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Battle Creek Battling for the 2015 Am Worlds Title

Battle Creek Battling for the 2015 Am Worlds Title

Thursday, July 23, 2015 - 01:33

Two days down and two to go here in Kalamazoo for the 2015 PDGA Amateur & Junior Disc Golf World Championships! The end of day two can mean only one thing…the dreaded (or sometimes looked forward to) shuffle. The shuffle only affects the divisions with more players than a single pool can handle but that also means by default it affects the divisions with the most competitors. No matter which way you try to spin it, it’s….kind of a big deal.

The Great Shuffle

Let’s back up a step or two. When a division as big as Advanced is being set up, they are divided into player pools in descending order by player ratings (e.g. The highest rated 72 competitors are placed into the A-Pool followed by the next 72 highest rated players in the B-Pool, etc.). In the case of Advanced at the 2015 Am Worlds, those pools were A, B, C, and D.  For the first two days the A,B, C, and D pools all play the same courses and the same layouts, but they play them at different times or even different days, due to limited time and/or space.

As stated in Day One’s article, there is no way to determine a true leader until all of the pools have played the same amount of holes, and furthermore, said holes must be from the same courses. After two days and three rounds of disc golf, that has officially been accomplished. And so we return to the shuffle, where all the players from the pools are reordered by total score, with the lowest scores being in the new A-Pool and the highest scores being in the new D-Pool.

So here we are, two days in to the biggest amateur disc golf event on the planet and things are finally starting to really take shape. Dozens of players have moved up and dozens of others have dropped down. And for those in the divisions where the shuffle plays no part, there’s no time to waste. Over the next two days it’s either move up or get cut before the finals on Saturday.

Competition Continues To Tighten

The Advanced division is led by Michigan’s own Seth Badger #47816 from Battle Creek, with another Battle Creek local on the lead card with him, Jared Dow #48760 sitting just one stroke behind. Tied for the lead is none other than current US Amateur Champion Anthony Barela #44382, who jumped from the fourth card to tied for 1st place in the last two rounds.

15 year old and current US Amateur Champion Anthony Barela #45867 tees off on Hole 14 at Meyer Broadway North.

The Advanced Women's division is currently led by and has been led by Jessica Hill #64874 all week, hailing from the Sunshine State of Florida. Jessica has already seen victory this week as part of the winning Amateur Mixed Doubles Championship team with partner Chip Thomas #19873. She also made it to the putting competition finals against Ania Knapinska #33679.

Jessica leads by three over another Michigan local, Samantha Socia #55347. The ladies take on Vicksburg Recreation Area Thursday morning at 9:00am and we’re happy to announce we’ll be following them again with live hole-by-hole scoring on pdgalive.com complimented by pictures, videos, and updates coming in from @pdgalive on Twitter.

There’s still a lot of golf left, but the packs are starting to separate. We’ve been blessed by amazing weather all week thus far and tomorrow isn’t looking any different. Follow the PDGA on Twitter and Facebook for up-to-the-minute information and be sure to tune in to pdgalive.com all day for live scores!

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