Catrina Allen Extends Her Lead
Catrina Allen Extends Her Lead
EO2017 Moving Day Recap
Catrina Allen kept her composure on the course today. Story and photo by DiscGolfWorldTour.com.
Another exciting day at The Beast today! The Finnish disc golf fans were once again present in huge numbers, as an estimated 1500 to 1800 people followed the action on the course today. The scoring conditions were great again just about all day, as the wind was down and the skies were sunny almost from start to finish. It was only when the lead group teed off on hole 17 when the wind picked up and a rain shower emerged over the Nokia DiscGolfPark course.
Allen extends her lead
The question of the day on the FPO division was whether any of the Finnish ladies would manage to stop Catrina Allen (USA) from walking away with the victory? That’s what this moving day was about. Starting the round tied for second place, Henna Blomroos and Eveliina Salonen were three strokes behind Catrina, and a comfortable six strokes ahead of Valarie Jenkins (USA). Yesterday, hole 1 provided a lot of excitement and changes early into the round, and today wasn’t any different. Cat hitting the cage with her 20m birdie attempt, birdies for Henna and Val (OCP), and a bogey for Eveliina.
Eveliina Salonen is currently on the 2nd place in the tournament.
Val and Henna would keep exchanging birdies, pars and bogeys through the front 9, while Eveliina and Cat stayed fixed on the par train. Cat carded one more bird, and one bogey, respectively. After the nine holes played, Cat and Henna were at par, Val at +1, and Eveliina at +2. And then came the back 9. Cat continued her display of strong disc golf, averaging 969 rated play for the tournament, scoring two more OB-forced bogeys on holes 11 and 15 to finish the round at +2. Eveliina stayed on same pace until hole 18, where she hit OB, and finished the round with a 6 and +6 for the round.
Jenkins moves on up
Henna and Val however, crept ever closer and closer to each other on the second half of the course. Val, with two bogeys and a birdie on 14, finished really strong, at +2 for the round, while Henna couldn’t stay out of trouble. After a birdie on hole 10 where she gained 2 on Eveliina and Val, she stringed together 7 bogeys and a double bogey on 15; finishing +8 for the round.
Valarie Jenkins shot a great round today.
At a respectable distance, starting the day 3 strokes behind Val, the chase card fought a battle of its own. While never really getting into trouble, Kristin Tattar (EST) held on to 5th place, despite carding a +8 for the round.
Katka Bodova (SVK) is in sixth place, gaining three strokes on Kristin thanks to two birdies, only one stroke behind her now. For most of the round, it looked like Hannele Määttä (FIN) was going to give Kristin, and even Val and Henna, a run for their money with exceptional play, +3 through 14 holes, but her poor finish, losing 7 strokes on the last four holes, cost her dearly, and she now rounds out the chase card with fellow Finn Anne Kettunen, both at 4 strokes from Katka.
Barsby maintains the lead but loses his buffer
Barsby started the day with a 6-stroke lead.
Gregg Barsby (USA), who had shot a pair of -11 rounds on the first two days, was the man on top of the Open division leaderboard going into the moving day. Gregg started his day with a great birdie with a putt from outside the circle, but after that his momentum seemed to slow down a bit. It took all the way until the long and narrow Par 4 hole 7 until we saw another birdie from Gregg. This allowed the competition to creep closer the leader, as by hole 6, Paul McBeth (USA) and Simon Lizotte (GER) had been able to move from 6 to 3 back of Barsby.
Video: Barsby saves par with a great putt on hole 11.
Barsby was able to keep the lead at 3 over the mid section of the course, by hitting consecutive birdies on holes 7 to 10 and nailing a big putt to save a the par on hole 11 after going OB in the pond with his drive. After this however, Gregg had a hard time putting himself in position to hit the birdies. His only birdie on the back stretch came on hole 16, right after hitting the top of the basket twice in a row with his birdie putt on holes 14 and 15. Luckily for Gregg, he was able to keep his scorecard bogey-free on the back 9, despite going OB on his sidearm drive on hole 18. Gregg’s round total today was -5, which is still enough to keep him on the lead going in to Championship Sunday, but just by one stroke.
McBeth & Lizotte on the hunt
Simon Lizotte enjoyed playing in front of a huge gallery in the lead card today.
Behind Barsby, Paul McBeth and Simon Lizotte started their rounds with 6 and 7 stroke deficit over Barsby respectively. Both of them were clearly set to play great rounds to catch the leader, and that showed in the course today. Lizotte had a great start to his round with 2 birdies and an Eagle on the huge Par 5 hole 3. Paul just about followed suit with his 3 birdies on the first 3. On hole 4 however, both of them had to settle for a bogey.
Video: Lizotte with a very clean sidearm birdie on hole 6.
From hole 6 onward McBeth and Lizotte seemed to get their groove back, hitting birdies left and right over the mid-section of the course. The chatter in the crowd was even turning to speculation whether a possible new course could be in the making, as after hole 14 Lizotte was already 10 under par and McBeth at -9 for the round. While we didn’t get see a new course record today, Lizotte played smart golf on the final 4 holes and was able to scramble pars from 15 and 16 after going ob on his drive on the first and missing the island on his first upshot on the second. Much to Simon’s delight, he was also able to finally keep his drive inbounds on hole 18 and converted the birdie to settle at -11 for the day. This places Simon on the sole 2nd place in the tournament, just one stroke behind Barsby.
Video: McBeth snags the birdie on hole 15.
McBeth on the other hand was able to keep his shots in bounds on 15 and 16, picking up birdies on both. On hole 17 he had a dangerous 15 meter downhill putt with OB lurking behind the basket. Paul decided to give the birdie a go, only to end up OB after missing the basket and catching a nasty roll down the hill. Luckily for Paul however, he was able to make the 12 meter comebacker putt to avoid further damage on the 2nd to last hole of the day. On the 18th, Paul placed himself right on the sweet spot with his drive, but left his upshot short, finding the OB area in front of the green. This resulted in a bogey for Paul on the 18th, placing him one stroke back of Lizotte and two strokes back of Barsby going into the final day.
Doss ties the course record
Nate Doss played the hot round today.
On the chase card, Nate Doss (USA) was owning the course and gallery today with his squeaky clean, bogey free, -12 to tie the course record previously achieved by KJ Nybo and Paul McBeth in 2015 and Eagle McMahon on the 2nd round this year. At the post-round facebook live interview (scroll down to watch), Doss was clearly very happy with his performance today and ready to play in front of the big gallery tomorrow. Doss’ -12 bridges the gap between him and Barsby from 9 strokes to just 2 and places him on the top card, tied with McBeth on the 3rd place.
Video: Doss birdies hole 18 to tie the course record.
McMahon’s push isn’t enough to get him to the lead card
Eagle McMahon (USA), who shot the tied course record yesterday, had a great round on the chase card today, but unfortunately for Eagle, his -9 for the day wasn’t enough to give him a spot on the lead card on Championship Sunday. Eagle’s -21 for the 3 rounds places him on the 5th place, 6 strokes back of the leader.
Devan Owens shot -8 today and will be on chase card tomorrow.
Joining McMahon on the lead card will be fellow Americans Paul Ulibarri and Devan Owens, who both shot 8 under today, and the 2016 Junior World Champion, Finland native Väinö Mäkelä, who shot 9 under today. Owens, Ulibarri and Mäkelä are all tied on the 6th place with their -19 total for the 3 rounds so far.
Väinö Mäkelä is the top Finnish player in the tournament after 3 rounds.
Competition is tight for top 10 finishes
Video: KJ Nybo couldn’t keep himself on the lead card going into the final day.
Behind the first 2 groups there’s still a lot of players competing for the top 10 placements. Danish KJ Nybo dropped from the lead card to the 3rd card for tomorrow with his -4 for the day. KJ’s -18 total ties him on the 9th place with Dave Feldberg (USA) and Teemu Nissinen (FIN). The 3rd card will be rounded out by Nate Sexton (USA), who is currently 1 shot behind the trio.
Recap on the Moving Day action!
Video: Ricky Wysocki hits the EAGLE on hole 3.
During the 3rd round, our social media team was following mostly the 2 top cards of Open division. As a result, you can find a lot of photo updates, as well as hole-specific play-by-play videos on our Instagram account.
We also have The SpinTV production crew piecing together play-by-play tournament coverage videos from the lead card and chase card’s 3rd round, to be released sometime in the coming days. If you haven’t already, make sure to check out the lead card’s 2nd round coverage by The Spin TV here and here! You can always find all of our official videos here and check out our facebook live recap show from after round 3 below:
Moving Day Facebook LIVE Recap with interviews from Nate Doss and Simon Lizotte!
Scores and Stats
We also highly recommend checking out the leaderboard and Metrix and course stats from the final round. The new feature we added last year, player- and hole-specific instagram videos on the scoring interface, is in place here at the European Open too, so make sure to check those out by clicking the tiny camera icons where available.
Find the PDGA results page with preliminary round ratings here!
It’s looking to be another exciting finish here at the European Open, so make sure to follow the action again tomorrow!