The final event of the 2025 season.
October 15, 2025 by Justin Westfall in Preview
After 19 Elite Series events played across 13 states and 5 countries, the 2025 Disc Golf Pro Tour season will come to a close this weekend. The DGPT Championships begin this Thursday, October 16th, in Lynchburg, Virginia, on the New London Tech and Ivy Hill courses that hosted the 2024 PDGA Pro World Championships. This will be the first time since 2018 that the Tour Championship has been held outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.
This year’s tournament format has been modified once again. The tour points leaders will begin the tournament at 8-under par, with the second place finishers at 7-under par, and the third place finishers at 6-under par. From there, starting strokes are evenly distributed throughout the rest of the divisions until you get to the bottom four players in FPO and bottom ten in MPO, who will begin the tournament at even par. Competitors will play four 18-hole rounds with no score reset, a feature from previous years.
Last year, Ricky Wysocki came into the final round with a six-stroke lead over Gannon Buhr. Wysocki and Buhr had been battling throughout the weekend as they had for most of the season. Wysocki struggled off the tee and putting from C2, allowing a red hot Buhr to crawl all the way back and take the outright lead by hole 13. Both players birdied the final two holes, and Buhr won the event by a single stroke, the same advantage he started the tournament with thanks to finishing first in the tour standings.
In FPO, Ohn Scoggins led Missy Gannon and Kristin Lätt by one stroke going into the final round. All three played very well, with Missy Gannon coming out on top thanks to a 1030-rated 9-under par round. She defeated Lätt and Scoggins by two strokes. Gannon began the tournament with a two-stroke advantage on Lätt and three strokes on Scoggins after defeating Lätt on the final hole of the MVP Open a few weeks prior to steal the top seed in the tour standings.
Past Winners
| Open | Open Women | |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Gannon Buhr | Missy Gannon |
| 2023 | Ricky Wysocki | Missy Gannon |
| 2022 | Ricky Wysocki | Kristin Tattar |
| 2021 | Nathan Queen | Missy Gannon |
| 2020 | Kevin Jones | Hailey King |
| 2019 | Chris Dickerson | Catrina Allen |
| 2018 | Chris Dickerson | Sarah Hokom |
| 2017 | Ricky Wysocki | Paige Pierce |
| 2016 | Paul McBeth | Catrina Allen |
Four Things We’ll Be Watching
1. Points leader Gannon Buhr is coming off a disappointing USDGC finish, at least by his standards. Buhr finished in 7th place and averaged six points below his player rating. While he typically has an advantage over the field due to his skill, he’ll have his biggest advantage of the season this week by starting the tournament with the lead at 8-under par. Without a USDGC win, Gannon does not have a chance to break his cash record from last season — or even come particularly close. This weekend is simply gravy for Buhr, who played another stellar season and has surely secured a second consecutive Player of the Year award. If anything, he may be looking forward to some rounds on a new-look New London, set to play host to the 2026 PDGA Champions Cup, a major that he is still looking to add to his resume.
2. In the absence of Kristin Lätt, Missy Gannon immediately established herself as the #1 player in the division. Coming off another TPWDGC win, she’s established herself as the best closer on tour. Year after year, Gannon continues to shine in the final stretch of the season. Over her last five events, she has three wins and two second place finishes. In a crowded field, she has emerged as the most likely candidate to win her third career and second consecutive Player of the Year award. More importantly, this is perhaps the most impressive of those POTY campaigns. Gannon is the back-to-back reigning champion of this event and has won it three of the past four years. Despite a slight stroke disadvantage this year, given the way she’s been playing, it shouldn’t surprise anyone if Missy makes it three in a row this weekend.
3. Anthony Barela was finally able to get the monkey off his back last weekend at the USDGC. Now a 1x major champion, he has a chance to put a cherry on top and close out with back-to-back wins. If Barela is able to come out with a win, he will nearly double his season earnings in just an eight day span. He’ll have his work cut out for him, starting the tournament three strokes behind Buhr. Last week, AB led the field in birdies and carded just 10 single bogeys. If his accuracy carries through to this weekend, Barela should be in contention to make a push for the top spot.
4. If there’s an antithesis to Missy Gannon’s season, it’s Holyn Handley’s. She began the season with 13 consecutive top 5 finishes including 4 wins. Since then, she has earned just two top 5 finishes and no wins. Now, she must return to the venue where she nearly became a world champion just over a year ago. Handley led by one stroke after four rounds of last year’s Worlds, before falling completely out of contention with an eight over par final round. It’s no secret that despite having won several big events, Handley continues to struggle coming down the stretch. If there’s any silver lining to be found at the end of this season, it could come this weekend. With a stroke advantage on the field, Handley has an opportunity to vanquish some demons and take home one final win in 2025.
The Courses
Designed by six-time World Champion Paul McBeth, New London is a technical beast that currently ranks #15 on UDisc’s list of the top 100 courses in the world, up from #32 last year. The track offers a wide variety of holes to test a player’s skill set. Everything from tight gaps which require technical shot-shaping to wooded holes with wider fairways, and even a few wide open shots. The front-9 of the MPO layout is over 1,500 feet longer than the back 9, with a pair of 1,200 foot par 5’s on holes 6 and 9. You could say this course is the new New London, after onsite developments forced a partial redesign this past year. The course is now playing longer and quite a bit more difficult, with some pros this week calling it the hardest course in the world.
Ivy Hill is a temporary course constructed on the Ivy Hill Golf Club and designed by Tournament Director Nate Heinold. The course is long and features a tremendous amount of elevation change, with several big downhill tee shots. All 18 holes on the property are lined with OB and six of the holes also contain hazard territory. A couple of the baskets also sit on very steep hillsides, creating tricky approaches and the potential for putts to roll away.
New London
2025 MPO: 12,100 Feet Par 69
2024 MPO: 11,495 Feet Par 68
2025 FPO: 9,491 Feet Par 70
2024 FPO: 9,216 Feet Par 69
Ivy Hill
2025 MPO: 12,000 Feet Par 67
2024 MPO: 11,794 Feet Par 67
2025 FPO: 10,382 Feet Par 69
2024 FPO: 10,372 Feet Par 69
Extended Forecast
A near perfect weekend will lead to some potential rain and moderate winds for the final round.
Thursday: Sunny with highs in the low 70s. Winds light and variable.
Friday: Sunny with highs in the upper 60s. Winds light and variable.
Saturday: Mostly sunny with highs in the upper 70s. Winds 5 to 10 mph.
Sunday: Partly cloudy with showers possible in the afternoon, highs in the mid 70s. Winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
