One big surprise and one favorite finished Sunday as the winners in the LWS Open at Idlewild on the Disc Golf Pro Tour’s stop in Northern Kentucky in Burlington.
With a capacity crowd of 1,500 watching, Georgia’s Isaac Robinson won his first elite level tournament with a sizzling 33-under par as he held off Chris Dickerson by four strokes.
Robinson, a Toccoa Falls (Ga.) College spring graduate, beat back a challenge from Tennessean Dickerson, the No. 2 player in the world, after Dickerson’s eagle on the 969-foot, par 5 No. 16 hole to pull within two strokes (minus 31 to minus 29). That’s when Robinson stepped up with back-to-back birdies on the final two holes for his four-stroke win.
The victory earns Robinson the $7,000 winner’s top prize, the highest on the Tour this year. In all, players – men and women — were shooting at a total purse of $86,200, also the tops on the Tour this year and $3,000 more than last year’s event here. Robinson’s first place also enables him to jump 15 spots to10th overall in the UDisc World Rankings.
The LWS event was also the first time that the Tour’s two million-dollar-a-year players – Paul McBeth and Ricky Wysocki – were outside the top 20 going into Sunday. McBeth, out of Huntington Beach, Calif., did rally with the best score of the day, a 13-under 56, however, to finish sixth at minus-19. Wysocki, out of Medina, Ohio, finished 16th with a minus-15.
Defending champion Kyle Klein (Wyoming, Mich.) finished in third at minus-23. Edgewood’s Zach Arlinghaus, a recent Holy Cross High School grad who is just now able to go full-time on the Tour, finished at a minus-2 and tied for 65th.
On the women’s side, with 50 entries to the men’s 100, two-time world champion, Catrina Allen, a Minnesota native playing out of Sioux Falls, S.D., captured the women’s title at Idlewild, finishing the three-day tournament at two-over.
Allen’s purse of $6,150 is the largest winning share for women on the Disc Golf Pro Tour this season. The 35-shot disparity with the men reflects the fact that the design and layout of the Idlewild course just does not allow many holes where the women’s tees can be shortened to lessen the distance or the difficulty.
Missy Gannon of Beacon, NY., moved up six spots on the day to finish tied for second with Ohn Scoggins of Los Angeles, both two strokes behind Allen.
Adam Jones, co-tournament director with Burlington’s Jason Kerl, and co-owner of The Nati Disc Golf in Cincinnati, was thrilled with how the tournament went.
“We had by far the most spectators we’ve ever had and our field was one of the best on the Pro Tour this season,” Jomes said with a total three-day crowd of more than 3,000 and all three-day and VIP passes sold out despite Saturday’s rain.
“The competition was incredible,” Jones said of a field that on the men’s side had 69 players under par on a challenging layout.
“The players really enjoy playing here,” Jones said. “Even with the rain, everything ran smoothly thanks to our wonderful volunteer team and Boone County Parks.”