Originally published at: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com/2020/03/04/tournament-talk-memorable-memorial-malaise/
2020 Memorial Championship. Photo: DGPT – Alyssa Van Lanen
Say what you will about the courses, and we will certainly be discussing them shortly, Eagle McMahon, Calvin Heimburg, and Paige Pierce certainly made things interesting and exciting over the Memorial Championship weekend in Arizona.
Pierce dropped one of the highest-rated rounds ever from an FPO player with a 1057-rated, 12 under par 48 third round. Pierce shot above her 977 rating every round, averaging 1025-rated golf over all four rounds. She was top three in every UDisc Live statistical category, except scrambling, where she went 0-7 on opportunities. Such a strange stat to go 0-fer on when dominating an event, but they did also all correspond to OB strokes.
She outpaced the field by 14 strokes. This won’t happen all year, but winning by 14 is, frankly, terrifying. Jennifer Allen was the only other player to shoot a single round in the 40s, carding a 48 in the third round. Pierce was in the 40s over the first three rounds.
In MPO-land, Paul McBeth looked like he was gearing up to take down the win after two rounds, but as the tournament shifted over to Vista del Camino, the reigning world champion looked decidedly…off. On the second hole of the third round, McBeth grip locked his drive and sent it way right OB. His upshot was weak, and he chained out on his putt, carding a double-bogey. He was able to recover with a birdie, but over the final two rounds he couldn’t put things together in the way we are used to seeing. One has to assume his ankle is not feeling great. Yes, he still posted a 10-under on Sunday, but he was cold for two important stretches that kept him from challenging for the W.
In the final round, the battle between McMahon and Heimburg was great to watch. Going into hole 15, Heimburg held a two stroke advantage over McMahon. Heimburg put his upshot inside the circle, McMahon left his a bit deep. McMahon hit the big putt, and Heimburg left his short to cut the lead to a single stroke. Both players took a par on 16, and birdies on 17. McMahon went OB off the tee on 18, but Heimburg fluffed his drive. From the drop zone, McMahon had a chance at forcing a playoff, but his run at the basket from the drop zone went in the water, icing it for Heimburg.
It’s impossible to pick one single instance which decided the tournament in favor of Heimburg, or against McMahon, depending on your take, BUT if there was one, it might be hole 9. Heimburg took the aggressive route and took a birdie. McMahon “laid up” with a massive forehand hyzer and settled for par. Had McMahon matched Heimburg’s aggression, maybe we’d be talking about a playoff?
The view from afar
Off the course, a good many eyes, 227,000 all told over the course of the weekend, were on the 2020 premier of the Disc Golf Pro Tour’s Live Stream. This weekend was a free teaser for folks, as starting the weekend of March 12-14 at the Waco Annual Charity Open, the opening rounds will be behind a paywall on the Disc Golf Network, while the final round will be free to watch on the DGPT’s YouTube channel.
There was a significant amount of pressure on how the livestream went this weekend, especially considering how disastrously things started in 2019. Happily, the stream was all-around excellent. Sure, there are nits to pick, and the bar was low, but the team at the Pro Tour, including our own Jamie Thomas, should be very proud of themselves for how the weekend went. If we assume that the broadcast will improve as crew and commentary teams get more comfortable with one another over the course of the season, and Terry Miller regains his voice, there is no reason to expect that 2020 will be a year of impressive improvement on the live side.
I will pick this nit, though: as the drone completed its flight in the hole previews the picture held still while the commentary continued. Every time this happened I thought things were glitching out. Every time. Other than that, I was very pleased with the product.
Let’s pay some bills
Speaking of products, I think it’s time we spend some time talking about the ads. We saw, and see, a variety of advertisements both on live and post produced coverage. Most of the ads are from companies and organizations native or adjacent to disc golf. Most frequently, we’re seeing ads for discs, carts, bags, and baskets, with the odd water bottle and belt thrown in for variety.
The content of these advertisements vary significantly, except that we are almost always guaranteed to see someone doing something in slow motion. For people in the know, the ads are self explanatory: a Zuca cart is obviously meant to hold your bag, an Entropy is an overstable midrange (which we only know because it shows the flight numbers), Grip makes bags, and a Black Hole is a basket. Can I tell you, based on these ads, how much each product costs? Nope. Can I tell you where to buy these? For the most part, nope. Could I tell you the capacity of the bags? Nope.
Advertising in disc golf, like so much in the sport, is in its infancy. I would not expect to be seeing the same level of advertising from Grip or MVP as I would from Toyota or Microsoft, but I should be able to learn some basic things, such as how a product costs, what it does, and where to buy one, from the ads. A slowly rotating disc tells the first time watcher absolutely nothing, other than the disc is swirly and called the Entropy. A clip of McMahon, Simon Lizotte, and Avery Jenkins carrying bags and throwing from behind them tells me nothing about the product other than that it holds discs.
Don Draper says that advertising is storytelling, and no story of a product is complete without the bare minimum of what it is and where to buy it. How much it costs and who uses it are good too.
Some ads were excellent. The UDisc ad featuring the woman appearing out of nowhere to explain the features of the product was great! It told us what the product was, what it does, and how to get it. The Bevel Beer ad was great too. I enjoy anything with Danny Lindhal being silly.
Personal taste is a factor for sure, but I think that companies owe it to themselves and their target consumers to step their ad game up.
Some stray thoughts:
- Drew Gibson throws a Buzzz a freakin’ mile. It will be interesting to see how he does when his bag settles and he’s able to keep his composure.
- It is amazing how the European presence on tour deepens the field, especially in FPO. Jenifer Allen finished in second, but without Henna Blomroos and Eveliina Salonen in attendance, Pierce would have cleared the hypothetical third place finisher, Catrina Allen, by 27 strokes. In MPO, Väinö Mäkelä took fourth alongside Gibson, and Øyvind Jarnes took solo 10th. Kristin Tattar called out her fellow Europeans after winning USWDGC in 2019, and they have answered the challenge.
- If Nate Doss says, “Not much to say about this hole,” more than once or twice over the duration of the broadcast, a couple things need to change: the hole needs to get tougher, and Doss needs to find something to say about it.
- The gallery at Vista looked pretty big. Casey White confirmed this, “There was a big gallery.”
- Said gallery at Vista, and all weekend, looked healthy and well-controlled. Props to the DGPT for making sure things were kept, mostly, under control and safe.