Paul McBeth #27523 and Catrina Allen #44184 are still in the lead, but they’ll have some fresh new blood to deal with for Round 3 of the 2015 Maple Hill Open.

Despite having perhaps the most perfect day of weather of any PDGA National Tour event in the last two years, the average scores for the field today went slightly up instead of down. Not to say that yesterday’s weather wasn’t phenomenal as well; it was. Nonetheless, in both the Open and Open Women’s divisions, 55% of the field had Round 2 scores that were the same or worse than the previous.

Perhaps it speaks more to the course than the conditions. Maple Hill Gold is well-known as an unforgiving disc golf venue. It’s the type of place where hitting your lines doesn’t necessarily translate to a score that reflects your efforts. Great drives can and often do get knocked down or kicked out of the fairway well before they reach the green, slowly eating away at the mentality and confidence of the players.

Open Division

Regardless, there are always a select few that move up in the ranks by consistently overcoming the obstacles of a course like Maple Hill. The players on the Open division lead card tomorrow are shining examples of that concept, proving that persistence and mental strength always prevails. Paul McBeth and Ricky Wysocki #38008, just as they did yesterday, ended the afternoon in 1st and 2nd  place overall, respectively. Neither of them shot the hot round today, but they denied anyone a chance at ousting them from the top of the leaderboard by playing consistent, amazing golf.

Ricky Wysocki runs a long birdie putt on Hole 2.

Speaking of hot rounds, let’s talk about Gregg Barsby #15857. If you’re a fan and you were watching the scores come in on pdgalive.com, you had to be at least somewhat worried when he finished the front nine at at even par, carding two bogeys, two birdies, and five pars. Shooting par at Maple Hill is an impressive feat in itself (unofficially rated at 1012 for Round 2) but it’s not going to provide much upward mobility against a field of competitors at this level.

Something must have clicked at that point because not only did Barsby stop carding bogeys, he stopped carding pars, almost entirely. Other than a par on the 780’ downhill Hole 11, Barsby birdied everything on the back nine. When it was all said and done, he shot a 52 for the day, unofficially rated at 1072. He’s now sitting in third place just three throws back from Wysocki and six from McBeth.

David Wiggins Jr. #24437 will join McBeth, Wysocki, and Barsby to round out the lead card for Round 3. Wiggins put on a show of his own this afternoon, starting the round with not one, not two, not three, but FIVE birdies in a row. He cooled down a bit after that, staying birdie-free for the next nine holes, but finished almost as strongly as he started by carding birdies on holes 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Open Women’s Division

The seemingly never-ending story that is Catrina Allen #44148 vs Paige Pierce #29190 continued today, joined by Jessica Weese #50656 on the Open Women’s lead card. Allen’s Round 1 score of 59 (-1) put her at the top of the group, followed by Weese (60), and Pierce (61) just one shy of Weese.

Catrina came out of the gate throwing perfect lines and hitting all her putts. Pierce started to gain some ground, but for every great drive or putt that she put together, Catrina had an answer. Catrina was in the zone; crushing drivers and midranges in the tightest of fairways. She simply wasn’t going to be caught.

Another beautiful approach from Cat to the island green of 9. Almost gets the first 2 of the week! #MapleHillOpen pic.twitter.com/tr5QsTQYR7

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) June 26, 2015

Catrina Allen runs her second throw right past the basket, nearly getting a fairway ace on Hole 9.

Weese got off to a rough start to say the least, coming through the first six holes already at nine over par. This left the doors wide open for competitors the likes of Val Jenkins #17495 and Sarah Hokom #34563 on the chase card to make a run at Weese’s third place spot. As more and more holes went by, the gap between the women on the chase card and Weese on the lead card grew smaller and smaller. Until eventually, Val had taken over.

Val would eventually secure her spot on the lead card for Round 3, and did so in an impressive fashion. She finished with the hot round in the Open Women’s division, shooting an ever par 60 and the only unofficially 1000+ rated round. Had she not taken an unfortunate double bogey on Hole 18, she would have secured the best women’s round of the week thus far.  

Val still has plenty of work to do tomorrow if she wants to catch either Paige or Catrina. Even after moving from 6th place to 3rd in a single day, she’s still five throws back from Paige and an additional four more from Catrina. It will be interesting to see what these women will put together for Round 3.

Coverage

With both the live feed of SmashBoxxTV and post-production videos from Prodigy Disc, there is plenty of disc golf action available on YouTube from the 2015 Maple Hill Open. Links to all of the available videos are added to the Maple Hill Open Video Coverage page on PDGA.com as soon as they become available.

Live scoring will continue for each and every player for Round 3 on pdgalive.com with the SmashBoxxTV live feed beginning at approximately 1:30pm EDT. The lead MPO card of McBeth, Wysocki, Barsby, and Wiggins Jr is scheduled to tee off at 2:00pm EDT. The women's lead card goes off last once again today, with a scheduled tee time of 3:30pm EDT.

Round 3 is the last chance for the bottom half of the players to make the cut if they want to play one final round on Maple Hill Gold tomorrow. We wish everyone the best of luck!