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Pierce Moves Into Lead, McBeth Holds His Ground Heading Into Maple Hill Open Finals

Pierce Moves Into Lead, McBeth Holds His Ground Heading Into Maple Hill Open Finals

Sunday, June 28, 2015 - 01:21

Over the past week, 175 men and women made their way to Leicester, MA for the 2015 Maple Hill Open to compete for one of the most coveted victories in disc golf. All in all, the 175 competitors at this PDGA National Tour event represent 33 states, Finland, and Sweden. Unfortunately, for nearly half of those 175, the 18th hole of Round 3 this afternoon was the last they would play at the Maple Hill Open.

“The Cut”. Some tournaments do it and some don’t but here at Maple Hill, it’s a standard practice. With roughly half of the field scheduled to be sent home at the end of the round, the players in the middle of the pack knew it was more than just “moving day”. It was “move up or go home day”. But who would want to go home when there’s so much fun stuff to do at Maple Hill outside of playing disc golf?

The top 72 Open players (plus ties) and the top 14 Open Women players (plus ties) will be the only ones competing in the finals but we expect to see most of the cut players right back here tomorrow morning and afternoon to watch the best disc golfers in the world play a nail-biting final round for the title.

Open Women’s Division

Three rounds at Maple Hill Gold can break down even the most experienced professional disc golfer. On the Open Women’s lead card this afternoon, Catrina Allen #44184 became Maple Hill’s latest victim.

After finishing as the overall leader for Rounds 1 and 2, Catrina teed off with a four stroke advantage over Paige Pierce #29190 and nine over Val Jenkins #17495. As they headed into the back nine, Catrina was still at the top of the card holding on to her lead, reduced to just two.

It was beginning to look like a stalemate as all three women took pars on the four holes that followed. But then came one of Maple Hill’s signature death traps, Hole 14. Catrina’s driver came out of her hand a millisecond too late causing it to dive into the water a few feet short of reaching the green. Paige did just the opposite, missing her line but erring on the side of the safety of being inbounds.

Val, however, threw a perfect drive and parked her tee shot to inside of 10 feet from the pin.

That was the beginning of the end for Catrina’s lead. Paige saved par on Hole 14 while Catrina finished with a double bogey, meaning they were now tied. With just holes 15-18 remaining, Paige managed to tap-in for a birdie on the 18th green to finish the round four ahead of Catrina, an eight stroke swing overall for the day.

The Open Women’s division was cut to 14 players and they’ll tee off tomorrow morning starting at 8:30am EDT. Pierce, Allen, and Jenkins will be joined on the lead card by Jessica Weese #50656, teeing off for their final round at 9:15am EDT. Jenkins and Weese both have significant ground to make up if they want to make a run at the lead, but they also have Paige Bjerkaas #33833 and Sarah Hokom #34563 to worry about on the chase card. The overall gap between 3rd and 6th is a mere five strokes; an insignificant number for a high-stakes final round on Maple Hill Gold.

Paige Pierce hits a 25 foot birdie putt after a perfect drive on Hole 15 at Maple Hill to take the lead.

Open Division

Whether you believe it or not, Paul McBeth #27523 is in fact human. Starting the round today with a lead of two over Ricky Wysocki #38008, his score on the front nine was far from what you might have expected. While Wysocki, Gregg Barsby #15857, and David Wiggings Jr #24437, were heading into Hole 10 at -5, -6, and -2 for the round, respectively, McBeth’s bogey on Hole 9 left him at the bottom of the pack at just -1. Having already lost the lead to Wysocki, McBeth gave up another stroke on Hole 10, giving Wysocki a three stroke lead with eight holes to go.

McBeth was visibly frustrated, understandably, but in true World Champion form he kept his composure and pushed on to Hole 11, a downhill 780’ par 4.  Big arm players can typically leave themselves in good position for a fairly easy birdie on Hole 11, and being a former distance world record holder, Wiggins decided to put a little extra power into his tee shot. 

“I haven’t thrown a 360 during a tournament since I was….10”, said David Wiggins Jr after crushing an incredible 360 drive off the tee. The gallery roared as his drive flexed out, landing inside of 100 feet from the pin. He finished the hole with a birdie, but the fact that he had a jump putt for a chance at eagle is absolutely absurd. McBeth and Barsby carded birdies as well, with Wysocki taking the lone par.

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And that may have been the turning point. After 11 holes, McBeth had finally gained a stroke on Wysocki. With Wysocki still ahead by two, McBeth would need to put together a solid run of birdies to finish out the back nine back at the top of the leaderboard. It wasn’t all that surprising to see that he did in fact do just that. After all, that’s kind of his thing…

McBeth brought Wysocki’s lead down to just a single throw with yet another Hole 14 birdie (he has birdied this hole every round thus far) and was back in the lead a few minutes later carding another birdie against Wysocki’s bogey on Hole 15. They both finished the round with a par on 16 and birdies on both 17 and 18. For the third day in a row, McBeth held on to the lead with Wysocki right on his heels.

The lead card for the Open division tees off tomorrow afternoon at 2:00pm in front of what we can only expect to be a huge gallery and thousands of fans online watching the live SmashBoxxTV broadcast with live scoring via pdgalive.com. More info to come tomorrow morning with the best way to keep up being the PDGA Facebook page and @PDGA on Twitter.  We’ll be posting links to coverage videos, pictures, videos and tournament updates all morning as the 2015 Maple Hill Open nears an exciting end!