Maryland's Paula Bowen became the first PDGA Amateur Masters Women 70+ World Champion on Friday afternoon at the conclusion of her fifth and final round.

All good things must come to an end. For roughly 70% of the 2019 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships competitors, today marked that very moment in time. While there was one world champion crowned this afternoon at Klines Run Park on the outskirts of York, Pennsylvania, there are still 204 men and women that have even more disc golf to endure.

With four straight days of disc golf already in the books, it seems ludicrous that there would still be more to go. But there is. For the eight largest divisions of the 12 that have yet to crown a champion, earning the world title will mean finishing the semifinals in fourth place or better and then finishing the final nine ahead of the other three. For the four remaining smaller divisions, the semifinals are bypassed, meaning their final nine showdowns are mere hours away.

While the 204 competitors that still have to take the tee tomorrow try their best to get a good night’s sleep, Maryland’s Paula Bowen can rest easy. After completing her fifth and final round against Florida’s Judith Gipson, Bowen tapped in at Klines Run Park to become the first-ever PDGA Amateur Masters Women 70+ world champion. Now in her fifth year as a disc golfer, this was Bowen’s second year competing at Am Worlds. In Charlotte, North Carolina at the 2018 Am Worlds, a lack of competitors in the division in which she registered (Amateur Masters Women 70+) left her competing in the Amateur Masters Women 60+ division, where, despite being 73 at the time, she still managed to finish in fourth place.

What began with a two-way tie for the lead in the Advanced division took an unexpected turn after their sixth and final preliminary round this afternoon at Muddy Run, where Tennessee’s Noah Osborne went absolutely bananas. Finishing the round with an astonishing, bogey-free, 14-under par 53, he would leave his former co-leader Aaron DeVries in the dust to finish the round 11 or more ahead of the rest of the field. It’s been less than two months since Osborne finished in second place at the US Amateur Disc Golf Championships, and it’s starting to feel as if he isn’t going to let that happen again. After turning in a 1026-rated 52 at Codorus State Park Blue on the round prior, his 14-under par at Muddy Run this afternoon was even better at 1031.

There are still several super tight battles for the semifinals coming up on Saturday morning, some of them being for the top of the leaderboard and some of them being battles for a spot in the finals. For the divisions that skip the semis, finals will begin at 9:30 a.m. at Codorus State Park Red on the final nine layout. Follow along on pdgalive.com as 12 new amateur world champions are crowned!

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