👊🏻 A new dark horse
DG Legend, Hyzer Olympics, and Anatomy lessons
Hello and welcome to week 11 of the off-season.
Last week’s feature was short lived…
The Disc Golf Con is postponed until Feb. 2023 due to COVID-19 concerns.
Let’s get into this week.
Growing Up Disc Golf
Scott Stokely has a HISTORY with this sport. He’s a world distance record holder, renowned teacher, author to his successful autobiography, and has DISC GOLF tattooed on his knuckles.
Stokely has a growing hype train behind him for the upcoming season. His single goal is to win the 2022 World Championship. If he didn’t think it was possible, he wouldn’t be going on tour full-time.
And it’s not like he doesn’t have a winning track record. In the Climo era, he and Barry Schultz scraped for the #2 spot while getting many big wins themselves. On Running It With Nate Sexton, Schultz said he’s looking forward to seeing how Stokely performs this year (if he can stay healthy).
The question that keeps popping up: Will Brodie Smith or Scott Stokely play better in 2022? And the answer is a toss-up. It’s hard to pick athletic ability vs. experience.
Smith will always be The Darkhorse, but could Stokely be 2022’s dark horse?
Contracts Watch
🚨 NEW 🚨
Catrina is still holding out, and MVP unloaded a few announcements.
Madison Walker - The DGPT Environmental Coordinator and previous Innova player has signed with MVP this year. Looking forward to the cool nature-based artwork they come out for her Tour Series.
Jordan Castro extended his contract with MVP for another 2 years.
Raven Newsom - The young gun has been promoted to MVP’s Premier Team for 2022 - 2023.
Stacie Hass is going to be a force to reckon with in FPO, and MVP signed the young Michigan star for 2022. One of the best signings of this off-season?
MOVES MADE
See last week’s edition for a summary of all the off-season moves or check out Ultiworld’s list.
Shelly Sharpe Memorial (Hyzer Olympics)
RESULTS - 🏆 ANTHONY BARELA
RD 1 - Adam Hammes, 2X defending champ, started off hot by getting the first 3 out of 4 holes. But he made an annoying mistake on hole 13 to take a double bogey. Anthony Barela took advantage and finished with solo lead at -10 (1062 rated).
RD 2 - After his lackluster 1st round, Drew Gibson shot the hot round at -10 (1072 rated) to share the lead with AB (-17 total). Jordan Castro continued his bogey-free play to maintain his position on lead card, only 2 back from the leaders.
RD 3 - Final round was a sprint to the finish between Cale Leiviska and AB. Even though Leiviska shot a scorching -13 (1081 rated), AB managed to hold off Dr. Smooth and win by a single stroke. AB double bogeyed hole 1 and followed it up with 11 birdies to cap off his -9 round (1047 rated).
FPO - 🏆 Jennifer Allen dominated by 9 strokes to win $550.
STANDOUT PLAYER
Finishing 5th, Jordan Castro shot nearly clean with only his last hole of the weekend being over par. His average round rating was 22 points over his current 1013 rating. If Castro can stay squeaky into the season, he could be Gyronaut #2 to watch in 2022.
HIGHLIGHT
Cale Leiviska makes it rain from circle 2 in the final round.
Watch the entire tournament on Terry Miller’s YouTube channel (thediscgolfguy).
Fresh Plastic
Ever wanted a DD Escape in gummy plastic with a stiff rim AND in Halo? Keep an eye out for the Fuzion Orbit Escape with Kona Panis’s name on it this year. You know what they say, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
MORE SIGNATURE LINES
1/ Drew Gibson discussed his disc design process on PDGA Radio this week. The Finish Line Era just received approval, and looks like a faster Innova TL.
But Gibson said this disc flies like no other out of the box, and he took no inspiration from other discs. Based off his hype, this disc will sell fast.
2/ Cale Leiviska is living the DG dream. Since being with Prodigy from the beginning, he’s developed his personal brand (Airborn Disc Golf) to be known for course design & tour events.
This past weekend at the Shelly Sharpe Memorial, Leiviska nearly catches AB but settles for 2nd. He shared on Instagram that he threw his “new driver, the Airborn Falcor” all tournament.
☝️ Did Leiviska start a disc brand over night? Probably not… Prodigy had the FX-3 approved by the PDGA in Nov 2021. It’s slightly domier than the FX-2, an overstable fairway driver designed specifically for Dickerson in 2019.
It looks like Leiviska is getting a signature line from Prodigy just like KJ USA.
Random Triples
Anatomy Academy from an ortho physical therapist. u/mattfofatt01 has been sharing in-depth knowledge on how your body is impacted while throwing. This week was the shoulder.
TL;DR Warm up & fix your form or your shoulder will ache forever. The truth hurts.
The 2022 DGPT All-Stars Event was announced Monday. It’ll be at a temp course (El Conquistador Resort) in Tucson, Arizona on Feb. 11-13. Keep in mind, your favorite all-star may not actually be attending.
On this week’s 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast, Tom Segura & Bert Kreischer (comedians) briefly discuss disc golf and how they should sponsor a player. No wonder Catrina’s been holding out her announcement.
Meme of the Week
Thanks for reading today. Get out and follow a legend’s advice this weekend!
“Practice hard. Live hard.” - Barry Schultz
- Charlie
Great work, as usual. Thanks for the content!