The second stop of the Disc Golf Pro Tour’s Silver Series kicks off Friday morning, and it’s the first time we are seeing a full field of touring professionals take their shot at some bonus Silver Series points.
DGPT Points Leaders Calvin Heimburg and Paige Pierce will both be in attendance and will be the players to beat in their respective divisions.
On the MPO side, Heimburg will be looking to follow up on his strong performances at the Dynamic Discs Open and Preserve Championship by winning an event where he took second in 2019. He will be competing against a stacked field, which includes defending champion Garrett Gurthie. Last year, Garrett was able to best Calvin by four throws to win the tournament.
Tournament play will be different this year as players will only be playing Silver Creek due to flooding at the storied Rollin’ Ridge course. For perspective, Gurthie gained all four of his strokes over Heimburg at Rollin Ridge last year. In fact, in the two rounds that Gurthie and Heimburg played at Silver Creek for the event, Heimburg bested Gurthie by one.
However, it won’t just be the Heimburg and Gurthie show, with the field boasting nearly triple the number of 1000 rated players compared to last year, including last weekend’s Preserve Championship winner, Nikko Locastro.
Will Nikko be able to ride the wave of last weekend’s win? Will there be another battle between Garrett Gurthie and Calvin Heimburg like last year? Or will someone from this year’s stacked field such as World Champion Ricky Wysocki, 1038-rated Kevin Jones, or US Champion James Conrad bring home the victory?
With three rounds on the same track, it will be interesting to see who comes out on top in the MPO division. You can follow the action on https://www.udisclive.com or watch after the fact with post-production coverage from Par Save Productions and GK Pro.
Tomorrow’s feature card covered by Par Save includes Defending Champion Garrett Gurthie, last weekend’s Champion Nikko Locastro, Discmania sponsored player Nate Perkins and last year’s Masters Champion JohnE McCray.
GK Pro’s feature card will include Kevin Jones, James Conrad, Colten Montgomery, and Calvin Heimburg.
FPO competition stronger than ever
The FPO division also features an increase in competition with 20 players registered compared to last year’s six. While Holly Finley will be looking to defend last year’s victory, she will be doing so against a field that features two World Champions who were not at the tournament last year.
After winning the first two events back from the COVID-19 break with commanding leads, Paige Pierce is the favorite going into the weekend. While Holly was able to battle it out last year, all will be watching to see if she has what it takes to defend a home-state victory against a 5x World Champion.
Also in the mix this weekend will be Missy Gannon, Kona Star Panis, and Rebecca Cox, who are 3rd, 5th, and 6th in Tour Standings, respectively. Currently, defending Champion Holly Finley is 9th in Tour Standings. Another player to watch for will be previous World and DGPT Points Champion Sarah Hokom. Hokom has opted to sit out of two of the four DGPT tournaments so far this season. The Silver Cup will be just her 4th event this season.
The Disc Golf Pro Tour will provide post-production coverage from the FPO division on its YouTube channel. The first round feature card will include defending champion Holly Finley, Tour Points leader Paige Pierce, Rebecca Cox, and Wisconsin native Hailey King.
