The stories we're following to start the season.
February 27, 2025 by Charlie Eisenhood, Kingsley Flett, Gabe LaBounty, Jesse Weisz, Owl P. Jackson, Esq. and Josiah Zoodsma in Preview
The 2025 disc golf season is finally here! The top professional players are warming up in the Florida sunshine as the Supreme Flight Open, the first stop on the 2025 Disc Golf Pro Tour, kicks off the touring season tomorrow.
Inside, we look at the stories that will define the next nine months!
Contract Year Kristin
We had plenty of fun talking about Contract Year Calvin in the season prior to his five-year extension with Innova. Now we get an even bigger story.
Kristin Lätt (née Tattar) became one of the highest-paid FPO athletes of all time with her current Latitude 64 contract that guaranteed her $125,000 a year. Given her meteoric rise since the start of that deal in 2022, Lätt is now one of the biggest disc golf stars in the world — and one of the most popular as well.
What will this year hold for her? She has the opportunity to get the biggest FPO endorsement payday ever. She has said publicly that she wants to remain with Latitude 64, but she will certainly have to consider her opportunities elsewhere. With a cooled-off disc market, she might not get the kind of deal she could have received at the end of 2023 and her historic major sweep season, but she is still one of the most valuable disc golfers on earth and could even have a claim to be #1 given her influence in Europe (including appearances in some big brand marketing campaigns including Nike Estonia) and overall popularity.
She is likely to land a big payday no matter what, but another huge year in 2025 could push her annualized contract value into the upper six figures (dare we say seven?).
– Charlie Eisenhood
First-Time Winner Trend Set to Slow?
The 2024 DGPT season saw an incredible amount of first-time Elite Series and Major (ES/M) winners. Across both MPO and FPO, over half of the 21 players who won an ES/M event in 2024 entered the season with no such wins.
FPO: 5 of the 10 players who won events (accounting for 8 of the 27 ES/M wins in 2024) had not previously won an event before the season: Holyn Handley (3 wins), Silva Saarinen (2), Ella Hansen (1), Emily Weatherman (1), and Anniken Steen (1).
MPO: 6 of the 11 players who won events (accounting for 11 of the 27 ES/M wins in 2024) had not previously won an event before the season: Anthony Barela (4 wins), Niklas Anttila (2), James Proctor (2), Joseph Anderson (1), Andrew Presnell (1) and Jesse Nieminen (1).
Last season saw many contenders finally lock down their first wins. Will 2025 be a similar storyline? I predict not! Many full tour card holders already have at least one ES/M win: 37% of MPO players and 40% of FPO. I predict that we are shifting from DGPT seasons flush with first-time ES/M winners to seasons where we will only have one or two players from each division adding their names to the list of ES/M victors.
However, if my prediction is wrong, which players will rise up and achieve their first ES/M win in 2025?
Here is the list of players who have recently been knocking at the door of a win but have continuously fallen short. They each, over the past three seasons, have podiumed at least three times yet still do not have an ES/M win:
FPO: Henna Blomroos (8 podiums since 2022)
MPO: Aaron Gossage (8), Ezra Robinson (6), Ezra Aderhold (4), Evan Smith (3)
Each division also has exciting storylines to follow for potential first-time victors.
In FPO, the continued influx of incredibly far-throwing athletes into the field. Sofia Donnecke and Eliezra Midtlyng each reached the podium in 2024. Their distance prowess, combined with the emergence of ROTY candidate and fellow powerful thrower Taylor Chocek, will be electric to watch.
In MPO, the continued influx of young talent into the sport and their ability to develop on tour is in the spotlight. Players such as Luke Taylor, Evan Scott, and Calvin Lonnquist are all 20 years old or younger and have full tour cards this season.
Will 2025 be like last year, or will the winners’ storylines be more focused on solidifying greatness amongst players with ES/M wins already? I, for one, am excited to find out!
– Josiah Zoodsma
Worlds in Europe: The Growth of Global Disc Golf
If a global map of our sport could be represented by a golf disc, in the past 60 years or so, that disc would be an Aerobie Epic: lopsided and with the fattest part of the asymmetric rim centered over the USA. Considering that 70% of the world’s courses and roughly the same percentage of active players are in the USA, then the only thing preventing the earth from wobbling on its axis might be Kristin Lätt’s trophy cabinet.
In past years, the European swing of the tour has been growing in significance, led by the European Open but with an increasing number of satellite events. The 2024 European Disc Golf Festival in Tallinn, Estonia, held in one of Estonia’s most historically significant places, was just one example of the events popping up to lengthen and strengthen the European tour. Although it actually started in May in Belgium, for most people, the 2024 European swing kicked off in a big way in June with the Turku Open and peaked at the European Open in Finland in what was a dress rehearsal for the 2025 Pro Worlds.
This year, the balance will tip even more towards Europe with the first PDGA World Championships to be held outside the USA, on ‘The Beast’ in Nokia, Finland, and ‘The Monster’ just up the road in Tampere. Starting in late July, Worlds will be preceded by the PCS and Krokhol Opens (both in Norway) and the European Disc Golf Festival in Estonia, then followed by the Turku Open in Finland.
For six weeks, the focus of the disc golf world will be entirely on Europe. Players who chose to skip the European swing in past years will be compelled to travel across the Atlantic. The trickle-down effect of this in terms of public awareness can only add fuel to what has already been the fastest growing part of the disc golf world. With Asia starting to catch up, disc golf is not to far from a more balanced representation across the globe.
– Kingsley Flett
Coming into Form
Optimizing throwing form has long been a topic of discussion among disc golfers and fans alike, especially since backhand form is more akin to a figure skater’s pirouette than the powerful throwing motion most sports fans are used to seeing in most sports. Seasoned disc golfers will remember the myriad discussions and diagrams found on the now defunct DiscGolfReview forums and Disc Golf Course Review after it. Then the YouTube generation gave rise to instant form feedback and instruction with on-demand video content, and disc golf training has taken another huge step forward since the COVID boom.
You need only to look so far as the ads on DGN’s live streams, various post-produced coverage, or even individual pros like Holyn Handley’s Instagram and YouTube profiles to see how much instruction has formalized in the past couple of years. The aspiring amateur can follow their favorite pro for advice, pore through Overthrow Disc Golf’s library of instructional videos, or even enroll in programs like the Power or Pulsea Disc Golf Academies to glean what they can from some of the best minds in the sport.
The professional scene has also reached a tipping point where you must train physically and mentally not just to be the best but simply to contend on tour. Instagram Reels and Stories show the top players not only practicing putting and getting out to the field to work release angles but hitting the gym and building the resilience necessary to be an elite athlete. This is only going to continue as we see elite athletes from other sports including Kristin Lätt (cross-country skiing) and Taylor Chocek (track and field) bring their training mindset to the Pro Tour. The Finnish National team has at least one performance coach in Joonas Merelä, who has broken down the throwing motion into specific phases and works both spins in a regimented, science-based format.
There is no shortage of instinctive, home-grown talent for disc golf in both the MPO and FPO touring fields, but the 2025 season and beyond is going to see the training offerings for professionals enable more elite athletes to make an entry into the world of elite disc golf, and, if it hasn’t been already, physical training will be solved for both backhand and forehand technique, leaving the mental challenge of putting and course management and the excellence of generational talents as the biggest separators for those at the top.
– Gabe LaBounty
The Next Rookies of the Year
Who are the candidates for the 2025 DGPT Rookie of the Year? While there is a chance someone could come out of nowhere, the MPO and FPO winners are most likely Tour Card holders. Below is a list of the 20 tour card holders eligible for Rookie of the Year.
In MPO, the top-rated rookie is Harry Chace, who finished 2nd at the DGPT Q-Series Finale and has four A-tier wins already under his belt. As a rule of thumb, any rookie with Ms in the win column needs to be on the radar, and Ryan Monn won three Majors in 2024: US Amateur Disc Golf Championship, Junior Disc Golf World Championship, and the Amateur Disc Golf World Championship. Finland’s Teemu Lampainen (Winner of 2024 DGPT Silver – Belgian Open) and Aapo Karhi (Winner of 2024 Kuopio) are also strong contenders.
In FPO, many eyes are on Taylor Chocek, also known as “Disctay,” who won the 2024 US Disc Golf Distance Championship in the FPO division with a throw of 512 feet. Chocek was a Division-1 heptathlete in college (at the track and field mecca that is the University of Oregon no less), so her athletic potential is rarely seen in professional disc golf. There are, however, two higher-rated players: Finland’s Tinja Väisänen (3rd place at the 2024 Finnish National Disc Golf Championships) and Sweden’s Matilda Ringbom (A four-time winner on last year’s SwedishDisc golf pro Tour).
Can history shed light on which types of players win Rookie of the Year? The DGPT started this award in 2021, and most of the winners have been young upstarts: Gannon Buhr (age 16 when he won ROTY), Luke Taylor (17), Emily Weatherman (18), Silva Saarinen (20), and Emily Beach (23). However, there have also been more experienced players like Isaac Robinson (22) and Jesse Nieminen (26), who had not played enough DGPT events per year to lose their eligibility in previous years. Juliana Korver (50), one of the greatest players ever, won five World Championships in FPO long before the DGPT started.
We can look at the trajectories of ROTY winners to see what is possible. Below are the PDGA ratings at the start of their ROTY year, as well as the end of their ROTY year. In parenthesis is the year they won ROTY.
The men’s PDGA rating gains were all over the place. On one extreme, Buhr went up by 20 points in his ROTY season, and Niemenan actually lost 12 points over the course of the year (but won DGPT’s Copenhagen Open). In FPO, the gains were much more significant, with Saarinen up 38 points and Weatherman up 40!
Hopefully, we will see some exciting breakout years in 2025. Do you think any of this year’s rookie class will take down a DGPT win?
– Jesse Weisz
Discraft’s MPO Roster
Discraft won the offseason. While many manufacturers trimmed rosters, Discraft was able to extend all their expiring contracts: Anthony Barela, Adam Hammes, Ezra Aderhold, Corey Ellis, Andrew Presnell, Ben Callaway, Brodie Smith, and Andrew Fish. For good measure, they added Ricky Wysocki, Ezra Robinson, and Cale Leiviska—ever heard of ‘em? And, sure, I’ll even throw Ken Climo in there with the creation of Climo Disc Golf.
The depth of the Discraft roster is unmatched. I haven’t even mentioned Paul McBeth, Paul Ulibarri, Chris Dickerson, or Aaron Gossage. So, will Discraft be dominant this year? Or have they not yet assembled enough Avengers to stop Gannon Buhr’s Thanos? Last year, Buhr won a whopping nine events. Barela (4), Wysocki (3), Presnell (1), and everyone else currently on Discraft (0) combined to win eight.
Will players like McBeth, Hammes, or Dickerson return to the winner’s circle? Is this the year that Robinson, Gossage, or Aderhold pick up a first elite win? Can’t wait to find out.
– Owl P. Jackson
Gannon vs. World
It’s not just Gannon Buhr v. Discraft, it’s the world #1 vs. #2-100.
In 2024, the Player of the Year won 33% of the DGPT/Majors (9 of 27), claimed half of the Majors, and only missed the top 10 once all season. Nobody else even came close to his accolades.
What’s scary is that he only seems to be getting better. There’s Instagram footage of him allegedly throwing 794 feet (yes, internet distance, but hey it’s Gannon). He’s had a year to dial in his Discmania bag. He won four of the last five events last season.
Can anyone challenge the young superstar or will he roll to another dominant POTY season?
– Charlie Eisenhood
