A new King.

July 5, 2022 by Justin Westfall in Analysis with comments

For the first time since the 2019 United States Women’s Disc Golf Championships, a new Major champion has been crowned: Hailey King became the 26th FPO player to win a Major championship on Sunday in her home state of Wisconsin. After a recent trend of wire-to-wire victories on the Disc Golf Pro Tour, the 2022 USWDGC featured a wire-to-wire lead card with King, Eveliina Salonen, Ohn Scoggins, and Maria Oliva playing together in each of the final three rounds. As expected, this was a putter’s tournament with the top 4 players in strokes gained putting all finishing inside the top 4, and the top 5 players in strokes gained tee to green all losing strokes to the field on the greens.

Hailey King

Until this past weekend, Hailey King was having a very pedestrian season, coming off consecutive outside top-20 finishes for the first time since 2019 and was beginning to lose any sense of relevance. King came out on Thursday and shot the highest rated round of her season, only to eclipse that mark in round three with a 1006-rated effort. Averaging the 4th highest event rating of her career, Hailey took just four bogeys on the weekend, three of which came in the final round. With Paige Pierce’s dominant win last year, it’s easy to forget that King was the runner-up, when she started the final round just one stroke back of Pierce. This year it was Hailey who sat in the driver’s seat on the final day with a two stroke lead, and she did just enough to hold off the field. She now joins Pierce, Catrina Allen, and Sarah Hokom as the only FPO players to have a DGPT Elite Series win, an NT win, a DGPT championship, and a Major championship to their names.

Valerie Mandujano

Valerie nearly leapfrogged the entire lead card of Innova athletes on championship Sunday to take this title for herself. Leading the tournament in birdies, she ultimately made one too many mistakes to tie King and force a playoff despite an incredible effort. Per Statmando, the seven consecutive birdies that Valerie carded in the final round was the longest birdie streak in ES or Majors this season for both the FPO and MPO divisions. Hailey King had carded six in a row multiple times this season, including the opening round of this event. Finishing 2nd in Circle 2 putting at 35% and 4th in strokes gained putting, Valerie landed her first…