The Challenge Part 1 Wrap-Up

Wow! Another June, another Challenge wrapped up! Errrrr…well I guess a portion of it has been wrapped up – The Challenge Part 2 will happen August 22-23, 2020. But Saturday saw the completion of our Disc Golf Pro Tour Silver Series and PDGA A-tier portion of The Challenge at Goat Hill Park – Driven by Innova.

The payout has all been PayPal/Venmo’d, the PDGA TD report has been submitted and PDGA fees paid (SoCal fees coming soon) and Goat Hill Park was cleaned up yesterday in record time. And I slept in a little bit on Sunday.

Anthony Barela and Ohn Scoggins are your 2020 MPO and FPO Champions for The Challenge! AB and 2019 Champion Thomas Gilbert battled through the second and third rounds, but Anthony birdied his last 10 holes to catch Thomas on hole 17 and then take the one shot lead over Thomas on the final hole. AB’s final round 13-under would have been the hot round of the tournament, but Clint Calvin’s 14-under 56 gave him the new course record and helped secure his third place finish.

Barela, Gilbert and Calvin all punched their tickets to Rock Hill for the United States Disc Golf Championship in October with their top finishes and were joined by fifth-place finisher Alex Lyon and sixth-place Sias Elmore (fourth-place finisher Philo Brathwaite had previously qualified for USDGC).

Ohn took home her first Goat trophy via a wire-to-wire win. She bested 2019 Challenge Champion Jennifer Allen by 2 throws in the first round (67 to 69), and the two matched scores in rounds 2 and 3 to lead two Ohn’s two throw victory. Hannah Stefanovich entered the final round in third place, two shots ahead of Brandie Myers. Brandie caught up to Hannah on hole 3 (on the UDiscLive leaderboard), but a 3-shot swing in Hannah’s favor on the windy hole 7 helped her secure the third-place cash.

We had two side contests based on UDiscLive scoring statistics: Thomas Gilbert won $50 for having the best Circle 2 putting percentage (35%), while Mason Royster, Braeden Moore and Ohn Scoggins will split the $50 set aside for the lowest OB rate – they each had only one OB for the entire event.

Based on the feedback I have received I think we had a pretty smooth event, especially given the logistical challenges posed by COVID-19. I want to thank all of the players and volunteers for their cooperation in helping us hold a COVID-aware and safe competition, with daily temperature checks, mask-wearing in public areas, social distancing and basket disinfecting by the players. I think we set the standard for other disc golf competitions to follow in this regard.
Many thanks to Innova Disc Golf for their continuing support of the challenge, from logistical and financial support to the beautiful Halo COVID Goat™ fundraiser discs that helped us add $4,000 to the pro payout. Innova, along with Mark Molnar and DiscGolfValues have been our biggest supporters since the start and it is greatly appreciated. Also appreciated is the support from Eli Ivy, John Ashworth and the staff at Goat Hill Park. We wouldn’t be able to hold The Challenge without their continued support of disc golf.

Tee Signs for The Challenge at Goat Hill Park – 2020 from AllenRisley

I had a star-studded cast of Tournament Director volunteers supporting The Challenge again this year. Bill Maury-Holmes, Mark Verrochi, Glenn and Maxine Duncan and Mike Reeves – thank you for your assistance and can-do attitude. Many thanks also to Jackie Chamberlain for her wonderful attitude checking players in and taking temps, AJ Risley for his help digging new treacherous pin positions for several holes and the Goat-a-Mid crew (Thomas, Steve, Joe, Drew, Cheeky, Mike, Rene and Spence) for their straw bale, pink string and basket pole replacing expertise. Also, many thanks to our many day-of course volunteers and UDisc scorekeepers – you helped the event immensely! And a big, big THANK YOU to Kristin Lee for the amazing photos she took on Thursday and Saturday and Shane Jonas for taking photos on Friday (I’ll have info in the sponsor post on where you can purchase photos from Kristin).

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I am extremely pleased and proud of the disc golf competition that we held this week to kick off the re-start of the professional disc golf season. I will have a separate post soon with individual thanks to our other event sponsors, but I hope they already know they are well-appreciated.
I will begin working on the registration changes and updates for the B-tier side of The Challenge this week. Keep your fingers crossed that we’re able to play in August and expand the field a bit as well. Thanks!!!