Pedal to the Metal in Vegas Opener
Pedal to the Metal in Vegas Opener
DGPT - Las Vegas Challenge Round 1 Recap
Calvin Heimburg finished strong to open the Las Vegas Challenge. Photo: Alyssa Van Lanen / DGPT
(Article via Disc Golf Pro Tour)
There were some familiar names on top of the leaderboard following round one of the Las Vegas Challenge presented by Innova.
After a windy day, Calvin Heimburg holds a one-stroke lead in the tightly packed men’s division, and Paige Pierce has a four-stroke lead over the women’s field, which includes 46 players.
Heimburg leads the tournament after shooting a 12-under, 47, unofficially rated 1080. After starting his day with a double-bogey on the first hole, Heimburg bounced back to card 14 birdies, including five-straight after the opener. He also finished with five straight birdies, grabbing the outright lead on the 18th.
Paul McBeth shot 11-under par to finish the day in a tie for second place. McBeth started with three straight birdies and eagled the triple island, hole six in route to a 7-under front nine. He cooled off on the back nine, including a bogey on 15, but birdies on 16 and 18 allowed him to be just one stroke out of the lead going into the second day.
Eagle McMahon had the opportunity to set the pace early for the rest of the field. McMahon teed off at 8:04 a.m. local time and set the mark for the rest of the competitors to chase, shooting a 11-under, 48. Eagle started his round with three straight birdies and added streaks of four straight on holes 6-9 and 15-18. McMahon’s only blemish of the day came on the 430-foot, hole 11 in which he went out of bounds and bogeyed.
Like McMahon, Ezra Aderhold, making his Discraft debut, also got off to a fast start to help set the pace for the field. He is tied with three other players -- James Conrad, Ricky Wysocki and Garrett Gurthie, in fourth place at 10-under. Gurthie will get the bid for the lead card with the lowest PDGA number.
There were two aces on the day. Cale Leiviska started his tournament with a bang, aceing hole 1, and Vincent Polidori aced his final hole of the day, hole 18.
Pierce, later in the afternoon, separated herself from the field, shooting a scorching 10-under, 52, which checks in with an unofficial rating of 1031.
Pierce leads the field in several statistical categories including: Fairway Hits, Parked, Circle 1 in Regulation, Circle 2 in Regulation and Birdie Percentage, according to UDisc.
Her success was in large part due to her ability to stay in bounds. With strong winds, many competitors struggled to keep their discs in bounds and out of the hazard areas, but Pierce had zero OB strokes on the day. The only blemish on Paige’s record was her work on the green, as she was 50% on C1x putts in an otherwise stellar round. Pierce has a streak of six straight birdies on the back nine, getting holes 11-16. Overall, Pierce had ten birdies and no bogeys on the day.
Catrina Allen is four strokes behind Pierce after shooting a 6-under, 56. Allen had a clean scorecard through the first 12 holes, carding six birdies and zero bogeys before bogeying hole 13. She was able to bounce back and carded zero bogeys along with one birdie the rest of the way.
Jessica Weese sits in third place at 4-under par. Weese finished the day with a Circle 1 in Regulation rate of 50%, the third-best in the field.
Jennifer Allen rounds out the lead card after a roller coaster of a day. Her day was epitomized by holes eight and nine. Allen went out of bounds twice on the 725-foot par five and carded a double bogey. On the next hole, a 597-foot par four, Allen scored an eagle with a 200-foot throw-in. She finished 3-under, 59 with an eagle, five birdies, two bogeys, and one double bogey.
Round two of the Las Vegas Challenge presented by Innova continues tomorrow with the action moving to the Innova course, the only track that competitors will play twice (Sunday's final round) in the four-round event.
Coverage will begin on the Disc Golf Network at 2:20 pm ET with the men’s lead card teeing at 2:40 p.m. ET and the women’s lead card teeing at 4:32 p.m. ET. Live scoring and stats are available via UDisc Live.
Comments
Dear PDGA,
Dear PDGA,
Please put a clear link at the top or bottom of the article to the leaderboard page. Due to the fact (problem) that EVERY AM tournament (which should NOT be the purview of the Pdga) on earth is listed, it's often very difficult to scroll and find the results page.
Make it so.
Spike