summary
In this episode of Disc Golf Daily, Steve Dodge provides updates on various disc golf statistics and rankings. He discusses the growth of new courses, PDGA earnings, and the top players in the PDGA. He also highlights the importance of the Pro Tour standings and the upcoming Tour Championship. The episode concludes with a reminder to share thoughts and opinions with the podcast.
keywords
disc golf, statistics, rankings, new courses, PDGA earnings, Pro Tour standings, Tour Championship
takeaways
The number of new disc golf courses continues to grow, with an average of 23 courses per week. The top earners in the PDGA have already surpassed $100,000 in earnings. The Pro Tour standings and Tour Championship are crucial for players, as they determine starting positions and strokes in the final tournament. The women's division is highly competitive, with several players vying for the top spots. Listeners are encouraged to share their thoughts and opinions with the podcast.
We are the podcast that covers disc golf news and growth in about ten minutes. And on the weekends, we cover the future of our sport with interviews with movers and shakers as well as the history of our sport as we recap the formation of the Disc Golf Pro Tour with the people that made it happen.
Music: Strange Bop by contreloup
(upbeat music) - Hello, race fans, and welcome to Disc Golf Daily. We are the podcast that gets caught up with Disc Golf in about 10 minutes, saving you time and effort. It's Tuesday, and that means it's numbers day at Disc Golf Daily. We've got another week of course growth, that is above average, PDGA growth, which continues to be better than earlier in the year, United rankings, which have no shakeups at the top, but some good movement in the top 20, and the DGPT standings, and how much they matter coming down the stretch. Let's get into it. We will start with new courses. We had 33 new courses this week. That is the highest of the entire year, breaking the record of 31, which was held maybe a month or two ago. Our average number of new courses each week is 22.9. That is up from 22.4, just a couple weeks ago. We are going to eclipse an average of 23 courses per week. That is phenomenal. Let's talk about who had new courses. The United States had 19 new courses this week. Norway had five, New Zealand had two, and Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Chetchia, United Kingdom, Colombia, and Zambia each had one new course. Now, what does that mean as we talk about total courses, at the beginning of the year, as we know, we had just over 15,000 courses. This week, we have 15,856, and we are headed towards 16,291. That is an 8.5% growth rate year over year. Well done course builders. Now we get into PDGA earnings. This is the top five men in the PDGA. Ganon Burr has already eclipsed $100,000. He just added to it even more. At Idlewild, he's at 106,000. Ricky Wysocki is at 73,000. Anthony Barela is at 63,000. Calvin Heimberg, 60,000. And Nicholas Ontola, 60,000. How 'bout the women? Owns Skoggins leads the way with 52,570. Missy Ganon with 50,000. Holland Handley with 48,000. Kristen Tatar, 46,000. And Evelyn Asalynn, 42,750. Pretty darn impressive. Who earns the most money per event you ask? That would be Ganon Burr, earning $4,400 per event. Kristen Tatar, $4,100 per event. Ricky Wysocki is at $3,600 per event. And then it drops off a little bit to Evelyn Asalynn, 3,050. And Calvin Heimberg, 3,046. There you go. So if any of these people step onto the T at a Disc Golf Pro Tour Tournament, they are probably gonna earn over $3,000. Pretty good work for a nice weekend. The FPO Cashline at the LWS Open at Idlewild was 945. The average for the year is 935. So very well done LWS Open. On the men's side, the average, not the average, the rating needed two cash was 1015. The average for the year is 1016.5. So a little bit below average, but not bad at all. And seriously, shooting 1015 golf just to get last cash. Ouch. When we compare last year's top 20 earners to this year's top 20 earners, in 2023 so far this year, so far in 2023, $720,000 had been earned by the top 20 PDGA earners. In 2024 so far, we're at 930,000. After Worlds, there's a good chance this is gonna be over a million dollars for the top 20 players, which means the top 20 players are averaging $50,000. That is insane. And we're still in August. We're still in August. PDGA approvals, we are still, actually we're closing the gap. We're down to 23% behind. At this point in 2023, there had been 201. At this point in 2024, there's been 154. And that includes discs and baskets. PDGA events. At this point in 2023, there had been 7,111 events. And at this point, well, and so far this year at this point as well, 7,235 events, almost 2% higher, which is great 'cause throughout the course of the year, we've been pretty much neck and neck with 2023. Just over the last month, we've seen it in uptick and we're now almost 2% ahead of 2023. When we look at the number of people playing in these events, this was also up to 8% behind probably a month or two ago. Now it's not even 2% behind. There have been 416,000 PDGA rounds played at this point through 2023, and there have been 409, actually closer to 410,000 in 2024. Well done. Keep going to those PDGA tournaments and let's see if we can beat 2023 in the number of rounds played. Yesterday, as soon when you're listening to this today for you, which would be Tuesday, PDGA number 292804 was issued. We are less than 8,000 away from 300,000. Last year, as we know, we had about 137,000 members at the end of the year. Right now we are trending to 131,650. That is a drop of nearly 4% over where we were last year. I guess we've talked about how that's not actually as bad as it seems. United rankings. Let's talk United rankings. Who was number one in the world on the men's side? It is Ganon Burr. He has 80 points in the United rankings. Ricky Wysocki with 60. Chris Dickerson, Calvin Heimberg and Ezra Robinson are tied with 10 points for third place. That is impressive. And maybe a little surprising if you didn't see Chris Dickerson or Ezra being up that high. They've earned it. The United rankings on the women's side. Kristen Tata, 40 points on Skoggins and Missy Ganon at 30 points. Own moved up from third to a tie for second. Holland Handley, 20 points. She's in fourth, Evelina Solomon, 15 points. She is in fifth. Now when we look at the in the top 30 on the men's side, who has improved the most from last week to this week? And the answer is Greg Barsby who gained 10 spots and is now ranked 25th in the world. Luke Taylor gained seven spots. He's now ranked 24th. Andrew Marwe had gained five spots and he has now ranked 15th in the world. And Joel Freeman gained three spots and he has ranked 11th in the world. And basically what that means is if you're playing fantasy, these are guys who are playing better than their ratings right now. And on the women's side, these four players each moved up one spot. Holland Handley moved from fifth to fourth. Natalie Ryan moved from seventh to sixth. Ella Hanson moved from 10th to ninth. And Haiti Lina moved from 11th to 10th. And there you have it. All right, the thing that I want to close with is the pro-tour standings and why it matters as we get down to the end of the season. The tour championship is the richest event in disc golf, each and every year. This year, they've modified the format to be more in line with golf's FedEx Cup, I suppose it's called. If you are first in season in the season in tour points, you start the final tournament, which is the tour championship at minus 10. If you are second in tour points, you start at minus nine. Third is minus eight, fourth is minus seven. You start the tournament seven, eight, nine, 10 down. And all the people who you are better than are anywhere from one to nine strokes behind you to start. So it is a heavily weighted tournament and it's weighted based on tour points. So tour points matter a ton. If you are in fifth through eighth, you start at six down. And that's where I want to focus, is first through eighth. But realistically, you get down to seven, eight, nine, 10, those are the interesting ones. So we're going to look at the men's side here. And as we can see, Ganon Burr leads, he has 1211 points, Ricky Wysocki, 1,122 points. He's basically 90 points behind. It is going to be difficult to catch unless Ganon lays an egg. But who knows, Ricky could do it. Nicholas Ontel is at 992. Calvin Heimberg has been steadily gaining on him. He's currently at 958 points. Those are your top four. They'll get 10, 9, 8, seven strokes off. However, Anthony Barela and Ezra Robinson are within 100 points of Calvin Heimberg. They could close that gap. And then when we look at seven, eight, nine, 10, this is where it gets exciting to me. These guys are on the bubble of that minus six and minus five. Kyle Klein is seventh, Paul McBeth is eighth. So currently Paul McBeth has minus six points going into the tour championship. Isaac Robinson is just 25 points behind him and Chris Dickerson is just 50 points behind him, having probably the best quiet season in the history of disc golf. And there you have it. So the guys that I'm watching in these tournaments lately are Kyle Klein, Paul McBeth, Isaac Robinson and Chris Dickerson. They are fighting for those seven, eight, nine, 10 spots and every stroke matters when it comes to the tour championship. All right, now let's do the same thing on the women's side. In first, we've got Missy Ganon, who's got 1,150 points. We've got own Skoggins, just 30 points behind her. We have Holland Handley, just 30 points behind own. And we have Evelina Solomon, just 40 points behind Holland. In my opinion, any one of those four could win the tour championship, could win the points series. And remember, every position that they gain gains them an extra stroke in the tour championship. Every point, every position matters, especially in the top four. However, right behind them in fifth is Kristen Tata. She's at 977 points, but I think we all know she is going to rack up some serious points at the end of the season. We've got some DGPT+ events. We've got DGPT playoffs. And I don't know if she's going to get into first, but I would bet she's in the top three by the end of the season. Ella Hanson, 934, Natalie Ryan, 835, and Kat Murch at 779 rounding out the top eight. Having said that, Henna Blombruce is three points behind Kat Murch. And Rebecca Cox is just 40 points behind Kat Murch. They are right there when it comes to getting in the top eight. And if I was on the pro tour and I had my chops all about me, I'd want to get in the top eight. That does it for us today. If you have any thoughts, news, or opinions, go ahead and share them with us. Discoff Daily at aol.com. Have fun, throw them straight, subscribe to us on YouTube, and hit the thin gap. Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, comment, and share. It really does help us grow. [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]
