Cover photo of Catrina Allen #44184.

With only one round to go, the 34th Kansas City Wide Open is living up to its rich history as one of the longest running disc golf events in the world. Ricky Wysocki #38008 and Catrina Allen #44184 have been in the lead since the end of Round 1 and they’ll be looking to seal the deal tomorrow to win their first and third PDGA National Tour events of 2016, respectively.

Open Women's Division

Catrina Allen began the day with a lead of four or more over Paige Pierce #29190, Jennifer Allen #15354, and Liz Carr-Sypien #31068. Right out of the gates, Catrina started extending her lead. In the first three holes alone, she had already gained two on both Paige and Jennifer, putting her six ahead of the nearest competition.

As the round progressed, finishing a hole at par was all that was needed to gain strokes on the field. Catrina finished with one birdie, but with only two bogeys. Her final round score of 62 (+1) was enough to extend her lead from four to nine heading into the final round tomorrow.

If you were watching the live scoring this afternoon, you might be wondering what happened on the par 5, Hole 4 to cause Paige to take a 12. Here’s the short version. Paige’s drive left her pinned to the right side of the fairway near the OB rope, but safe. Her lie gave her two options: play a safe anhyzer into the fairway to very likely finish the hole with a par, or throw a stable driver over the OB on the right with the hopes of it fading left into the fairway to give her a chance at an approach that would leave her a birdie putt.

Being the competitor that she is, Paige opted for the latter. Her first attempt didn’t hyzer out enough and the red flag was raised. Her second attempt, same story. A third attempt meant she was already throwing her 6th shot, but she went for it anyway and fell short once again. A frustrated and rushed attempt to finally take the safer route ended with her disc being knocked to the ground by a tree. Nine throws plus three OB penalty strokes later, she tapped in for a 12.

Catrina Allen slow motion drive off the tee of Hole 9. Scores on https://t.co/F7UJEGVcOL. #34KCWO pic.twitter.com/tTVwmUTXuf

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) May 7, 2016

Catrina Allen #44184 slow-motion drive off the tee of Swope Gold's Hole 9.

Catrina will be joined by Liz Carr-Sypien, Val Jenkins, and Jennifer Allen, returning to Swope Gold for one last hurrah. Paige now heads up the chase card, one behind Jennifer Allen and joined by Lisa Fajkus #32654, Stephanie Vincent #29947, and Des Reading #15863.

Open Division

Swope Gold morphed the Open division from a battle of many to a two-horse race. Ricky Wysocki and Ben Wiggins #38040 have pulled away from the rest of the field, leaving what should be a tremendous fight to the finish tomorrow for the third and final round of the 2016 KCWO.

Wiggins will begin the round tomorrow two off the lead after playing back-to-back rounds with an average unofficial rating of 1050. As Nikko Locastro put it yesterday after the round at Blue Valley Park when Ben started the round with nine straight birdies, “Ben played perfect golf. If he didn’t park his drive he would just nail a 40’ birdie putt like it was nothing.”

Wysocki would likely tell you he didn’t play well even though he shot the hot round with a 52 (-9), matched by Paul Ulibarri #27171. His frustration was clearly visible as the round ended, knowing he made a few uncharacteristic mistakes. Missing birdie putts on Holes 14, 15, and 16 that most would consider nearly guaranteed for one of the best putters in the world, Wysocki could be going into the round tomorrow with much less to worry about.

Wysocki and Wiggins will tee off tomorrow with Nikko Locastro #11534 who sits five off the lead, and a five-way tie of top contenders in 4th place, all seven off the lead. The Open Women’s lead card will take to the tee at 9:54am CDT and the men’s lead card will follow at approximately 1:03pm CDT.

Thunderstorms are once again lurking in the forecast for tomorrow afternoon, so we all have our fingers crossed that we can get through the round without the threat of lightning delaying the round. Live scoring will begin around 9:30am CDT for the women and will continue throughout the afternoon on pdgalive.com.

Links to all 2016 KCWO tee times, results, and media can be found on the KCWO page of PDGA.com, and pictures from the event are available for viewing and downloading on the PDGA Flickr page.   

Wysocki slow-mo birdie putt on Hole 18. #34KCWO pic.twitter.com/2jyfGGJTHm

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) May 7, 2016

Ricky Wysocki #38008 slow-motion birdie putt on Swope Gold's Hole 18.