Photo by John Hollingshead #68539.

After three long, viciously hot and humid days of disc golf, the 20th Brent Hambrick Memorial Open as well as the 2016 PDGA National Tour have finally come to an end. The event left both the BHMO and NT titles up for grabs in the Open and Open Women’s division, yet it only took three competitors for us to award the four titles thanks to none other than Catrina Allen #44184.

Catrina has had an amazing year thus far and there’s still plenty of disc golf left in the season. She competed in every single PDGA National Tour event from the Memorial Championship in March all the way to the BHMO this weekend, taking 1st place at six of the seven events, often winning by an incredible margin. The one NT she didn’t win was The Vibram Open, where she took 2nd place, losing to Paige Pierce #29190 by just a single stroke.

With Pierce not competing in the BHMO, Catrina had little to worry about in the race for the NT title. By the end of the second round at the BHMO, she had little to worry about for the BHMO title as well, building up a lead of eight or more over Sarah Hokom #34563 and Val Jenkins #17495. By the end of the third round her lead grew by another five strokes to 13, and when it was all said and done Catrina was able to tap in to win the BHMO by a whopping 20 strokes, and the NT title by an equally impressive 109 points, finishing the series with a perfect score of 600.

Catrina Allen with the longest drive of the day for the women on the very tough Hole 2. #BHMO pic.twitter.com/xrlM6pGTdi

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) August 27, 2016

Catrina Allen #44184 throwing the longest drive, by far, in the Open Women's division on Hole 2.

In the Open division, there was simply no catching Ricky Wysocki #38008 as far as the NT series goes. Paul McBeth #27523 was the only competitor within range of taking him out, but he would have needed Wysocki to finish below 15th place at the event while also winning the event himself. I think it’s fair to say that we all knew that wasn’t going to happen.

What we didn’t know was which of the two were going to win the BHMO as they fought back and forth for the lead throughout the week. Wysocki managed to stay ahead of McBeth for the first two days, but then, this happened.

Click to see all hole-by-hole scoring from the Open Division's round 3 at the 2016 BHMO.

Paul McBeth became Paul McBeast and absolutely annihilated the course. He began the round with a three-stroke deficit to Ricky which quickly grew to five strokes just three holes into the round, leaving him with 22 holes to try and catch his rival. In true champion form, Paul stayed confident and mentally strong and slowly chipped away at Ricky’s lead. By the time they reached the 15th hole Paul had tied it up, carding nine birdies against Ricky’s six.

Paul was on fire, finishing the round with an additional seven birdies and one bogey that left him 10 ahead of Wysocki, a 13-stroke swing in one round. With only the Final 9 remaining, there was little to no chance of anyone catching him.

The Final 9 tradition at the BHMO spans two decades, played as a supergroup with the top four Open division players and the top three Open Women’s division players. Both divisions in this case had runaway leaders and it was only in the Open division where any sort of potential battle existed.

All 6 backhand make it over the treeline. Hokom plays a forehand down the left side. We'll see who has a putt! #BHMO pic.twitter.com/Jdm5IVxsGf

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) August 28, 2016

The "dam hole" of the Final 9 safari layout, where all seven competitors throw out the opening of one of the dam's towers to the infamous pyramid basket several stories below.

McBeth and Wysocki were joined by Nate Sexton #18824 and Chris Dickerson #62467, two and four back of Wysocki respectively. Sarah Hokom and Val Jenkins joined Catrina for the safari Final 9, neither of which had much of a shot at catching the competitor ahead of them.

Bogeys on both of the safari holes (7 & 8) nearly cost Wysocki his 2nd place spot, but he was able to drop in his putt to stay one ahead of Sexton to close out the tour season. Although losing to McBeth by 11 here at the BHMO, Wysocki still managed to win the NT points series by 33.5 points, not to mention his first World Championship just a few weeks ago.

A big thank you to the BHMO staff, who not only ran a great event but also raised $7000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! We can say with confidence that Brent Hambrick would have been proud!

Congratulations to all of the PDGA National Tour’s top finishers. We’ll be announcing next year’s schedule in the weeks to come and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2017! 

• Final 2016 Brent Hambrick Memorial Open Results »
• Final 2016 National Tour Points Standings »