Originally published at: https://discgolf.ultiworld.com/2021/03/19/ultiworld-disc-golf-fpo-power-rankings-us-edition-march-19-2021/
Photo: DGPT
Two runaway performances to start the 2021 campaign. First it was the Paige Pierce and Catrina Allen show at the Las Vegas Challenge, where the highest rated U.S. women nearly lapped the field. Nine women finished at even par or better in Vegas: 1. Pierce, 25-under-par, 2. Allen, 24-under par, 3-9. Jessica Weese, Ohn Scoggins, Hailey King, Kona Star Panis, Sarah Hokom, Rebecca Cox, and Missy Gannon, 27-under par collectively. Second it was Kona All-Star Panis crushing the competition at the Waco Annual Charity Open. Panis finished the tournament 12 strokes clear of second-place finisher Scoggins and established the new tournament record for best total score over three rounds.
Equally exciting is the jockeying in the top 10. Seven different players finished in the top 4 at the LVC and WACO, and only Scoggins managed the feat twice. On the whole, the field is tightening up as well. Only 10 strokes separated 10th & 20th places in Vegas; 12 strokes in Waco. Tour stalwarts Rebecca Cox and Jessica Weese are back in form, young guns like Hailey King, Heather Young, and Valerie Mandujano are being road-tested early, and exciting new players like Holyn Handley and Ella Hansen are making waves. Who makes the cut in our first regular season top 25?
Note: while COVID travel restrictions remain in place, this list considers players based in America. We will break out an international top 10 once the season gets underway across the pond.
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. For the preseason ranking, staff and subscribers considered the following criteria: 1. the results from the most recent Elite Series events, the Jonesboro Open, the USDGC/WNC, and the DGPT Tour Championship, 2. the 2020 UWDG World Rankings, and 3. their super subjective vibes, gut feelings, and premonitions heading into the new season.
Full breakdowns for each player continue below.
1. Paige Pierce won in dramatic fashion at the Las Vegas Challenge and clawed her way back to finish fifth at the Waco Annual Charity Open. Her lackluster second rounds at both events and loose approach game indicates that PP hasn’t come out of the off-season firing on all cylinders. That should worry the competition.
2. At the DGPT All-Star Event, Kona Star Panis looked dialed as she took home the W. A month later she notched her first full-fledged DGPT win in Waco and looked… even more dialed. We saw Panis on coverage regularly in 2020, usually after shooting hot on the first day of a tournament, but she faltered in the spotlight and couldn’t quite match her early success in later rounds. Last weekend she put those ghosts to rest. After opening with a double bogey on moving day, which cut her three-stroke lead to one, she went into bEast mode and quadrupled her 18-hole lead to twelve strokes by day’s end. Her resilience and ability to separate tells me that Panis is here to stay.
3. It should come as no surprise that Catrina Allen leads the division in fairway hits, C1 in regulation, and C2 in regulation. Her prowess off the tee is never in question. It all comes down to putting. To my eye, her putt looks better this year. She’s improved her C1 and C2 putting percentages at each consecutive tournament this year including the DGPT All-Stars. Furthermore, at the LVC she gained 2.37 strokes on the green (0.71 from C1X) and at WACO she gained 1.23 strokes (0.62 from C1X). Good signs.
4. Ohn Scoggins finished fourth in Vegas and second in Waco. She’s getting it done at the tour stops. Scoggins won the Shelly Sharpe Memorial and Memorial Championship A-tiers. She’s getting it done between tour stops. She hits 71% of her fairways and is the best putter on tour. In four tournaments this year she’s nearly won as much in prize money as she did in 2020 when she played 18 tournaments.
5. Did you know that Sarah Hokom tops the field in scramble percentage (57%) and circle 2 putting (22%) through two tournaments? By way of comparison, here are the scramble/C2 splits for the top four women: Pierce 31/8%, Panis 46/4%, Allen 27/11%, Scoggins 28/17. Hokom is also top 10 in C1 in regulation and birdie percentage. She takes advantage of her opportunities to score and doesn’t give up strokes when she’s out of position.
6. Missy Gannon ranks in the top 10 in three UDisc categories, the mid-teens in four, and 27th in scramble. She is most likely to gain strokes on the green, to the tune of 6.65 strokes in Waco, but what the numbers really show is that she doesn’t have a true weakness in her game. As a result, when everything clicks, she’ll bump into the top 5 like she did last year at the DDO, Preserve, and Idlewild.
7. Hailey King is riding the early season roller coaster. She ranks third in birdie percentage, but her strokes above par cancel out strokes under par. Chalk it up to winter rust, a balky ankle, and some mental distractions on the course. I’m not worried about her. She’s young, she’ll figure it out.
8. For a newb on tour, Valerie Mandujano is performing admirably well. At the WACO press conference she admitted that the weekly grind was tougher than she thought it would be, but she still has top 10 finishes at both DGPT events and two third-place finishes at A-tiers. Like King, she’ll find her sea legs before long.
9. Jessica Weese is killing it tee to green and showing no ill effects of the elbow injury she sustained at the end of the 2020 season. If she can start ranging her putts with a bit more consistency, she’s a lock for the top 10 and should challenge the podium on a weekly basis.
10. Valerie Jenkins described Lisa Fajkus as one of the most intense competitors on tour this past weekend on DGN. Her intensity was on full display as she scrapped her way to a fourth place finish in Waco despite missing way more putts than she’s used to. Tee-to-green she was rock solid, including a stellar 50% scramble rate and the best OB rate in the field. If Fajkus had connected on 75% of her C1X putts, equal to her 2020 average, instead of 61%, she finishes 7-under par and in solo second.
11. Rebecca Cox retooled her backhand form and it looks great. Two tournaments is a small sample, but her driving stats are significantly improved from 2020. Fairway hits are up 14 points to 73%, parked percentage up 8 points to 13%, C1 in regulation up 19 points to 39%, and C2 in regulation up 22 points to 59%. Unfortunately, her C1X putting is down 26 points to 40%. On the bright side, she improved her C1X percentage over each of the past four seasons: 37% in 2017, 56% in 2018, 62% in 2019, and 66% in 2020. In other words, for someone with a work ethic like Cox, the putting is bound to improve in short order.
12. Holly Finley challenged herself to play smarter golf after making the cut but missing cash in Vegas. The new mindset paid off in Waco where she finished ninth. Finley’s feeling good headed into the Belton Open, hitting the course early for her practice rounds and ringing up the birdies.
13. After sitting out most of the 2020 season due to COVID, Madison Walker is hitting the ground running with two eleventh-place finishes to start the new year. She’s fending off injury by taping her fingers for forehand shots, finding snakes off the fairway, and cashing putts at a 69% clip, good for sixth best on tour.
14. Ellen Widboom joins the tour for the first time next week at the Texas State Championships. In the meantime, she’s been tuning up her game at regional tournaments in the southeast. Too often she’s the only woman in the field, so it’s hard to get a true measure of her early-season form, but in 2020, Widboom was a top 10 performer in every statistical category except C1 in regulation where she ranked eleventh. Consistency is the name of the game.
15. Heather Young finished in 14th-place at the Waco Annual Charity Open. Her worst finish on tour last year was a T-11 at the Idlewild Open, otherwise she didn’t miss the top 6. But Waco is a punishing course and it’s unsurprising to see someone of Young’s caliber slip up on the bEast. I’m not worried by this result. The real question is how will she bounce back at the next two Texas stops?
16. Texas pro Stephanie Vincent doing her home state proud with the T-7 in Waco. She ranked third in fairway hits and ninth in C1X putting. She played clean off the tee, fought through the wind, and generally avoided the ups and downs that plagued many of her competitors.
17. Like Ellen Widboom, Macie Walker is hanging out close to home to start the season and is only registered for a single Elite Series event so far, the Jonesboro Open. She fired off a 992-rated final round at the Old City Open in February, where she won by five strokes over Ruth Hudson and Christine Jennings.
18. Rough start to the year for Vanessa Van Dyken. It’s onward and upward after her 26th place finish in Waco.
19. The Innova Course was Callie McMorran’s nemesis at the Las Vegas Challenge. She carded twelve of her fifteen OB strokes in the second and fourth rounds on the feature course. Overall, she finished with one fewer OB strokes than Paige Pierce on the weekend, but she only ranked 14th in strokes gained tee-to-green, nearly 30 points behind the victor. As we know, you drive for dough in Vegas.
20. At this time last year, Casey Pennington was 900-rated for the first time. She’s up 21 points a year later and performed well in Waco, finishing tied for 14th and averaging 936-rated golf.
21. Alexis Mandujano gets it done on with her putter but needs to hit the green with greater regularity. Despite the nutso wind in Vegas and Waco, she’s converting 74% of her C1X putts to start the season; however, she ranks 30th in both GIR categories. Could be that she’s still figuring out her new disc lineup after the offseason switch from Innova to Discraft.
22. Emily Beach keeps her foothold in the top 25 despite not playing a tournament in 2021 because when she plays, she plays well. Counting down the days to Jonesboro when she makes her debut at an Elite Series event.
23. Nicole Bradley tied with Madison Walker for 11th-place as the Las Vegas Challenge. It was a good result at her first Elite Series event since 2018. She’s currently tied with Sarah Hokom for the best scramble rate in the division.
24. Hard to peg Christine Jennings at this point in the season. She took third at the Old City Open and recently played two tournaments where she was the only FPO competitor. Like many of the pros on this list, she makes her tour debut in Jonesboro.
25. What would the top 25 be without the one and only Elaine King? She’s taken down the W in 3/4 of her tournaments so far in 2021, including the Buckhorn Open, a NC winter stalwart. However, we won’t see her at an Elite Series event until the Delaware Disc Golf Challenge unless something changes, jeopardizing her run in our top 25.