Registration for the PDGA Professional Disc Golf World Championships at the Smugglers' Notch Resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont closes at Midnight Eastern on this Friday 8/24 (Thursday night/Friday morning.) Just 33 hours left to register!
This is the LAST CHANCE to register for the LAST FIVE SPOTS!! Only 3 spots remain in MPO and only 2 spots remain in FPO.
Registration is OPEN to all PDGA members regardless of class and/or rating. Please note that you must be a 2018 current PDGA member and a certified official through August 18, 2018 in order to register.
Advanced division winner Luke Humphries and Advanced Women's division winner Alexis Mandujano at the 2018 Am Worlds awards ceremony. Photo: PDGA
The 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships came to a bittersweet end on Saturday afternoon in Charlotte with semifinal rounds in the morning and finals that followed shortly after for those fortunate enough to make the cut(s). Thanks to a tremendous effort by the Am Worlds staff and Charlotte’s disc golf scene in general, what is normally a hectic day for Am Worlds felt like a walk in the park, Renaissance Park to be more specific.
After four days and six rounds of competition, the 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships in Charlotte, North Carolina has come to an end for nearly two-thirds of the field. The 200 or so that made it through to the semifinals will again be reduced on Saturday afternoon to just 38 for the finals at Renaissance Park. By the day’s end, 10 new PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Champions will be crowned in front of friends, family, and spectators.
Advanced division leader Luke Humphries teeing off on hole 12 at Bradford Park. Photo: PDGA
For the hundreds of competitors that made the trek to Charlotte for the 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships, the time has come to put it all on the line. With Thursday’s scores posted, most divisions have just one round left to play before the fields are significantly reduced for Saturday morning’s semifinals. For the players, the battles at the top of the leaderboards take a back seat to the ones taking place at the cut line on moving day.
Valarie Mandujano leads the Advanced Women's division by three heading into Thursday's round. Photo: PDGA
Three down, three to go. Rounds, that is. With cuts for the semifinals and finals on Saturday fast approaching and the largest three divisions now shuffled, the competitors at or near the top of their divisions will be stepping up the intensity for the next two days of the 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships. The players and staff here in Charlotte are likely hoping for just the opposite when it comes to Mother Nature, as she has already shown more than her fair share of intensity since the competition began.
Due to severe flooding at the Hornet’s Nest DGC caused by Wednesday’s extreme weather, Hole 8 at Hornet’s Nest had to be removed from play in concern for the safety of the players in the B-Pool (Advanced). To maintain the integrity of the competition for the Advanced division, this has made it necessary to remove the scores that the A, C, and D Pool players had previously scored on Hole 8 during their rounds on Tuesday and Wednesday. Although a less than an ideal situation, this was deemed a better solution than completely removing all of the MA1 Hornet’s Nest round scores from the competition.
Advanced A-pool's Aaron Fruendt flicks out of the rough on hole 17 at Bradford Park during his second round.
For an unfortunate majority of the field, the opening round of the 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships was plagued by absolute downpour. In some sections of the greater Charlotte area, the rain was coming down with such ferocity that visibility was less than the length of even some of the shortest disc golf holes in the city. But, such is life, and this is a world championship after all. A bit of rain wasn’t about to slow down the true competitors.
Pools B, S, F, and L pools (Bradford, Bailey and Robbins) tee times for Round 1 have been delayed to 9:30 a.m. due to an accident on I-77. Pools N and H are now moved to 9:30 a.m. at Nevin, as well as pool C at Hornets Nest for the same reason.
2018 Am Worlds Field Events wrapped up on Sunday afternoon.
Well, here we are again, back in North Carolina for yet another PDGA Major. Charlotte has a long history of successfully hosting some of the largest and most complicated disc golf events in the sport’s short history and with an ever-growing abundance of courses that vary in both length and difficulty, awarding the the 2018 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championships (Am Worlds) to this amazing city was a no-brainer.
