Open Women

The sun had barely broke the horizon when the first card took to the tee this morning at the 2015 Memorial Championships presented by Discraft. The Open Women’s division would kick off the event at Fountain Hills DGC, launching their drivers over the water on Hole 1. It was a brisk morning but as the story normally goes in the greater Phoenix area, it wouldn’t stay that way for long. In all honesty, by 10AM it would be misleading to describe the weather as anything less than perfect, especially for late February.

3X Women’s Pro World Champion Val Jenkins #17495 shot the hot round this morning, carding a 53 (-3) unofficially rated at 996, adding another great round to her already impressive resume for 2015. She recently returned from the 2015 Aussie Open, where she ran away with the victory after throwing four rounds with an average rating of 980.

Right behind her is the returning champ of The Memorial, Paige Pierce #29190, sitting two strokes back with her finish today of one under par. They’ll be joined by Zoe Andyke #39504 and Jennifer Allen #15354, with two and three strokes separating them from Paige, respectively.

Catrina Allen #44184, sits atop the chase card, with Liz Carr #31068, Paige Bjerkaas #33833, and Jessica Weese #50656 right on her heels. The ladies have the spotlight tomorrow for round two, teeing off last with live streaming coverage from SmashBoxxTV and live scoring with tweets from PDGALive.com.

Open

The women were followed by an absurdly large field of men in the Open division where 179 players would take to the course at their pre-determined tee time, foursome by foursome, for roughly 7 hours. Meanwhile, the amateur divisions and the age-protected professional divisions were spread out across the other two courses being used for the event: Vista Del Camino and Fiesta Lakes.

There is no true “lead card” at the start of any tournament, but many events opt to put together a card that would be exciting for the spectators and the media involved. This year at The Memorial Championships, the last group to tee off for the day included Ricky Wysocki #38008, Will Schusterick #29064, Paul McBeth #27523, and current Amateur World champion, Jake LaPutka #52776.

As an up and comer in the world of professional disc golf, Jake, currently rated 968, was more than happy to have a chance to take on some of the best in the world. A few minutes before the group teed off, Jake stated, “I’m pumped. I can learn so much just from getting to play with these guys. It doesn’t matter if they play bad or they play well. It’s still a chance for me to learn something from them.”

As the day progressed, the scores from the Open division began trickling in. Jeremy Koling #33705 and Simon Lizotte #8332 turned in smoking hot rounds of 13 under par, both holding on to the lead for a majority of the day. Wysocki, Schusterick, and McBeth were all on pace to give them a run for their money through the front nine and in the end, incredibly, 13 under par simply wasn’t good enough.

Wysocki, Schusterick, and McBeth were shredding the course. Slowly but surely, both Wysocki and Schusterick were able to pull away from McBeth, battling it out for the lead by themselves. Shusterick birdied 10 of the last 12 holes of the round, including a ridiculous drive on one of the hardest holes on the course, hole 9. Wysocki, not to be outdone, birdied 11 of the last 12, including every single hole on the back nine.

Wysocki and Schusterick will be joined by Koling and Lizotte tomorrow afternoon on the lead card, with McBeth at the top of the chase card, just one stroke back at 12 under par. The Open division and Open Women’s division will both be playing at Vista Del Camino tomorrow, on the extra long tournament layout that has an average hole distance of 475 feet. Trees are sparse at Vista, but the hole distance, water hazards, and seemingly endless flagged out-of-bounds lines make it a truly challenging course.

Open Masters

The story of the day in the Open Masters division has only one character, Mike Milne #14602. Taking on the Fiesta Lakes course, Milne had one of those days that every disc golfer dreams of having. He finished the day bogey-free, with nine birdies and an eagle. An eagle is one way to put it anyway. Most would call it an ACE!

His round of 11 under par, unofficially rated at 1070, gives him a five stroke cushion over the rest of the lead card tomorrow. Ken Climo #4297, Robert Jerez #4662, and Stanley Pratt #20426 are all tied for second place at six under par. They’ll be doing their best to make up some ground on Milne tomorrow at Fountain Hills.

Watch the Action

Coverage will be in full effect once again tomorrow with scoring and tweets on PDGALive.com, and live streaming video on YouTube coming from the multi-camera angles of SmashBoxxTV. Last but not least, check out the PDGA Flickr page for some photos of today’s action. As many people would say at this point, there’s still a lot of golf left. It’s still anyone’s tournament and we can’t wait to see how it all unfolds tomorrow here in sunny Arizona!