Weekly Disc Golf Newsletter #15

Happy Tuesday!

Welcome to The Albatross. Your card mates favorite [weekly] disc golf newsletter. Disc golf is back. LFG! 

On the lead card this week:

• All Star Weekend Recap🙏

  • Disc golf season is here. We're so pumped. Latest from The All Star weekend

• Las Vegas Challenge Predictions

  • Who's going to take down the first event of the year

• Winners & Losers of the off-season

  • A lot of off-season moves. Some spoilers and some shockers.

Let's tee off 🥏 

All Star Weekend Recap

Ahh disc golf is back at last. It was awesome to see the pros back and playing in some casual golf and competition skills. 

The biggest shocker was Ricky Wyoscki having to withdraw (due to a flared up elbow). Big bummer as Ricky vs Paul is the best rivalry in the sport. Casual or not. But he made the right call by taking the time off. 

You can catch up on the action here:

Improvements for the format:

I like how it's played before the 1st event of the year. I think it's better. No one wants to play casual after all the big tournaments. 

Las Vegas Challenge Predictions 

One of my favorite things to do, is predict who's going to win and get podium. Even tho I'm wrong, often lol.

The first event of the year is The Las Vegas Challenge.

Last year we got an epic playoff with Drew Gibson and Gannon Buhr 

The Albatross Predictions: 

MPO:

1. Calvin Heimburg

   1. Vinny is going to start the season with a bang

2. Eagle McMahon

   1. Eagle is back. He's healthy. No forehand? But he's shown he don't need it. He will likely be battling it out with Vinny and AB for the first dub of the season

3. Anthony Barela

   1. I'm telling ya - AB is going to go off this year. It's his time. And he's throwing the (2nd) best plastic in the market.

Contenders: Paul McBeth, Gannon Buhr, Drew Gibson

FPO:

1. Kristen Tattar

2. Catrina Allen

3. Eveliiana Salonen

Contenders: Valerie Mandujano, Paige Pierce 

Winners & Losers this off season

Winners

1. Discraft

2. Lonestar discs

3. MVP/Innova

Discraft continues to assemble the best team. By best, I mean stacked 🥞 They sell plastic, have a great social media presence and a loyal fan base with plastic that is top 3 without a doubt. 

Lonestar discs has built themselves a nice strong roster and a quick following. Largely due to them sponsoring everyone on their street team. But all jokes aside. They are one of the fastest growing brands and if they can continue their momentum and land another star or two in the coming season. I think this is just the start of Lonestar.

MVP did their thing with signing Simon. He looked great during All Star weekend and I expect him to start off the season better than I anticipated. Innova also did well by signing Calvin to a 5 year extension. He's a player who can be the best if he gets his mental game together. One of the best pure golfers in the sport. 

Losers

1. Prodigy

2. Discmania - TBD

3. Dynamic Discs

Prodigy has been losing talent over the last few years and it's only getting worse. Well now that they lost Gannon Buhr. To make things even worse, they are a PR disaster. 

There is (was) rumors that Gannon Buhr was going to discmania. Which if he does, will be huge. So Discmania might get out of this list, haha. But if they don't. They lost Simon. Which is huge as he was starting to enter a peak prime (late in his career). And a huge social media following and fan base with it. But they they have two stars who can rise to the top (Eagle and Kyle Klein) 

Dynamic Discs has not been able to secure big talent this season and I feel they require another big star talent to be competition every weekend alongside Rick. 

Speaking of the Devil... 

As if the news of Gannon leaving Prodigy wasn't big enough. Prodigy blew up the [disc golf] internet after Ultiworld broke that Prodigy was suing Gannon over a breach of contract

Here is everything we know about the Gannon vs Prodigy case, so far:

• Prodigy is suing Gannon over breach of contract

• Gannon alleges that Prodigy didn't commit various things:

  • Not improving plastic quality

  • Not given 'certain' discs he was promised.... I'd assume this is in a contract somewhere?

  • Not paying out certain royalties and a $500 reimbursement

• Prodigy claims Gannon leaving his contract will cost them over $1.5 million. They also claim they don't have a top competiting player on their team now... KJ, Isaac, to name a few?!

Regardless if Gannon loses the case. Prodigy is going to come out as losers. They already are. This is the worse PR stunt they could've done. And it's likely to get worse for a company that is already a sinking ship. 

The best links throughout the week:

• Find a disc you can trust and learn every angle (BH & FH) and trust it via GreenSplatter

• GK Pro has their Go Throw Live

• Looking for some FPO post coverage between now and Friday? We got you.

  • 2022 PDGA EURO FPO

• I think Brodie Smith is going to have a strong season (top 20 and possibly sneak into the top 15). He got in even better shape (lost 35 lbs) this for this coming season

• It's been way to long. But Champs vs Chumps is back. You need to go watch this after you finish this newsletter

Check out the latest post form The Albatross blog:

-Arod @ The Albatross