Konopiště Open 2017 Final Round Recap: Wysocki & Van Dyken arise to victory
The 2017 Konopiště Open concluded today at the beautiful Franz Ferdinand disc golf course and the gallery on the course today got to once again witness some top level disc golf. It’s difficult to say whether it was the occasional rain showers or the pressure of the final day, but the overall level of scores was a little behind the first 2 rounds today. Despite this, we still saw some amazing performances by both our DGWT Open division and FPO division competitors
Van Dyken starts with a bang
Vanessa Van Dyken felt confident on the first tee.
Vanessa Van Dyken (USA) had a 4-stroke deficit over the reigning European Champion Eveliina Salonen going into the final round. It only took Vanessa one hole to bridge the gap to just one stroke, as she birdied the OB-ridden downhill hole one, while Salonen went OB with her drive and missed a putt from inside the circle to card a 5 on the opening hole.
After hole 5, Van Dyken had moved into the lead. Salonen wasn’t ready to give up just yet at this point and the ladies battled pretty much neck and neck the long Par 4 & 5 holes 15 and 16, where Salonen carded back to back bogeys, giving Van Dyken a 2-stroke advantage. Salonen however, was able to pick up those 2 strokes from Vanessa on the last 2 holes, ending her round with a great birdie on the 18th and forcing a playoff for the victory with Van Dyken.
Eveliina Salonen finished strong to tie the lead.
Playoff settles the winner
Unfortunately for Eveliina, who seemed to have the momentum on her side after the birdie on the 18th, her drive on the first playoff hole (hole 1) found OB. After this, Van Dyken had an easy job to secure the victory with a par.
The hot round in the FPO category today was carded by Katka Bodová, who’s +1 for today was the 2nd best round scored in the whole FPO field this week. Bodová great round secured her the 3rd place in the Womens division.
Wysocki catches McBeth early, never let’s go of the lead
Wysocki started the hunt early.
Paul McBeth, who shot -15 yesterday to tie the course record, started Championship Sunday with a 1-stroke advantage over the reigning world champion Ricky Wysocki. That lead was short-lived however, as after carding pars on hole 1, McBeth found trees on his 2nd and 3rd shots, resulting in a bogey 5 on uphill par 4 2nd hole. At the same time, Ricky was able to score a birdie to move from one back to the lead by one.
Video: Ricky Wysocki steals the lead with a birdie on hole 2. Find more videos like this here!
After hole 2, Wysocki and McBeth were still battling within a couple of strokes of each other up for the best part of the round. The momentum shift happened on hole 13 however, as Paul left his sidearm drive to far left on the fairly easy 108 meter par 3 hole, leaving him practically no chance for a birdie. As Wysocki routinely slammed in his deuce from about 8 meters, the difference between the 2 jumped to to shots for Wysocki’s benefit.
Wysocki sails to another win on the World Tour
Wysocki, who also won the first DGWT of the season, the 2017 Aussie Open, would then go to birdie the next 3 of the next 4 holes, while McBeth was able to catch birdies only on the 14th and 17th, leaving Ricky a comfortable 3 stroke bumper for the final hole. This was more than enough to secure the victory, as Ricky carded a safe par on the 18th and was crowned the winner with a 2-stroke advantage over McBeth, who birdied the last hole. Ricky’s -12 for the day was also the shared hot round of the day, as Seppo Paju and Wysocki were the only two players to hit the negative double digits with their round scores today.
Video: Ricky Wysocki brings home the victory. Find more videos like this here!
Sexton & Lizotte have their own battle for the 3rd place
Outside the top 2 men, Nate Sexton and Simon Lizotte had their own battle for the last podium finish going on throughout the final round. With a fairly comfortable bumper between the lead card players and the 4 Finns in the chase card, Sexton and Lizotte were able to concentrate on their own games against each other and the course. Up until hole 13 it almost seemed like Sexton was the sure bet for the 3rd place, but as Lizotte picked up 4 consecutive birdies on holes 14 through 17, the duo was tied going in to the 18th.
Simon’s plan to play aggressive today did not bring much success.
On the 18th tee, Simon’s drive sailed wide left, still leaving him with a solid look for the birdie. Sexton answered with a precision sidearm inside the bullseye, leaving the pressure to Lizotte. Simon, who had a nightmare-ish finish on the 18th yesterday, added one more missed putt to his record on the 18th, securing Sexton the 3rd place with an easy tap-in.
Video: Sexton picks up a birdie on the 18th to secure 3rd. Find more videos like this here!
Check out the ACE!
The final round also brought as a total of 3 hole-in-ones, one of which was caught on tape. Check out Martin Rotmeister’s sweet ace on hole 6 today below:
Video credit: Martin Rotmeister. Find more videos like this here! Find more videos like this here!
Recap on the moving day action!
Video: Ricky Wysocki hits an eagle on hole 11. Find more videos like this here!
During the final round of Konopiště Open, our social media team was following mostly the lead card on the course. As a result, you can find a lot of photo updates, as well as hole-specific play-by-play videos on our instagram account. Make sure to check them out here!
We also have The SpinTV production crew piecing together play-by-play tournament coverage videos from the both the FPO and DGWT Open division feature card’s final round, to be released early next week. Find the play-by-play coverage so far published here and check out our facebook live recap show from after round round 2 below:
If the facebook video player doesn’t appear on your screen, click here to watch!
Scores and Stats
We also highly recommend checking out the leaderboard and Metrix and course stats from the final round. The new feature we added last year, player- and hole-specific instagram videos on the scoring interface, is in place here at the Konopiště Open too, so make sure to check those out by clicking the tiny camera icons where available.
Find the PDGA results page with preliminary round ratings here!
The Disc Golf World Tour will be back in action at Nokia, Finland with the 2017 European Open in July, so make sure to mark it down to your calendars!
