All times listed below are Mountain Standard Time (MST).

Round 3 of The Memorial Championship presented by Discraft is doubly significant. First and foremost, it means the end of the event for the 300+ competitors in the amateur divisions, as only the pros play a final round on Saturday. Secondly, it means that roughly half of the 300+ competitors in the pro divisions will be awarded the opportunity to compete in said final round. With roughly half of the pro field being cut, only the best of the best will earn the right to tee off at Fountain Hills Park for one last chance to move up.

Of the 620 or so disc golfers that made their way to Phoenix for the first PDGA National Tour of the year, only 170 will be competing this morning and afternoon, with the Senior Grandmasters heading out first at 7:30am. The men and women of the Grandmasters and Masters divisions will follow, finishing with the Open Women’s division and the Open division, respectively.

Open Women

After taking on Vista Del Camino yesterday, 14 Open Women and 97 Open competitors made the cut. Catrina Allen #44184 and Paige Pierce #29190 have already picked up where they left off last year (and the year before), well ahead of their fellow FPO competitors, battling for the crown. Paige moved ahead of Catrina by one after Round 2 with a five stroke swing at Fiesta Lakes, and they continued the back-and-forth at Vista for four hours during Round 3.

Paige off the tee of Hole 14. Mando left of the tree in the middle of the fairway. She's safe. #memorialchampionship pic.twitter.com/8YhqmQDohj

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) March 4, 2016

Paige Pierce #29190 teeing off on Vista's par 4 Hole 14.

At the end of the day it was Catrina that would emerge as the leader once again, one ahead of Paige heading into the Final Round. The two of them will be joined on the lead card by Jennifer Allen #15354 and Sarah Hokom #34563, fighting for 3rd place just two strokes apart, 11 and 13 strokes short of Catrina.

Open

The Open division is as close as we’ve ever seen it heading into what will surely be a chaotic round at Fountain Hills. The hot round of 48 (-12) at Vista yesterday was shared by three different men: Nate Sexton #18824, Philo Brathwaite #26416, and JohnE McCray #9852. Sexton and Brathwaite began the round on the lead card and will of course remain there for the Final Round, while JohnE McCray jumped from the chase card to secure his spot.

Nate Sexton hits a huge birdie putt on Hole 14. Looks to be 50' at least. #memorialchampionship #VistaDelCamino pic.twitter.com/f95hVbjPNt

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) March 5, 2016

Nate Sexton #18824 hitting a 50' jump putt for birdie on Vista's par 4 Hole 14.

Joining the three of them will be Paul McBeth #27523, who is now tied for 2nd place with Brathwaite and McCray. Sexton sits alone at the top with merely a one stroke lead. At Fountain Hills, that could easily disappear as quickly as Hole 1, where a 380’ drive in front of a huge gallery will be required just to clear the water. With roughly a third of the holes having extremely dangerous basket positions, it’s still anyone’s game.

Let’s not count out the chase card and those behind them either, as there are another ten players within single digits of the lead card, starting with Nikko Locastro #11534 at -28 through the first three rounds, five strokes short of Sexton, and four from the dynamic trio in second place.

Coverage

The Open Women’s rounds begin at 9:45am (MST) with the lead card scheduled to go off at 10:10am. The lead card in MPO tees off much later in the afternoon, as 90+ players have to tee off ahead of them. Sexton, Brathwaite, McCray, and McBeth are scheduled to take on the Fountain at 1:45pm.

If you’ve been following along all week, you know the drill. Live scoring on pdgalive.com will begin as soon as the Open Women tee off at 9:45am. Live scoring for the top five cards in Open will begin at approximately 1:00pm. We’ll be following both the men and women’s lead card, posting updates, pictures and videos via @pdgalive on Twitter and @PDGA on Intagram.

Live Streaming Final Round Coverage

We’ve been proud to be a partner and supporter in bringing you this week’s SmashBoxxTV live broadcasts, and we can’t wait to see what happens this afternoon as they follow one of the most talented lead cards The Memorial has ever seen! The live broadcast will begin around 1:30pm on the SmashBoxxTV YouTube channel.

Follow along on YouTube, pdgalive.com, Twitter, and Instagram as the 28th Memorial Championship presented by Discraft comes to an exciting finish today at the beautiful and scenic Fountain Hills Park!