Weese Out Of Gate Strong At Great Lakes Open

Tough course can't keep Hokom down

great lakes open
Hole one of the Toboggan course at the Great Lakes Open Photo: Alyssa Van Lanen – DGPT

The Great Lakes Open has been around since the early 1980s, but this is its first year on the Disc Golf Pro Tour. Only a handful of the 28 competitors in the Open Women field have ever attempted to navigate the long Toboggan course, which rarely gives away scores in the red. Friday’s first round was no exception with the leaders bundled around even par.

The Eagle Has Landed

Jessica Weese has yet to record a DGPT or PDGA National Tour victory on the season, and she’s playing like she wants to change that in Michigan. Her 971-rated, 2-under par 59 was the only score in the negatives.

Weese was the one player on the course to attack the pins and place her in a position to grab the elusive birdies on the course. She also went as far as carding the only eagle on the easiest hole on the day, the par 5, 435-foot 2nd, and the only birdie on the 375-foot 14th.

According to UDisc Live’s stats, the 971-rated round was paced by Weese’s first place rankings in parked holes, birdies, Circle 1 in Regulation and fairway hits. Only a couple missed scrambles kept her from a stranglehold on the top spot.

Cold Round Can’t Stop Hot Streak

The winner of five of the last six tournaments she’s entered, including three wins in a row, Sarah Hokom won’t be pleased by her tee shots, but she’s still playing near the top of her game and was able to save anything errant off a drive.

While her only birdie came on the soft hole 2, Hokom only picked up a single birdie on the way to an even-par 61. A string of long par putts near the end of the round, including an outside the circle dagger on hole 16, kept her in solo second place.

Round One 2018 Discraft’s Great Lakes Open – Sarah Hokom Hole 16

STATS

At a 7.8-over par average for the field, the GLO is playing almost as difficult as the Utah Open, which saw the winner finish at 8-over par. With the exception of the dubiously labeled par 5 2nd, only one hole, the 525-foot par 4 17th, did not average over par.

More than one-third of the field did not record a birdie, including two who finished in the top 10.

Trio In Third

Throwing 944-rated 1-over par 62s, Rebecca Cox, Holly Finley and Ellen Widboom are tied for third place and round out the top five.

Cox had the most conservative round — only one birdie to two bogeys — while Widboom grabbed the most birdies with three. Widboom is second to Weese in birdie percentage. Of the trio, only Finley has played Toboggan before, when she finished 7th at the 2013 GLO when the event was on the PDGA National Tour.

Cox and Finley both finished the round hitting 100-percent of their Circle 1 putts.


The lead card of Weese, Hokom, Cox, and Finley tees off at 8:30 a.m. local time. You can follow along with the live scoring at UDisc Live, and edited video footage from round two begins at 2:00 p.m. eastern time on the DGPT YouTube channel. Check back in here at Ultiworld Disc Golf for recaps and coverage of the final round.

  1. Bennett Wineka
    Bennett Wineka

    Benn started playing disc golf in the '90s but has somehow never gotten any better. He lives in Decatur, Georgia and cares too much about Atlanta United and UNC basketball. Email him at [email protected]

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