Robinson never trailed at the end of any round; Salonen grits out victory late
August 26, 2024 by Kingsley Flett in Recap with 0 comments
Once, before a boxing match in 1987, Mike Tyson said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” echoing an often repeated idea about combat that no plan survives the shock of battle. That kind of shock value is what made the Ivy Hill course in Lynchburg, Virginia, such a compelling venue for the final two rounds of the 2024 Professional Disc Golf World Championships this past weekend.
The hilly, five mile long course was a physical challenge that also demanded precise shot placement above all else but that also dealt out — to nearly every player in the field at some point — a measure of brutal, arbitrary bad luck in the form of rollaways. Both champions crowned on Sunday, Isaac Robinson in MPO and Eveliina Salonen in FPO, showed an ability to take a punch or two from the course without surrendering control of their emotions or losing sight of their game plan.
It was 2023 World Champion Robinson’s first win this season, making him arguably the most unlikely to claim back-to-back world titles; meanwhile, Salonen gave Finland its first disc golf world champion in a year that fellow Finn Niklas Anttila in MPO fell three strokes short of making it an all-Finland affair. Both champions came to the fore in the closing holes as their rivals succumbed.
“If only Eveliina could putt, she could be a World Champion.”
By the start of round four, it looked like the world title was going to be decided between Holyn Handley and Salonen. The pair had opened up a seven stroke lead over Kat Mertsch and eight strokes over Natalie Ryan. Handley got off to a strong start in the penultimate round with a two stroke swing on hole 1, when Salonen failed to save par after throwing out of bounds and then missed the first of five circle one putts for the day. Eveliina’s putting, the ignominious story of her career so far, was becoming the story of the tournament. Over the five days, she shot the fewest bogeys of the tournament (14%), hit fairways with the second best accuracy (79%), landed in circle one & circle two the most (53% & 73%), but was in the bottom 20 of the nearly 90 players at the tournament putting from inside the circle at 63% while not hitting any of her 23 attempts from Circle 2.
While Handley and Salonen finished the round separated by a stroke, with Holyn in the lead, the big mover on the day was Mertsch, who shot 5-under-par to move within five shots of the lead heading into Sunday. Just behind fourth-placed Natalie Ryan was Kristin Tattar, nine strokes off the lead with an improbable chance for the win.
Mertsch continued her charge in the final round, shooting 5-under-par in the first 10 holes to draw level with Handley. Salonen had become the early leader but then dropped two strokes back after a bogey on seven and a double bogey on nine. Things got worse for Salonen on hole 12 after her approach shot went long and out of bounds before she missed two putts on the green. Handley and Mertsch had also thrown their approaches long, though, limiting the damage to Eveliina to just one stroke. Mertsch was out in front.
“I almost gave up after hole 12,” said Salonen. “But then I heard that it was only three strokes so that gave me the energy and power to fight back. Putting was so hard today and I had weak putts all the time. But…never give up I guess. On this course there are so many holes where you can get those two or three strokes easily. So I knew the last five holes were going to be important and anything can happen.”
If hole 14 at Ivy Hill hasn’t earned a nickname yet, then my vote is Hamburger Hill. The 50 degree slope up to the pin punished missed putts and wrong angled upshots severely. In both divisions, the hole played a key role in deciding the tournament. Handley’s bid for the title ended on these slopes as she appeared to slip slightly with her upshot and early released the disc out of bounds. Holyn’s layup then caught an edge and rolled out of bounds again. If the triple bogey didn’t end her chances there, the double bogey and two bogeys that followed it certainly did. It was a cruel end for the player who had lead for most of the tournament.
A birdie for Salonen on hole 14 brought her back to within one stroke of Mertsch, then a two stroke swing on the next hole took her into an improbable lead after everyone (including Eveliina herself for a moment) had given up on her after hole 12. Mertsch lost her accuracy off the tee in the closing holes, throwing out of bounds from holes 14 through 18, allowing Salonen to pull away and have the luxury of playing for par on the final holes to carry a three stroke lead into hole 18. Eveliina was able to lay up under the pin to become Finland’s first disc golf world champion. Mertsch finished in second and a fast finishing Kristin Tattar came from nine strokes back to sneak into third place ahead of Handley.
“I think I was 3 or 4 years old when I decided I was going to be world champion at some sport,” said Salonen afterwards. “But I was 12 when I first played disc golf and I decided that I wanted to be world champion at this sport. It feels so crazy. I have been dreaming about this for my whole life. It means a lot.”
The emotion for Salonen came, as it usually does, when talk turned to family. “All my friends and family have been believing in me all the time,” she said. “I know my grandparents are watching but they don’t speak English so isoäiti ja isoisä, tiedän, että katsotte, rakastan teitä (Grandma and Grandpa, I know you’re watching, I love you).”
Salonen addressed her putting in post round interviews too. She put the lag in that aspect of her game down to a variance of styles. “I’m waiting on the next off season and I’m going to decide on one form,” she said. If Eveliina only improves her putting to average, it is going to have a huge impact on her scores. Watch out.
Issac goes wire-to-wire and back-to-back
The general consensus among the media over the weekend was that, apart from his slow improvement in the past two months and appearing to peak at the right time, Isaac Robinson is also a golfer who really knows how to play for position, an attribute that the Ivy Hill course demanded.
Taking a three stroke lead over Niklas Anttila into moving day, Robinson, too, had to survive the disc golf equivalent of a punch in the face after going out of bounds twice on hole 6 and once again on hole 7, creating a three stroke swing that erased his buffer and allowed Anttila to draw level. Robinson steadied after that, though, and shot seven down over the next 10 holes to re-establish a three stroke lead over second place.
In the final round, Robinson pulled away early, exactly as planned.
“Three strokes out here is nothing,” Robinson said following his second straight Worlds win. “That’s just one or two holes. I knew I’d have to come out here hot, so I really tried to put the pedal down in the front nine because I feel like that’s easier to score for me. I knew once I had a little bit of lead that I could still play my game but kinda force them to go for things and they’d have to chase me down. That’s what happened, so the game plan worked out.”
The lead stretched to six strokes by hole 8 before Anttila managed to trim it back to four strokes as the closing holes loomed. In hindsight, Robinson was probably going to win anyway, but hole 14 removed any doubt with its cruel sense of humor. Playing for par, Robinson’s upshot came in above the basket. After it landed, the disc got up on its edge and started waddling down the hill, only to hit the pole and settle under the basket. Robinson clutched his chest to check his heart was still beating. Antilla, playing for birdie, threw an almost perfect uphill putt that sank into the center of the chains, only for the basket to shrug its shoulders and spit the disc back out and down the hill. Anttila was able to get up and down for bogey but the gap was now four strokes with four holes to play.
“My putts were not dropping like the previous days,” Antilla said after the round. “Maybe if my putt had stuck on 14, it could have been a different tournament, but looking back now, I’m not that mad. I knew if I hit the cage or too high that it’s gonna roll down every time. I told myself that if I hit it dead center, it should be good, but this time it wasn’t. I feel like what happened on Winthrop as well — it’s the same hole number [14], makes me kinda sad.”
Anttila was able to shave the gap to three with a birdie on the next hole but then threw out of bounds on holes 16 & 17 trying to press for birdies. Like Salonen in the morning, Robertson had the luxury of walking the hole 18 fairway with a comfortable buffer and was able to lay up to win his second straight world title, joining Paul McBeth and Barry Schultz as the only other MPO players to lead at the end of every round in a world championship.
“I said this last year – it’s not going to feel real for a while,” Robinson said after his win. “Coming out here and defending the title. I just didn’t think it was possible. The nerves that I was feeling, I tried to sit there and think about it and turn them into excitement to play the round instead of feeling nervous or scared about it. I think that helped with the nerves in the morning and by the time the round started I was just super excited to get the round started and see all the people out here. This massive crowd. I was just looking forward to playing. Winning worlds once is a great accomplishment. Winning it twice just makes me feel like I belong on tour. This is my first win of the year. It’s been a slow year but this one makes it all better.”
With his father on his bag all week, offering a calm presence and a wise ear, Robinson shared the one bit of bad advice he did receive from his father. “My Dad told me ‘disc golf is fun but you cant make a living off of it,’” Robinson said. His $30,000 prize for winning the 2024 world title certainly suggests otherwise.
The course at Ivy Hill proved to be a fitting venue for a World Championships, combining a tough, technical course with a good spectator experience and plenty of visual appeal for the Disc Golf Network viewers. It was yet another memorable Worlds.
