Originally published at: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com/2018/02/14/career-milestones-series-pdga-national-tour-victories/
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The 2018 PDGA National Tour season kicks into gear next week. In preparation for the beginning of the 2018 touring season, we’re running a Career Milestones Series where we take a look at how close some of the current pros are to reaching a number of benchmarks. For today’s piece, we’re going to take a look at Open and Open Women career PDGA National Tour wins. ((All data was collected from www.pdga.com))
We’re going to start off with the Open Women’s division because that’s where we find the player with the most NT victories of anyone: Des Reading. The recent Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee collected 30 wins between 2003 and 2009, with her most impressive season coming in 2007 when she took down eight wins on the tour.
Valarie Jenkins is just one win behind Reading with 29. She last won on the National Tour in 2014 but remains competitive in high-profile events having finished second at the PDGA World Championship in 2017 and winning it in 2016. Jenkins is by far the closest in the Open Women’s field to matching Reading’s mark and the only player who could catch her in 2018.
Paige Pierce is third on the all-time list with 18 wins. Like last season, she will have six opportunities to add to her total. In 2017 she won four of the six NT events, all of which are again on the schedule in 2018. Should Catrina Allen have a bounce-back 2018 she’s in line to move up the list as well. Currently, she sits in 5th place all-time with 14 wins, two behind Juliana Korver’s 16. If she can nearly sweep the NTs, like she did in 2016, she could overtake Pierce.
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Dave Feldberg. Photo: Latitude 64.[/caption]
On the Open career NT victories list things are much more crowded at the top, where there is the potential for a new leader in the category after the Masters Cup in just a few months. Currently, Dave Feldberg (18) and Barry Schultz (17) sit first and second on the list, followed closely by Paul McBeth with 16 wins. Feldberg and Schultz each continue to play at a high level, but Feldberg hasn’t won an NT since 2014 and Schultz since 2009. Additionally, the list of players not named McBeth or Ricky Wysocki to win an NT since 2014 is a short one.
McBeth won three NT events last year, including two of the first three—the Glass Blown Open and the Masters Cup—which are again in the opening trio. He lost the Gentlemen’s Club Challenge (now the Las Vegas Challenge) by just two strokes to Wysocki, and in the fourth NT event, the Beaver State Fling, lost in a playoff, again to Wysocki. The chances of McBeth getting to 19 wins by October seem pretty good.
Wysocki is the other favorite to rack up NT wins in 2018. He is currently tied with Ken Climo in 4th place all-time with 13 wins. He’s collected three wins on the tour in each of the last two seasons, and if he manages that again, and McBeth gets none, the pair will be tied. If Wysocki can sweep all six he moves all the way to the top, but an NT sweep by any player remains unprecedented.
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We’ll be back soon with more career milestones posts in preparation for the 2018 touring season to start.