Round 4 Recap
July 21, 2025 by Josh Mansfield in News, Recap
Over the past few years, the narratives surrounding Calvin Heimburg and Silva Saarinen were remarkably similar. Both are exceptionally reserved on the course. Both have elite level skills. And both have lost in heartbreaking fashion, feeling like they had let something slip away.
At the European Disc Golf Festival, everything changed. Not only did Heimburg and Saarinen earn their first major victories, they shattered any notion of the narrative that they can’t win under pressure — and perhaps reshaped the landscape of the top of the sport for years to come.
For Silva, Kristin Lätt had proved to be her kryptonite in the close tournaments last year and to start 2025. Whether it was the playoff at the 2024 Green Mountain Championships or the heartbreaking collapse at the 2025 Music City Open, the pressure Kristin applied often seemed too much for Silva to bear. Then, with a win at the Ale Open, we caught glimpses of a new Silva, one whose consistency and putting remained strong, even under pressure.
That pressure could only have been amplified on Championship Sunday at the EDGF, with more than 4000 fans in attendance before the FPO lead card teed off. Fueled by Lätt, Estonia came out in full force to see the home town superstar take down Estonia’s first major. Despite the Clark Kent glasses, Silva was not Superman this weekend.
Sure, the crowd still cheered for Saarinen’s shots, even louder than they did for the Americans’. But those cheers paled in comparison to the roars Kristin’s shots elicited, echoing off the amphitheater’s walls and audible anywhere on the property. Silva wasn’t the favorite. And it was clear. And at hole 9, it felt like Kristin was prepared to take her victory lap. Silva attempted to drive the green. The wind, the strongest it had been all weekend, was in the player’s face. A hole that Silva struggled to reach in ideal conditions proved to be too much to handle and Silva went OB. Kristin was up by five shots. It was supposed to be over.
No one told Silva.
Saarinen began to hit shot after shot, putt after putt. Draining putts from distance in the face of Lätt and her thousands of supporters. And Kristin started to crumble. The signs of nerves that had manifested themselves on a 16 foot miss on hole one turned into a full meltdown. Kristin missed eight putts in the back nine, six from circle 1. Silva didn’t miss a putt. Silva didn’t card a bogey. The gap closed until, moving to hole 17, the two Europeans were tied.
Silva threw a perfect drive to just inside the bullseye. Kristin, in circle 2, proceeded to miss three putts, ultimately carding a double bogey and sealing the win for Silva. Hole 18 was a formality: Silva hoisted her first major trophy. Had the circumstances been different, it’s likely that the crowd, which did include a fair number of Finnish fans, would have made clear their elation at a European winner. Instead, thousands of Estonians listened to the Finnish national anthem, a tune that the two countries share. An anthem that should have been playing for their star was instead celebrating the young Finn and her rise to victory.
There will be discussion in preparation for the world championships about Kristin’s capacity to bounce back. But it’s clear now that Silva Saarinen will be a central face in the future of this game. Earning her first major before the likes of Holyn Handley, Cadence Burge, Ella Hansen, Valerie Mandujano, and countless others, Silva puts a stamp on her season that now features three wins and two more second place finishes and claims the first Estonian major as her own.
***
While FPO was the battle for Europe, MPO was an All-American sprint. Paul McBeth, Isaac Robinson, and Gannon Buhr had claimed 8 of the past 11 majors. The lone exception to the major club: Calvin Heimburg. While the card stayed relatively close at first, Paul needed to shoot another stellar round to keep pace and quickly fell off. Isaac Robinson carded the double bogey on the island green of hole seven, and his tournament was over. That left just Calvin and Gannon. Gannon’s drive came up short on hole nine, and it felt like that could be the difference. But slowly and surely, Gannon clawed strokes and entered hole 17 down only one stroke. And then his drive was short, and he missed the circle two putt. Calvin, left with a 20 foot putt, could seal the tournament on 17.
The putt splashed out right. The groans were deafening. It was the first real sign of nerves from Calvin and felt reminiscent of hole 17 at Winthrop, in the pouring rain, when Calvin’s putt came up short and rolled into the lake to hand Chris Dickerson the win. “It was a bad miss,” Calvin told me in a post round interview. “It could have cost me the tournament.”
On hole 18, Calvin threw his drive in bounds but halfway into circle two. The crowd, again, audibly groaned. Calvin is an immensely popular player, and his fans have been waiting years for his first major victory. And when Gannon puts his drive inside 25 feet, a playoff felt imminent.
As Calvin walked up to his putt, the crowd fell silent. After a few moments of focus, Calvin buried the winning putt. The cheers erased any doubt about Calvin’s legacy. In a burst of emotion uncommon to Heimburg, he roared, fist pumped, and showed a raw side of him that has hungered for a major for years. It was a putt that cemented a near certain hall of fame induction. More importantly, it was a putt that elevated Calvin back to the top of the sport, in the shadows of which he has hovered for so long.
The last time that a major featured first time FPO and MPO winners was Gregg Barsby and Paige Shue’s wins at the 2018 World Championships in Vermont. It seems only fitting that the first major in Estonia featured a first time winner in both MPO and FPO.
Surrounded by thousands of fans, two fantastic players put the world on notice. And they’re coming for Finland next.
