Originally published at: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com/2022/03/18/ultiworld-disc-golf-fpo-power-rankings-post-waco/
With two tournaments in the books, it’s time to update our power rankings. Turns out we did alright in our preseason predictions, correctly naming 6 of the current top 10 women: Catrina Allen (1), Kristin Tattar (2), Paige Pierce (4), Eveliina Salonen (5), Hailey King (6), and Missy Gannon (8). And we pegged Valerie Mandujano (3), Ohn Scoggins (9), and Macie Velediaz (10)— three of our four newcomers—just outside of the top 10 at 13th, 12th, and 14th, respectively. The big surprise through two is Kat Mertsch (7), who entered the season unranked.
The addition of an early-season major means that the next month is particularly important for the touring pros as they try to find peak form, but the road to the PDGA Champions Cup is paved with Silver Series events. Three of the next four DGPT tour stops preceding the first major of the year are on the lower circuit. Some tour stalwarts are signed up to air it out at the first Silver Series tournament of the year this weekend for The Open at Belton, including reigning champion Catrina Allen, but the full field won’t reconvene until next week in Tyler, TX, for the Texas State Disc Golf Championships. Hailey King won Texas States last year, her first of four Elite Series victories.
The Texas State DGC will be played on a new course this year called “The Thorn,” which combines holes from the three courses on the property (Dogwood, Cedar, and Hickory). The result is a mixed park style and wooded course. Though the combined course does not resemble W.R. Jackson Course as closely as Dogwood Gold, it will still provide a stiff test for the touring professionals. I will be watching to see how well they hit their lines and control their angles. Will a good performance in Texas predict success in Georgia?
Methodology: We combine an algorithmic objective ranking with subjective ballots submitted by UWDG staff. The algorithm uses a standardized scoring model to compare elite events, awards competition, and cash bonuses, and features a decay function that gradually phases out past results.
Subscribers, read on for discussion of the top 10 and additional notes on the field.
Notes on the Top 10
The ‘recent unweighted’ category below includes the last 7 rounds from Elite Series, cumulative stroke play tournaments in 2022: Waco Annual Charity Open, Las Vegas Challenge.
[table id=227 /]
Field Notes
Kona Panis’s (unranked) early-season struggles have been discussed ad nauseam in the disc golf media sphere. Pertinent to these rankings, she started the season in our top 10, but her poor performance at the first two DGPT stops caused her to fall out of our top 25 altogether. Honestly, it is a shocking turn of events. I am confident that Panis can build her game back up, but I also think she needs to turn it around quickly. She is just too good of a thrower to suffer a prolonged streak of missed cuts and cash.
Rebecca Cox (#13) revamped her putt in the off season, and I am loving it. Gone is the low swing, nose-down push putt. Enter the spin putt era. Over her first three rounds in Vegas, she went 20/27 from C1X (74%), and she opened the Waco Annual Charity Open with a 6/8 (75%) performance. Her numbers regressed somewhat on Sunday at the LVC and over the weekend in Waco, but that’s to be expected after undertaking such a drastic change. Cox passes the eye test so far, because even her missed putts in 2022 look so much better than her missed putts in 2021.
Keep your eye on Holyn Handley (#14). She nabbed a top 10 in Vegas and nearly backed up that performance with another in Waco. She was only seven strokes off the lead entering championship Sunday in Texas, but a bumpy final round quashed her hopes of back-to-back top 10s. Her driving stats are solidly ranked between 10-20th on tour, but her putting is top notch. Handley is knocking down C1X putts at a 75% clip and tossing in 13% from deep for good measure.