4 Takeaways from the 2019 Las Vegas Challenge
The Las Vegas Challenge is a wrap! And tomorrow the first Disc Golf Pro Tour event of 2019 kicks off in Arizona with the Memorial Championship Presented by Discraft. So the season has officially kicked off, and we wanted to take a look back at 4 takeaways from the LVC.
1. Calvin Heimberg—Remember My Name!
He isn’t Heisenberg, but he is going to still make sure you remember his name! Calvin Heimberg went into the final round with a 6 stroke lead on the field. After struggling on the front 9, he birdied 8 out of the 9 final holes of the tournament to comeback and win his first NT event by two strokes. Some of you may recognize his name from a handful of tour events last year including a top 3 finish at Maple Hill, but he has mostly stayed local in Florida. But now that he is done with school, it looks like he will be on tour full time this year, and if LVC was any indication, we may be seeing this 1041 rated 23 year old on the top of the podium a few times this year.
2. Paige Bjerkaas Shows She’s the World Champ for a Reason
Paige Bjerkaas may have surprised folks when she claimed the world championship in 2018, but her impressive performance at LVC shows that it isn’t a fluke. She has put in the work and shown that she is worthy to be in the conversation as one of the best women to play the game right now. She finished her final round tied with Catrina Allen for first place after missing a putt from inside the circle. Instead of shutting down mentally, she laced a beautiful drive on the first hole of the playoff that set her up with a 40 ft jump putt that she banged home for the birdie and the win. We are excited to see what she has in store for us for the rest of the year.
3.Paul McBeth and Ricky Wysocki Still Need to Adjust to New Discs…Maybe…
The McBeast and Raptor Ricky played their first tournament with brand new equipment from new product sponsors. Their first round on the Infinite Discs course was filmed by JoMez, and when you review the film, they both looked a bit shaky at times, especially on the putting greens. So naturally, the easy conclusion is they must be needing to get used to their new discs, right? Well, that might be true, but at the same time they both managed to finish in the top 10. If there was a struggle due to new discs, it wasn’t too significant, and both competitors should be 100% very soon.
4. An Improved and Competitive MPO Field=Soooo Much Fun to Watch
After a crazy final round that featured crazy comebacks from the likes of Eagle McMahon and Eric Oakley, folks who don’t have a horse in the race left LVC feeling very excited. These competitors have put in the work all offseason, and the competition up top is going to be stiff this year. Most will agree that Ricky and Paul are still in their own tier at the top, but after that, it gets messy and crowded. We are going to see some competitive disc golf this year with lots of disc golfers finishing tournaments just one or two strokes behind the weekend’s champion. We are excited to watch it all play out.
What did you all think of this year’s event? Are there any takeaways that we missed out on? Please let us know in the comments!