Calvin Heimburg got off to a hot start on Thursday in Charlotte, North Carolina. Photos: Kevin Huver / DGPT

Calvin Heimburg entered the new format at the 2023 Disc Golf Pro Tour Championship presented by Barbasol with a stroke advantage based on his performance this season.

He added a few more strokes of his own on Thursday at Nevin Park in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The top seed dropped a 7-under opening round in the unrelenting woods of Matt Keatts Memorial DGC, adding to his 6-under starting mark earned by winning the DGPT regular-season points series.

He’s five clear of No. 2 seed Isaac Robinson, who had a three-under round. Kyle Klein (No. 8) made the jump to Friday’s lead card, which is rounded out by the defending champion Ricky Wysocki, who came in as the fourth seed.

All eyes will be on the cutline, which currently sits at 3-under par. After Friday’s round, the top 12 players will advance to the two-round final and the scores will be reset for the finals.

Gannon Buhr sits as the last player in at 3-under currently in the cut, getting the nod over Bradley Williams and Joel Freeman with the starting seed serving as the tiebreaker. Niklas Antilla is currently the only player who did not have a starting stroke advantage inside the cut line at 4-under.

Nevin averaged slightly under par (-0.34) for the 32-player field. Klein and Anttila were the only players with just a single bogey.

Heimburg was fourth in fairway hits (80%), first in Circle 1 in Regulation (44%) and hit 100% from C1X, according to UDisc. Robinson shot 3-under, matching Heimburg in fairway hits, but only connected on one of four scramble attempts.

Klein answered his Hole 1-bogey with a 160-foot throw-in on the second and stayed clean the rest of the way. Wysocki had six birdies on the front nine, but erased every one with three double bogies. He tacked on three birdies on the back nine and is 7-under with his four-stroke starting advantage.

1-4 Stay Put in FPO

Kicking things off Thursday morning, the top four seeds stayed put after the dust settled at Nevin.

Missy Gannon had the hot round of the day at 2-under par to pull even with Kristin Tattar at the top at 6-under par. Ohn Scoggins, the third seed, rounded out just three players under part with a 1-under round, matching Tattar. Scoggins is two strokes back of the co-leaders.

Holyn Handley finished 1-over and is 2-under on the leaderboard.

Macie Velediaz made the biggest jump on the leadboard with an even-par round to stay a 1-under. Velediaz is in solo fifth place after starting as the 10th seed.

She’s one stroke ahead of Kat Mertsch, Hailey King and Jennifer Allen at even, which is currently the cutline for the top eight players in FPO that will advance to the weekend.

Just outside the cutline are Ella Hansen and Jessica Weese at plus-1 and Stacie Rawnsley at plus-2.

Gannon was second in birdie percentage behind Mertsch and had one of just two birdies on hole 2 with a Circle 2 connect. Tattar was all over the basket for birdie looks, but couldn’t connect with a 0-for-6 mark from Circle 2.

Live coverage of Round 2 of the DGPT Championship begins at 9 a.m. ET for FPO and 2 p.m. ET for MPO on the Disc Golf Network. Active PDGA members receive a 50% discount on their DGN subscription.