Eveliina Salonen found herself in her first tight spot of the day mere seconds after taking the tee as the final round leader of the first PDGA Major outside North America in three years.
Eveliina Salonen scorched the Beast on Friday. Photo: DGN
Day two of the 2022 European Open is in the books, and there was seemingly as many storylines to follow as there were rays of sunshine beaming down on the packed spectator's gallery.
Salonen Soars
Coming into round two, Kat Mertsch was hanging onto her first career Major lead, separating herself from three different nationalities represented on the lead card, all tied up a single stroke behind her pace-setting opening day performance. Those being Catrina Allen (US), Keiti Tate (EST) and Heidi Laine (FI).
Team USA kicked off the 2022 PDGA Major – European Open week with its 10th-straight win in as many attempts over Team Europe in the 2022 President’s Cup in Nokia, Finland on Wednesday.
The eighth PDGA Euro Tour stop is also the first Disc Golf Pro Tour event held outside of the US. It is also the first live Disc Golf Network broadcast outside of the US. The partnership between the PDGA and DGPT continues to enable both organizations to drive the sport’s highest level of competition further.
Heidi Laine leads the Nokia Open by three strokes. Photo: Matej Verl / PDGA Euro Tour
To tame The Beast, players must battle every single hole.
Part one of the battle is in the books at the Nokia Open, the sixth PDGA Euro Tour stop of the season, and both leaders in MPO and FPO have earned that right.
For the first 18 holes at least.
Finland’s Rasmus Saukkoriipi tamed The Beast the best on Thursday, finishing with a 5-under opening round that checks in with an unofficial 1046 rating – 53 points above his rating – and a one-stroke lead over a 114-player field.
Facing a treacherous island hole to close out the competition, Oksana Zukauskiene completed a big comeback to take down the FP40 crown in Talsi.
Martin Jenny is the MP40 Champion at the 9Hill Open. Photo: Photo: Matěj Verl
In MP40, with competitors charging and the pressure of the 83-meter closing hole waiting, Martin Jenny stuck to his plan and walked away with the title.
Action shifted to the 9Hill track, which was already set to test the Masters-only field of the fifth PDGA Euro Tour stop of the year before high winds added that much more difficulty to the more and OB-laden track.
Five candidates with wide-ranging skillsets, both professionally and within the sport of disc golf, have filed for three open positions on the PDGA Europe Board of Directors.
They're all ready to help take European disc golf to the next level.
PDGA Europe is a nonprofit organization registered in Finland and a Board of Directors is mandated by the PDGA Europe bylaws.
Responsibilities of the PDGA Europe Board of Directors include attendance at:
A call for candidates for the upcoming PDGA Elections is underway through the month of May and there are spots on the PDGA Global Board of Directors, and the PDGA Europe Board of Directors, as well as PDGA State and Provincial Coordinator positions, available.
Amanda Lennartsson carded a birdie three on the 54th hole of the weekend to grab a one stroke win to cap a wild day at Kalhyttans DiscGolfBana in Filipstad, Sweden.
It was a leaderboard shakeup in the FPO division as Sofie Bjölycke turned in the first round under par this weekend at the Kalhyttans DiscGolfBana. She jumped three spots and built a two-stroke lead heading into Championship Sunday with a 950-rated, two under par round that included six birdies, including the first of the weekend on the 114-meter, par three hole 14.
Pekka Kyvönen fired off six-straight birdies to finish and grab a share of the lead with Mathis Karlsen to open the Heatland Open sponsored by Kastaplast.
A call for candidates for the upcoming PDGA Elections is underway through the month of May and there are spots on the PDGA Global Board of Directors, and the PDGA Europe Board of Directors, as well as PDGA State and Provincial Coordinator positions, available.
PDGA Europe (Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland), established 2006 (Finnish Patent And Registration Office Registered 22-Aug-2019 with ID 3000913-7), is the Europe Continent Segment of PDGA. Thirty Europe Continent Countries have secured PDGA Affiliate Country Status.
Natalie Höllokoi lines up her shot during the first round of Scottish Masters. Photo: Matěj Verl / PDGA
Euro Tour
The second stop on the PDGA Euro Tour kicked off today in Dunbar, Scotland, UK with the Scottish Masters. The Scottish Masters is the first ever separate masters-only Euro Tour event.
It is the first of seven stops in 2022 on the PDGA Euro Tour.
The conditions were tough to start the tournament, but the action heated up quickly throughout the weekend to set up a dramatic finish in the 35-player MPO field. In FPO, the battle was just as tight.
The PDGA fully condemns the actions taken by the Russian government regarding their invasion of Ukraine, and the Belarusian government for their support of the invasion. Fellowship and sportsmanship are cornerstones of disc golf and its global community, unifying across borders, languages, and cultures. To that end, the PDGA unequivocally stands with the people of Ukraine.
Kristin Tattar and Eveliina Salonen are both two-time PDGA European Player of the Year winner. Photos: DGPT
PDGA Europe Player of the Year is an individual competition governed by PDGA Europe to recognize the best European player performance in disc golf in a calendar year. An MPO and an FPO player is recognized after each season.
Europe’s Disc Golf Pinnacle
A performance based points system decides the European Players of the Year. Criteria include where their player rating ranks at year end among his or her European peers, as well as that player’s finishing positions at Majors, European Championships and the season long Euro Tour Series.
Henna Blomroos tees off at the 2020 Waco Annual Charity Open. Photo: DGPT
“I’m ready.”
It was a simple but strong response from Eveliina Salonen heading into her first PDGA Elite Series event in the United States in almost two years.
The last time that Salonen competed in the U.S., she left with a trophy at the 2020 Waco Annual Charity Open. That weekend in Texas, the COVID-19 pandemic began in full force and since then, Salonen, the fourth highest-rated FPO player in the world,, and the rest of the international contingent of professionals have been absent from U.S. competition.
Luxembourg is the 48th PDGA Affiliate Country. Photo: Suessem, Je T'aime
Gérard Kraus has always had a knack for organizing events, from a video game club in junior high school to organizing a pop-culture convention, the first of its kind in his country.
After discovering the sport in 2019, Kraus combined his passion for organizing and his newfound love of disc golf. As a result of his efforts, Luxembourg has recently been added as a PDGA Affiliate Country.
Niklas Antilla putts during the 2021 European Championship. Photo: PDGA Europe
The biennial European Championship is the most prestigious and magnificent disc golf event in Europe. This year was no exception either, although we had to wait longer than normal when the event was postponed from 2020 to this year due to COVID19.
Hosted by the Czech Disc Golf Association, the 2021 edition was held in the beautiful Konopiště castle park, near Benešov, Czech Republic. MPO, FPO and MJ18 played on a 3,303 -meter (10,837 feet). par-66 Franz Ferdinand course, designed by Jussi Meresmaa.
A record number of ballots were cast in the 2021 PDGA Elections and the votes have been counted.
The elections took place through the month of July with 89,986 ballots sent to eligible PDGA members. Of those, 18,265 ballots were returned, far surpassing 2020’s total of 51,800 eligible members and 11,821 ballots cast. That is good for a participation mark of 20.3%, just short of the record 22.82% in 2020.
Lithuania, whose affiliation was previously with the Vilnius Club in the capital city, changed its affiliation to the newly-formed national disc golf association, the Federacija Lietuvos Diskgolfo. Lithuania has been a PDGA affiliate country for 10 years.
Three candidates with wide-ranging skillsets, both professionally and within the sport of disc golf, have filed for three open positions on the PDGA Europe Board of Directors.
They're all ready to help take European disc golf to the next level.
Plans to bring the Disc Golf Pro Tour overseas to Europe for the PCS Sula Open, a PDGA Euro Tour event, in 2021 have been postponed due to travel restrictions amid the unpredictable COVID-19 situation currently in Europe.
Since the inaugural PDGA Europe Board of Directors elections were held four years ago, PDGA Europe has been going through the process of formation as our association’s legal and largely self-governing continental body for Europe.
In recent months, registration as a not-for-profit in Finland has been completed and our first permanent staff persons have been hired and trained. Now it is time to move PDGA Europe forward by envisioning, building and managing activities that have the overriding aim of growing disc golf into the future in concert with our individual members, sanctioned events, and national association partners across Europe.
Competition and community highlight the 2021 PDGA Women's Global Event. Photo: Conrad Meyer / PDGA
Nearly 100 events around the world have already registered to take part in the 2021 PDGA Women’s Global Event, which returns on May 8-9.
This impressive number showcases the rise in women’s disc golf and continues to grow every day.
A biennial tournament, the fifth edition of WGE finds women participating at the their local courses as well as with women around the global on a worldwide leaderboard.
