The most important Major of the year is here.

August 20, 2024 by Justin Westfall in Preview with comments

The 2024 disc golf season has been a grind with 22 Elite and Major events played through 11 states and six countries. Finally we have arrived to the most anticipated event of the year has arrived: the Professional Disc Golf World Championships. The five-round tournament begin Wednesday, August 21st, in Lynchburg, Virginia. It’s the third MPO Major and the fourth and final FPO Major of the season. It is also the first-ever PDGA World Championship to be held in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Last year, Isaac Robinson found himself on the lead card and just two strokes back of the lead with two rounds remaining. While the rest of his card shot poor or mediocre penultimate rounds, Robinson came in with the second best round of the day and led the field by three strokes going into the final day. Robinson got out to a strong start and never faltered, ultimately laying up on the final hole to defeat Anthony Barela by two strokes. The win marked Robinson’s first career World title and second Major win of the season.

In FPO, reigning champion Kristin Tattar held an eight-stroke lead over Missy Gannon after just two rounds, averaging a 1037 rating to that point. While Gannon was able to cut that lead in half after round three, Tattar managed to gain a stroke on Gannon in each of the final two rounds. The Estonian comfortably walked in her second career World championship, third Major win of the season, and her fourth consecutive Major win.

Past Winners

Seven Things We’ll Be Watching

1. We obviously need to start off with Paul McBeth, the six-time World Champion, 17-time Major champion, and course designer of New London, the woods course at this year’s Worlds. McBeth is still searching for his first win since the 2023 PCS Open and his first Major win since the 2022 World Championships.  Playing through injury, McBeth missed either 1st or 2nd place last year at Worlds for the first time since 2011. A win this week would give McBeth his 18th MPO Major title, tying Ken Climo for the most in PDGA history. While McBeth will likely never match Climo’s 12 World titles, surpassing him in total Major wins felt like just a matter of time — until recently. Wins at this level are only becoming more difficult, and at 34 years old, time could soon be running out for McBeth. While the 2024 season has been one of the worst of his storied career, things have been looking up as of late. McBeth is coming off five straight top-8 finishes and has averaged a 1055 rating in that span. Paul actually came off a very similar stretch of golf prior to his 2022 Worlds win. While this event can’t be won at New London, it can certainly be lost on the more technical of the two courses. No player in the field knows that property as well as McBeth, who always shines brightest on the biggest stages.

2. Kristin Tattar is the heavy favorite to win her third consecutive World Championship, a feat that would tie Des Reading for the 5th most all-time and move Tattar into solo third for all-time FPO Major wins (behind Val Jenkins Doss and Paige Pierce). Even with six wins on the season, it hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing for Tattar, who put up poor performances in the first two Majors of the year and barely squeaked out a win at the European Open last month. After that event, she traveled to her home country of Estonia and finished 8th at the European Disc Golf Festival, tying her worst career finish at an Elite or Major event. With some weaker performances and time missed due to injury, confidence in the World #1 feels as low as it’s been in several years. Tattar has not averaged over a 1000 event rating since April and just last week lost her 1000-rated status as a result. This week will mark her first trip to the U.S. in nearly four months. In her last four trips to the States, however, Tattar is undefeated in her first event back on tour.

3. For the first time in his young career, Gannon Buhr will come to the World Championship as the favorite to win the event. The two-time Major champion has built quite the resume at the age of 19, and a World title is now the clear omission. Buhr obviously has all of the tools to get the job done this week — it will simply be a matter of execution. With five rounds, there is plenty of time for the cream to rise to the top, and Buhr is 4-1 in four-round tournaments this season, his only loss coming at the PDGA Champions Cup.

4. Buhr’s closest competition could once again be Ricky Wysocki, a two-time World Champion and six-time Major champion who battled Buhr to the end at last month’s European Open. A win for Wysocki would tie him with Nate Doss for the third most World titles all-time and with Dave Feldberg for the third most Major wins all-time. Wysocki was notably dealing with a rib issue since the final round of the European Disc Golf Festival, but that injury appears mostly resolved.  Ricky has taken much criticism for failing to win a Major since his 2017 World Championship. There may be no other player in the field whose legacy would benefit more from taking down this tournament. Wysocki would finally be able to sign his autographs with a 3x, silence the haters, and get some revenge for coming up just short in Finland last month.

5. As for first time Major winners, nobody should be more eager to finally check that box than Calvin Heimburg. For all of his accolades, Heimburg has yet to really contend down the stretch for a Major title despite playing on several final day lead cards. Since 2020, Heimburg has averaged a 10th place finish at Majors compared to an average finish of 7th on the Elite Series. Coming off a 3rd place finish at Ledgestone and a 2nd place finish at Idlewild his game seems to be in a good spot.  We’ve seen other players finish 3-2-1 in consecutive events this season, perhaps this week will be Heimburg’s turn. While not quite as desperate for a Major win as Heimburg, Anthony Barela should be eager to reassert himself as one of the top players in the world. With four wins on the season, Barela’s early dominance was quickly overshadowed by Gannon Buhr and several runs of poor performances. Barela has finished outside the top-35 more often than he has won this season, and is averaging a finish of 23rd. Compare that to Buhr, who is averaging a 5th place finish. Many forget that AB was the runner-up at Worlds last season, hanging on the chase card for the majority of the tournament. Perhaps the ultimate boom or bust player, Barela has a chance to bring his A-game this weekend and really contend on a pair of long distance tracks.

6. Behind Kristin Tattar sit several players who all have multiple wins tallied this season. Holyn Handley has finished 3rd in each of the past two World Championships and has not missed the top 5 since the Champions Cup in April. If Handley is able to navigate the woods of New London and keep her disc in bounds at Ivy Hill, she has a great opportunity to earn another victory this weekend. Ohn Scoggins has won four consecutive FP40 World Championships but has never made the podium at Pro Worlds. Scoggins has an opportunity this weekend to claim both the FP40 and FPO World titles. Surprisingly, this is not unprecedented. In 1995, Beth Tanner won the Masters World Championship and then went on to win the 1996 FPO World Championship. At 43 years old, Scoggins is playing some of the best disc golf of her life and has proved that she is capable of winning on longer open courses as well as in the woods. Missy Gannon has already won a Major this season and could drastically shake up the narrative of the 2024 season this week. While she trails Kristin Tattar in total wins, claiming the World title and a second Major win on the season would catapult Gannon back into the Player of the Year conversation. She came up short in a valiant effort to defeat Tattar in last year’s event, and while that could add a little fuel to the fire, Missy never seems to lack motivation.

7. Two other multi-time European winners this season will also be returning to the U.S. for the first time since April. The last time Eveliina Salonen was in the States, she won her second career Major at the Champions Cup, book-ending the first leg of her season with wins. The Finn has all of the talent in the world getting off the box and should have little issue at either coruse. The only question that ever matters for Salonen: can she make enough putts to win? That shouldn’t be an issue for Silva Saarinen, who currently leads the division in C1X putting. If there’s a concern for Saarinen this weekend, it will be her ability to score on these longer courses. She struggles with going OB at times as well, meaning three rounds on Ivy Hill is likely the challenge she’ll need to overcome.

The Courses

Designed by 6-time World Champion Paul McBeth, New London is a technical beast that currently ranks #32 on UDisc’s list of the top 100 courses in the world.  The track offers a wide variety of holes to test a player’s skill set, featuring everyhing from tight gaps which require technical shot-shaping to wooded holes with wider fairways to even a few wide open shots on the longer par 4s and 5s. Several of the holes had OB lines removed for this event, leaving just eight holes on the layout that contain OB territory. The front 9 of the MPO layout is nearly 1,600 feet longer than the back 9, with a pair of 1,200 foot par 5s on holes 5 and 9.  While New London is undoubtedly the more challenging of the two courses, it is surprisingly the shorter of the two.

Ivy Hill is a temporary course constructed on the Ivy Hill Golf Club and designed by Tournament Director Nate Heinold. The course is long and features a tremendous amount of elevation change, with several big downhill tee shots. All 18 holes on the property are lined with OB, and six of the holes also contain hazard areas. A couple of the baskets also sit on very steep hillsides, creating tricky approaches and the potential for putts to roll away.

New London

MPO: 11,495 Feet Par 68
FPO: 9,216 Feet Par 69

Ivy Hill

MPO: 11,794 Feet Par 67
FPO: 10,372 Feet Par 69

Extended Forecast

A stunning forecast for the most important tournament of the year. Temperatures will be warm, getting a bit hotter with each day. Winds are expected to stay light throughout the week.

Wednesday: Sunny with highs in the upper 70s, winds light and variable.

Thursday: Mostly sunny with highs near 80, winds light and variable.

Friday: Sunny with highs in the lower 80s, winds light and variable.

Saturday: Mostly sunny with highs in the mid 80s, winds light and variable.

Sunday: Mostly sunny with highs in the upper 80s, winds light and variable.