As we arrived at Fountain Hills Park yesterday morning, we were immediately reminded of why The Memorial Championship presented by Discraft is such a special event. The beautiful scenery is captivating; almost mesmerizing to the point that a competitor can lose focus just by gazing at the mountains, fountains, glorious rock formations, and the all-too-intimidating lake. Add to that the fact that it was nearly 90 degrees in the beginning of March, and we had a tasty recipe for the kick off to the 2016 PDGA National Tour Elite Series.

The Open and Open Women's divisions attempted to tackle the course at Fountain Hills Park for Round 1 and for some, the course and the wind got the best of them. For others, however, it was merely a time to show off all the off-season training they had done to prepare themselves for the upcoming season.

Fountain Hills is notorious for not only producing some big numbers, but it has also produced some of the highest rated rounds in PDGA history. Although it appears very intimidating to most, for the game’s finest players, all that is required is a confident attitude and a deft touch to navigate the tricky water-side greens and peninsulas.

Hole 9's peninsula green at Fountain Hills Park.

The Open Women’s division teed off early, with tee times beginning at 7:08 in the morning. As the sun rose, there was an excitement in the air that could only be quelled by making big moves up the leaderboard. Defending Memorial Champion Paige Pierce #29190 came into the event with boundless energy. As a participant of the PDGA National Tour Pro Clinic held the night prior, she even claimed that The Memorial was one of her favorite events of the year. It’s easy to see why, as she plodded around the course carefully and with great consideration, carding a final score of 55 (-1).

Catrina Allen #44184 has recently made Arizona her home state, and it definitely showed in her first round of the competition. After a rather slow start at even par through the first 7 holes, she managed to string together an amazing back nine, producing five more birdies without a bogey to finish with an unofficially 1006 rated score of 51 (-5). Allen and Pierce will be joined by Melody Waibel #29858, and Jennifer Allen #15354. They’ll be the feature group of the day, with a tee time of 2:02pm MST.

In the massive Open division, anyone could have put together a round worthy of discussion, but most of the chatter was about 4X and current PDGA World Champion, Paul McBeth #27523. Teeing off last, all McBeth could do was watch the scores come in, each seemingly more impressive than the last. About half way through the day, Nikko Locastro #11534 nailed a huge 60 foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to finish his round with a blistering hot bogey-free 43 (-13), unofficially rated at 1083.

The Memorial has a history of featuring a showcase card for the opening round, and yesterday was no exception. The card consisted of 3X PDGA World Champion Nate Doss #11794, last year’s Memorial Champion Jeremy Koling #33705, 4X World Champion Paul McBeth, and a newcomer to the Open division, current US and World Amateur Champion, Anthony Barela #44382, known by many as simply “AB”.

AB with a sneaky birdie putt on Hole 14. Perfect. #memorialchampionship #FountainHills pic.twitter.com/mX0coP9BHL

— PDGA Live Scoring (@pdgalive) March 2, 2016

If you’ve ever seen this 16 year old prodigy play disc golf, you might say Barela’s style looks familiar. And it should, as he has been mentored by none other than Paul McBeth. Yesterday, the student made an exciting charge at the teacher.

Through the first 12 holes, they remained tied, each making incredible drives and big putts, much to the delight of the rather large Round 1 gallery. At the end of the day, McBeth would match Locastro’s round of 43, while AB would finish with a score of 48, landing him in a tie for 12th place.

Locastro will tee off first on the Open Division lead card this afternoon, joined by McBeth, Simon Lizotte #8332, and Nate Sexton #18824, all well within striking range.

Coverage

Be sure to tune in to the live Round 2 SmashBoxxTV broadcast, presented by the PDGA, Discraft, & Spinners on the Green, starting at approximately 2:00pm MST on the SmashBoxxTV YouTube channel. Today they’ll be featuring the Open Women’s division lead card at Fiesta Lakes Golf Course, a relatively new addition to The Memorial, bringing a lot of different shots that Fountain Hills and Vista Del Camino cannot provide.

Live scores will be up and running as always on pdgalive.com, with as many of the top cards in the Open and Open Women’s divisions as we can pull off. Follow The Memorial Championships and the PDGA on Facebook, as well as @PDGA and @PDGAlive on Twitter for updates, links, pictures, and videos throughout the week. High-resolution pictures from Round 1 are now available for viewing/downloading on the PDGA Flickr page.

One day down, and an exciting three more to go. We’ll see you there!