2024 MVP Open: The Final DGPT Stop Before the Tour Championship

The last chance to get into the Tour Championship!

September 24, 2024 by Justin Westfall in Preview with 0 comments

The Disc Golf Pro Tour playoffs continue this week with the second and final event before the tour championship. The MVP Open begins this Thursday, September 26th, at the Maple Hill disc golf course in Leicester, Massachusetts. Just four hours south of Smugglers’ Notch, Maple Hill is a favorite among pros and currently ranks as the #4 course in the world (and #1 in the USA) by UDisc. The MVP Open has been run by DGPT founder Steve Dodge since 2008 and was formerly named the Vibram Open.  As the final playoff event, this is the last opportunity for players to move up the leaderboard to qualify for the tour championship or secure higher seeding.

Last year, reigning champion Simon Lizotte entered the final day tied with Calvin Heimburg and one-stroke ahead of Eagle McMahon and Ben Callaway. While McMahon managed to come away with the best round of the group, it was Matt Orum, who had begun his day two strokes back on the chase card, that managed to pull away with a four-stroke victory. Orum shot a 9-under par round, which included seven consecutive birdies on the back nine, to earn his first career Elite Series win.

In FPO, Ohn Scoggins and Hailey King came in tied for the lead and one-stroke ahead of Kristin Tattar. Tattar managed to get out in front early before taking a double bogey on hole 9. Scoggins was fighting for the lead with Tattar, but a disastrous triple-bogey on hole 11 followed by another bogey on hole 13 took her out of contention. With Scoggins and Tattar both making mistakes late, it was Hailey King who was able to string together three birdies in the final four holes to defeat them by one-stroke.

Past Winners

Four Things We’ll Be Watching

1. Now with seven total wins and the Player of the Year award seemingly locked up, Gannon Buhr has an opportunity to close out a historic season. If Buhr can find a way to win this week’s MVP Open as well as the USDGC, he would tie Paul McBeth’s historic 2019 campaign with seven Elite Series and two Major wins. On Sunday, he joined McBeth as the only MPO players in DGPT history to have two pairs of back-to-back wins in a single season. Unfortunately for Ricky Wysocki, he’s now been on the wrong side of both seasons. Wysocki came in with his 5th runner-up finish of the season at the GMC, tying his total from 2019. The biggest difference this year is that Wysocki has already earned three victories vs. just one in 2019.  He should once again be Buhr’s biggest competition this week. Wysocki is a two-time MVP Open champion and has not finished worse than 9th at this event in 12 consecutive starts. If Ricky could somehow find a way to win out, it would certainly help ease the sting of coming up just short several times this season. And while it likely wouldn’t be enough to pass Buhr in the Player of the Year race, it would certainly shift the narrative of this season in his favor.
2. Coming off her first Elite series win since April and her first 1000+ event rating in the same span, Kristin Tattar has now tied her ES win total from each of the past two seasons, and she still has an opportunity to earn a third consecutive Player of the Year award. While Tattar’s GMC win was aided by a poor finish from Silva Saarinen, the Estonian still looked better than she has since the spring and shot her third highest event rating of the season. The MVP Open title has long eluded Kristin, though. In three appearances at this event since 2019, she has three runner-up finishes including a playoff loss in 2022. If Eveliina Salonen wants to remain ahead in the Player of the Year contest, she will likely need to come up with at least one more win to close out the season. Salonen has only played this event twice, finishing 6th in 2022 and 4th in 2023. While her distance won’t be much of an advantage on this track, Salonen’s ability to hit gaps and scramble through the woods should keep her in contention for the win.
3. Every stroke matters and while the DGPT tour championship is still three weeks away, strokes for that event will be earned and lost this weekend. Gannon Buhr and Ricky Wysocki have the top two positions locked up in MPO, but 3rd place Calvin Heimburg and 4th place Niklas Anttila are currently separated by less than three points. If Anttila can finish ahead of Heimburg this weekend, he would likely jump into that 3rd spot and begin the tour championship at 8-under par rather than 7-under. Currently in 5th place and more than 100 points ahead of Anthony Barela, Isaac Robinson has dropped from the MVP Open and could move down the leaderboard. The good news for Robinson is that 5th-8th place all begin the tour championship at 6-under par. The top of the FPO division is even tighter. Holyn Handley sits in 1st place, 37.5 points ahead of Ohn Scoggins and could easily lose that position without a strong performance this weekend. Scoggins has just over a 3-point lead on 3rd place Missy Gannon, and less than 14 points separate her from 4th place Kristin Tattar. With the top 4 seeds all earning a one-stroke advantage on the player seeded below them, the results this weekend could have huge implications on the Tour Championship.
4. While some players are fighting for extra strokes in the tour championship, others are battling just to earn an invitation. In MPO, Luke Humphries has dropped down into 32nd place and is currently the last player in. Just four points ahead of Luke is Emerson Keith, who will also need a solid performance this weekend to maintain his spot. With a decent performance last week, former MVP Open champion Bradley Williams has moved up into 33rd and sits less than 27 points behind Humphries. Ezra Aderhold failed to improve his position at the GMC and now sits in 34th, just one point behind Williams. In FPO, Hanna Huynh overtook Stacie Kiefer last week and now sits just over 4 points inside the cut line. Kiefer will need a strong performance this weekend to move back into 20th place and hold off Eliezra Midtlyng who’s currently 16 points back of Huynh and could easily make a push for the final spot.

Course Changes

Maple Hill offers everything that you could want in a disc golf course from tight woods lines to elevation changes, water carries, and, of course, the beautiful scenery of the Christmas tree farm that the course plays through. With grandstands behind hole 1 for spectators to watch big opening tee shots and the rowdy “8 holes” who sit and cheer for shots coming into hole 8’s island green, this event provides a fantastic venue to wrap-up the Elite Series.

The course has seen several changes for this year’s event, but, similar to last year, a couple of holes will have alternating pin positions. Rounds 1 and 2 will utilize the ‘B’ layouts with rounds 3 and 4 using the more traditional ‘A’ pins. Hole 1 at Maple Hill is perhaps the most well-known starting hole in the sport, a huge downhill tee shot over a pond sets players up for a tricky approach onto a small, protected green. This year, a triple mandatory has been added to the mouth of the green, which should force players who are out of position to lay up short of the mandos on their approach and play the hole for par. This pin will only be played in rounds 3 and 4, however, as a shorter par 3 ‘B’ position will be utilized in the opening two rounds, with the basket placed near the edge of the pond. The other alternate position is on hole 9, with the new basket sitting 200 feet further back from the traditional location. As a result, this hole will play as a par 5 as opposed to a par 4 in the opening two rounds.

Some of the other changes include hole 6 — one of the trickiest par 3s on tour had some guardian trees removed near the green. However, the basket was pushed even closer to the OB rock wall and will also be elevated this year. Hole 7 is a new hole, playing through the trees parallel and just slightly offset from the previous hole which played down a path. Holes 10 and 18 also have new FPO tee pad locations. The last notable change is to hole 14, where one of the most famous greens in the sport now has a retaining wall that will require discs to come in a bit higher to avoid landing in the water.

2024 MPO A: 8,852 Feet Par 60
2023 MPO A: 8,834 Feet Par 60

2024 MPO B: 8,674 Feet Par 60
2023 MPO B: 8,724 Feet Par 60

2024 FPO A: 7,097 Feet Par 60
2023 FPO A: 7,005 Feet Par 60

2024 FPO B: 6,965 Feet Par 60
2023 FPO B: 6,935 Feet Par 60

Extended Forecast

Fall is officially here: expect a cooler weekend of disc golf in the northeast and some likely rain for the opening round on Thursday.

Thursday: Rain likely with highs in the upper 60s.  Winds 10 to 15 mph.  Chance of rain 70%.

Friday: Mostly cloudy with highs in the upper 60s.  Winds 5 to 10 mph.

Saturday: Mostly cloudy with highs in the mid 60s.  Winds 5 to 10 mph.

Sunday: Partly cloudy with highs in the upper 60s.  Winds 5 to 10 mph.