s Finals has been scheduled earlier in the afternoon than normal so that our friends at SmashBoxxTV can broadcast both the Open Women’s division and Open division back-to-back. The Open Women are scheduled to tee off in the race for the world title at 12:30pm CDT and should finish the nine-hole layout well ahead of the Open division’s tee time.
Make sure to follow the live scoring, pictures, videos, and updates of the Semifinals and Finals tomorrow morning and afternoon on pdgalive.com and set your alarms for the live streaming coverage of the Open Women’s and Open division Finals tomorrow afternoon starting at approximately 12:30pm CDT on the SmashBoxxTV YouTube channel!
