2024 LWS Open at Idlewild Preview: Last Stop Before Worlds

Idlewild is the last three-round tournament of the 2024 season.

August 8, 2024 by Justin Westfall in Preview with 0 comments

For an eighth consecutive year, the Disc Golf Pro tour has made its way to Burlington, Kentucky, for the LWS Open at Idlewild, beginning this Friday, August 9th. This will be the final three-round tournament of the season as the last standard Elite Series event on the schedule. This will also be the final event for players to make any adjustments to their game before the World Championships in just two weeks.

For years, this tournament was dominated by Paige Pierce, who won the event four times from 2017-2021. Pierce will not be playing this year, making Ellen Widboom the only prior champion in the field after reigning champion Valerie Mandujano dropped out on Thursday. The MPO division, on the other hand, has never seen a repeat winner and in recent years has provided a platform for young up-and-coming players to showcase their skills.

Last year, Gannon Buhr entered the final round tied with reigning champion Isaac Robinson and one stroke ahead of Calvin Heimburg. Buhr got off to a hot start, birdieing six in a row and shooting 8-under par on the front 9 to quickly pull away from the rest of the lead card. The dagger ultimately came on hole 13, with Buhr carding a birdie to gain two more strokes on Heimburg and Robinson who both took a bogey. Buhr went bogey-free over the final 52 holes of the tournament and was able to defeat Heimburg by two strokes to take home his 3rd win of the season.

In FPO, Valerie Mandujano held a three-stroke lead on Cadence Burge and Lykke Lorentzen going into the final day. Mandujano’s lead was never challenged with Burge and Lorentzen both shooting 6-over par on the day. Mandujano finished the round 3-under par to defeat Ohn Scoggins by six strokes and claim her first victory of the season.

Past Winners

Four Things We’ll Be Watching

1. Reigning champion Gannon Buhr just picked up his 5th win of the season in Peoria and is now the clear frontrunner for Player of the Year. Many have already speculated that Buhr’s season could be one of the best in the history of the sport if he’s able to keep collecting trophies over the next couple of months. Buhr has an opportunity this weekend to stand alone in the division as a repeat winner at Idlewild. No MPO player has ever won this event twice in their career, let alone in consecutive years. With the improvement to his hyzer flip shots this season, there’s no reason to doubt that Buhr can win again this weekend. He currently leads the pro tour in birdie percentage, leads in C1 and C2 in regulation, is 2nd in scramble percentage, 4th in C1X putting, 5th in C2 putting, and 4th in OB rate. There’s no weak aspect of his game at the moment: the only thing standing between Buhr and another Idlewild trophy is his own motivation to go and claim it.

2. After taking last weekend off all systems seem to be a go for Ricky Wysocki, who this past Sunday posted to social media saying that he is back to 100% and ready to play Idlewild. In Thursday’s press conference, though, Wysocki said his shoulder is still painful and that he will limit power backhands this weekend. Despite his woods prowess, Wysocki has never had a podium finish at this event and only cracked the top 5 once back in 2020. Coming off the European swing,  Ricky has been red-hot, averaging a 1060 rating through June and July. He’ll now look to keep that rolling through August and history is on his side. Wysocki has averaged a higher PDGA rating in the month of August than any other month over the course of his career. If Ricky has any hope of claiming his 3rd Player of the year title in the past four years, he needs to get his foot back on the gas and come out firing on Friday. More importantly, though, Wysocki needs to come out of this weekend feeling fresh and fine-tuned for the World Championships.

3. Coming off her 2nd win of the season, Holyn Handley has a nice opportunity to take another step forward this weekend. Despite a podium finish at this event last year and several podium finishes on woods courses, most think of Handley as more of a park-style or open course player. While her win at the Beaver State Fling earlier this year should have helped to dispel that notion, a win at Idlewild would make a statement that she is a threat no matter the course. Handley’s season stats are pretty good across the board and even rival world #1 Kristin Tattar. The area she can most easily improve is her OB rate, which currently ranks 11th in the division. Last year’s winner Valerie Mandujano was able to separate from the field by carding just two OB strokes on the weekend, six less than any other player who finished inside the top 5. The key to success for Handley this weekend will be keeping the disc in bounds and avoiding unnecessary penalty strokes.

4. Both Missy Gannon and Ohn Scoggins have a great opportunity to pick up another win this weekend at a track they’ve had success on but have failed to come out on top. Gannon has four consecutive top 5 finishes at Idlewild, including two runner-up finishes, while Scoggins has been the runner-up each of the past two seasons. With no Kristin Tattar in the field, they stand as the two highest rated players in the division. Gannon has the most at stake this weekend with her Player of the Year window still open. In order to overtake Tattar for that title, she will likely need to rack up a few more wins than the Estonian.

The Course

Designed by Robert Herbert and International Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee Fred Salaz, Idlewild ranks #22 on UDisc’s best disc golf courses of 2024, down from #20 in 2023. The nearly 10,000 foot track features tight woods, water hazards on more than half of the course, and iconic retaining walls which outline several of the greens. With the exception of some tightened OB lines, this year’s MPO and FPO layouts are identical to last year. The only notable change is that hole 8 will now score as a par 4 rather than a par 5 in the MPO division. Due to the scoring change, this hole will likely shift from the easiest on the course to the most difficult.

2024 MPO: 9,629 Feet Par 68
2023 MPO: 9,629 Feet Par 69

2024 FPO: 9,205 Feet Par 71
2023 FPO: 9,205 Feet Par 71

Extended Forecast

It should be a beautiful weekend for disc golf in Burlington with warm temperatures, mild humidity levels, and moderate winds to keep things interesting.

Friday: Partly cloudy with highs in the lower 80s.  Winds 10 to 20 mph.

Saturday: Mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70s.  Winds 10 to 15 mph.

Sunday: Mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70s.  Winds 5 to 10 mph.