Career Milestones Series: PDGA National Tour Victories

A look at who could reach a few career benchmarks in 2018

Des Reading has the most career PDGA National Tour wins. Photo: PDGA

The long offseason is nearly over: the 2018 PDGA National Tour season kicks into gear next week.

In preparation for the beginning of the 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.1

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.

PlaceNameNT Wins
1Des Reading30
2Valarie Jenkins29
3Paige Pierce18
4Juliana Korver16
5Catrina Allen14
6Carrie Berlogar6
Sarah Cunningham6
Sarah Hokom6
7Liz Carr-Sypien2
Elaine King2
Lesli Todd2
Angela Tschiggfrie2
8Nadine Larkin/Cosgrove1
Hannah Leatherman1
Ruth Steele1
Jessica Weese1
Paul McBeth currently leads the all-time NT Open wins list. Photo: PDGA

On the MPO side, career NT victories list things are much more crowded at the top. Paul 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 in 2018. Those three wins allowed him to jump ahead of both Dave Feldberg (18) and Barry Schultz (17) who are second and third on the list.

Feldberg and Schultz each continue to play at a high level, but Feldberg hasn’t won an NT since 2014; Schultz is winless since 2009. So it is relatively unlikely either will overtake McBeth in 2018 or beyond.

Ricky Wysocki, though, remains the other main favorite to rack up NT wins next season. He is currently tied with Ken Climo in 4th place all-time with 13. He’s collected three wins on the tour in each of the last two seasons, but he will need more than that if he wants to jump past Feldberg and Schultz. If Wysocki can sweep all six he moves all the way to the top and into a tie with McBeth, but an NT sweep by any player remains unprecedented.

PlaceNameNT Wins
1Paul McBeth19
2Dave Feldberg18
3Barry Schultz17
4Ken Climo13
Ricky Wysocki13
5Nate Doss8
6Steve Rico5
7Nikko Locastro4
Cam Todd4
Josh Anthon4
8Ron Russell3
Cale Leiviska3
9Will Schusterick2
Avery Jenkins2
Jeremy Koling2
10Steve Brinster1
Phil Arthur1
Gregg Barsby1
Justin Bunnell1
Kyle Crabtree1
Christian Dietrich1
Timmy Gill1
Brad Hammock1
Michael Johansen1
Markus Källström1
Simon Lizotte1
Scott Martin1
Devan Owens1
Chris Sprague1
Paul Ulibarri1
Bradley Williams1

We’ll be back soon with more career milestones posts in preparation for the 2018 touring season to start.


Update:

Regretfully, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the number of NT wins Paul McBeth has and it has now been fixed. We apologize for this oversight.


  1. All data was collected from www.pdga.com 

  1. Alex Colucci
    Alex Colucci

    Alex Colucci is the managing editor at Ultiworld Disc Golf. He is a disc golfer currently living in Northeast Ohio who teaches geography sometimes. Contact him at [email protected] with tips, news and questions, and follow him on Twitter.

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