EO2016 Final Round Recap: An epic come from behind victory!
EO2016 Final Round Recap: An epic come from behind victory!
Story and Photo Credit: DiscGolfWorldTour.com
What a day at Nokia! After 2 days of scorching hot temperatures, by Finnish standards that is, the final day brought us substantially colder air but still plenty of sunshine and no rain whatsoever. The wind was pushing hard again, forcing the players to give their full concentration on disc and line selection on every shot. On a course like The Beast, you’ll get punished for every mistake and even a slight lapse in concentration may quickly turn your tournament upside down.
The situation going into the final was as thrilling as it gets: Going into the week with 4 consecutive tournament wins under his belt, Ricky Wysocki (USA) was in the lead by one shot. Only a single stroke back from Ricky, in 2nd place was crowd favourite and EO veteran KJ Nybo (DK), with the German sensation and DGWT Konopiste Open 2016 champion Simon Lizotte just one stroke behind KJ. Behind these three gentlemen there was a certain two-time EO winner and 4-time World Champion Paul McBeth (USA), who’s “beastmode” during the final day we’ve seen to bear fruit on more occasions than most of us remember.
Beastmode: Engage
After the first 4 holes of the final, Wysocki had been able to stretch his lead to 6 over McBeth, 3 over KJ and 4 over Lizotte. At this point some of the spectators had already counted McBeth out of the competition. From holes 5 to 14, our gallery of way over 1000 people witnessed Paul McBeth’s beastmode kicking into high gear. It’s not that anyone else in the group would have played bad. On the mid-section of the course Paul was simply unstoppable. Paul would go on to hit ten birdies in a row, from hole 5 up until hole 14. On the first 9 of these holes, Paul would have a 100% green hit percentage, which by itself speaks volumes of the level of execution we witnessed from McBeth today.
Video: Paul McBeth claimed the lead to himself on hole 11. More videos like this on our Instagram account!
It’s not over until it’s over
Paul’s 10-birdie streak landed him 2 strokes ahead of the competition going into the extremely challenging final 4 holes of the course. As we’ve seen countless times before, there’s no calling winners on 'The Beast' until the very last putts have been cast. Sure enough, all 4 players of the lead card would end up going OB on the 15th hole at least once. Out of the foursome, Ricky would be the only player to save his scorecard from a bogey on the 15th, putting him one behind Paul with 3 holes left to play.
Unlike last year, this time Ricky was able to card a solid birdie on the 16th, the very hole that cost him the victory last year. McBeth on the other hand was lucky to have his disc skip in over the hay bales for a tap-in birdie.
Video: Paul McBeth’s 2nd shot skips in the island over the hay bales. More videos like this on our instagram account!
Wysocki ties the lead on 17th
Still one shot behind McBeth, Ricky Wysocki would have the tee first on the 17th. After going OB wide right yesterday, Ricky would make the correction today and ride the left to right tailwind all the way to the basket with his huge sidearm shot on this extremely challenging 140 meter (460ft) downhill Par 3 with the basket surrounded by OB on all sides but the fairway. Ricky’s tap-in birdie would bring him tied to the lead with McBeth, who played hole 17 according to his game plan, carding the par 3 from the 17th.
Video: Ricky Wysocki ties the lead with his huge birdie on the 17th. More videos like this on our instagram account!
The video game hole decides the winner
After gaining 2 strokes on McBeth on holes 15 through 17, Ricky would be the first to tee off on the legendary 211 meter (692ft) Par 4 “video game hole” 18. According to our Disc Golf Metrix course statistics, the last hole was the most difficult again this week of all 18 holes on the course, with the average score of 4.96 for the whole week. The difficulty of this hole was experienced by Wysocki, whose sidearm drive sailed OB left off the tee. Paul McBeth was 2nd to tee and seized the opportunity handed to him by Ricky by landing his drive in the middle of the fairway.
Paul’s caddie Joonas Karin-Oka congratulates the fresh EO2016 champion.
Wysocki would eventually go OB again with his lengthy upshot, leaving Paul with the easy task of playing the safe par, cruising to a 2 stroke victory over Wysocki, who missed his last putt from about 6 meters. Paul’s 11 under par for round 3 was the hottest round of the whole tournament.
Video: Paul McBeth on the last hole. More videos like this on our instagram account!
Playoff for the 3rd place trophy
Behind the Americans, KJ and Lizotte would end up being tied for 3rd place after full 54 holes of play. They would go on to settle the 3rd place trophy winner in a playoff, starting on hole 16. No more than one hole was needed this time to conclude the playoff winner, as KJ’s first upshot towards the island green would skip long and off the island, while Simon almost eagled the hole by hitting the cage with his sidearm approach. After his great upshot, Simon tapped in his birdie to take home the 3rd place trophy.
Video: Lizotte vs. Nybo playoff on hole 16. More videos like this on our instagram account!
Piironen and Koivu climb up the scoreboard
Pasi Koivu bounced back nicely today from his collapse on the island hole on round 2.
Behind the lead group, Leo Piironen (FIN) and Pasi Koivu (FIN) had great endings to their tournaments with Piironen returning a neat bogey free scorecard of -9 and Koivu wrapping up his round with a -7. Koivu would take 5th place in the event, with Piironen in 6th. The top ten was completed by more Finnish talent: Ville Ahokas and Seppo Paju (tied 7th), Lassi Hakulinen (9th), and Teemu Nissinen & Janne Hirsimäki (tied 10th).
Recap on the EO2016 action!
Video: KJ Nybo hits the birdie on the par 5 hole 3. Find a lot more videos like this on our instagram account!
On the final day, our social media team was following the lead card. As a result, you can find a lot of photo updates, as well as hole-specific play-by-play videos from our instagram account. Make sure to check them out here!
We also have our production crew piecing together a wrap up show to be released later tonight. The show will feature select plays from the final round, as well as player interviews and Disc Golf Metrix analysis by the 2009 disc golf world champion Avery Jenkins. Stay tuned for the show this evening and in the meanwhile, check out the Day 2 Wrap Up show here!
Scores and Stats
We also highly recommend checking out the leaderboard and Metrix stats from the week. As a new feature, we also added the improved course stats to our Disc Golf Metrix platform. The stats are available for registered users only, so make sure to register here if you haven’t already! And if you’re in luck, registering may pay off in a big way, as we’re raffling a limited edition DGWT Grip Equipment bag among our followers after the event.