Jayden Torres won the 2024 NADGT National Championship in MA1. Photo: PDGA Media
Jayden Torres connected on a clutch putt on the first playoff hole and then sealed his title at the 2024 IDIO NADGT National Championship on the second.
It was that kind of finish all around the Austin, Texas area this past weekend.
Wait a minute - a Finale in February? Yes, the NADGT is giving aspiring amateurs the opportunity to play on the Disc Golf Pro Tour in 2024. With the DGPT kicking off this month in Florida, the NADGT Tour Finale winners can go directly on tour.
The NADGT Tour Finale kicked off Thursday in Jacksonville, Florida at the New World Sports Complex. The NADGT Tour Finale is the culmination of over 15,000 players who have competed throughout the 2023 season to qualify for an opportunity to play for big cash and a chance to play on the Disc Golf Pro Tour in 2024.
In the past, the National Amateur Disc Golf Tour has used a format that allowed amateur players to qualify throughout the year and then head to Austin, Texas for a chance to turn pro and play for cash at the NADGT National Championships.
Throughout the week, eleven different amateur divisions competed on ten different courses in Austin, Texas as players from all over the country gathered together to test their skills against some of the best amateurs in the United States.
After competing in qualifying tournaments all over the country, some of the best amateurs in the sport — all 981 in the field — will battle it out to see who will come out on top and potentially set their sights on making the transition to a touring professional.
The event, which has boasted first-place prizes from a brand-new car to a $10,000 payday in 2021, is the culmination of the 2022 NADGT in which qualifiers earned their spot at events throughout the country in 2022.
Aria Castruita is the 2021 National Amateur Disc Golf Tour Champion. Photo: Hayden Henry / PDGA
Aria Castruita took a victory lap this past weekend to add another big win to the family trophy case.
They might have to build a bigger display soon.
Castruita went wire-to-wire this weekend at the National Amateur Disc Golf Tour Championship to defend her NADGT title, one that will set next to her 2021 PDGA FJ15 World Championship.
“Super excited,” Aria told the Disc Golf Network’s Nate Perkins. “I came back and won it.”
Micah Groth is the 2021 NADGT Champion. Photo: Hayden Henry / PDGA
Micah Groth is taking notes every step of the way so far in his young disc golf career.
At the 2021 PDGA Junior World Championships, he learned about the pressure of the big moments. Back home, it’s iron-sharpens-iron on the courses in South Carolina, a place that continues to churn out disc golf talent. On the course, he adjusts and makes calculated decisions.
Groth, who recently turned 16, torched the MetCenter on Saturday to the tune of a 10-under, bogey-free round to jump from the chase card to a three-stroke lead over Pettigrew heading into Championship Sunday.
Fellow South Carolina native Brent Hannu is four strokes back of Groth in third place.
Calvin Pettigrew, of Tennessee, and Brent Hannu, of South Carolina, held on to the top spots in the MPO A Pool heading into the weekend in Austin, Texas.
Through nearly 250 events in 2021, the NADGT saw over 18,000 players compete for a chance to qualify for the championship, which runs through Sunday and visits 12 courses throughout Texas’ capital city.
The series was previously called the Next Generation Tour and it has lived up to that title.
NADGT Naitonal Championship qualifiers will have to wait until 2021 for their chance to win one of the largest prizes in amateur disc golf. Photo: PDGA Media / Alyssa Van Lanen
The National Amateur Disc Golf Tour (NADGT) has announced that they are postponing the 2020 National Championships, previously scheduled for October 29–November 1, based on guidance from Austin area public health authorities.
