It's time for the next installment of our DGPT power rankings (or watch the video here)! The top of this list is getting very interesting, and it looks like there is a roadmap for a legitimate four person player of the year race depending on how the next couple of events play out- which would have seemed ridiculous just a few events ago. A quick reminder that these are power rankings, not season standings, and another reminder to be sure to let us know in the comments which of these slots you do or don't agree with. Without further ado,
#10 - Ezra Robinson (Prodigy Discs)
Kicking off our list at number 10 and making his first appearance on the power rankings this season is Ezra Robinson, who thus far this season has been the better of the two Robinson brothers AND the better of the two Ezras on tour. That first one is particularly surprising, because I think we all expected big bro to make more of an impact on tour this season. But this isn't about Isaac- Ezra has had a really solid season thus far this year.
He's currently 6th in Tour points, largely because he has played in every event stateside thus far this season and he has consistently been a top 20 guy. You've almost certainly seen him several times on coverage at different points throughout the year, but he's only been able to land 3 top 10s and one podium finish, a third place at Champion's Cup. I called for a breakout season for Ezra, and it looks like he's right on the cusp- he's pushed his rating up to 1040 and looks at home competing with the big dogs on tour. Ezra has a unique snappy spin to his form that I enjoy watching- good thing is I'm sure we'll get plenty of chances to see more of it as the season goes along
#9 - Gavin Rathbun
Number 9 on our list is Gavin Rathbun, who is still not sponsored... somehow. But I would be surprised if that doesn't change in the next few weeks because this dude has been on an absolute tear- a third place finish at DDO, second at OTB, and a top 10 tour points ranking overall for the year thus far prove that he is certainly back and deserving of some sponsorship love. Where do you want to see him go?
Gavin's an easy guy to cheer for- he's got the "young prospect who was cast off because of a major injury and now he's making a comeback" storyline. Dynamic Discs, who signed him away from Discmania a few years ago, decided to not renew his contract at the beginning of the year and Gavin has been rolling open bag as he torches pro tour fields. He surely won't be homeless for long though, and I'd personally be incredibly down to rock some Rathbun tour series discs
- He has a deal with Gateway for some Warlocks, but I'd love to see his name on a run from a tier one manufacturer. Personally I'm cheering for him to go back home to Discmania, but I would also really like to see Innova make a move and pick him up. The dude put a ring on it recently (congrats!), it's high time a disc manufacturer got down on one knee for him and did the same
#8 - Chris Dickerson (Discraft Discs)
Moving on to Number 8, we've got Chris Dickerson, who I acknowledge might be the most underrated player on the list this go 'round. Chris is one win away from being solidly within the top 5 and vying for a top 3 spot- I mean just look at his season compared to Gannon, who has widely been considered a top 3 player on tour all year long.
He missed the OTB Open and Texas States this year and has STILL tied for the second most top 10s on tour, an incredible show of consistency.
The knock on Dickerson is twofold. First, he hasn't REALLY vied for a win this season, even though he's always near the top of the leaderboards. Even his 3rd place finish at MCO was seven strokes off of the victory (which, to be fair, has a LOT to do with how ridiculous Simon was all weekend long there). His next closest shot at a dub was at Jonesboro, where he was "only" 4 strokes away from taking it down, but those 4 strokes put him all the way down to 7th place.
The other thing going against Chris is his relative lack of participation on the tour. Like I said, he's missed two events already this year and is gearing up for a patented "Dickerson break" as the tour swings up into the west coast, so we won't see him for another month and a half or so and this will thus most likely be the highest we see him in the rankings for a while. He's also rehabbing from some chronic hip stuff that he's got going on, so hopefully the time off gets him back to 100% whenever he does pick up the bag again.
#7 - Andrew Presnell (Discraft Discs)
Another new face in the rankings this week is Andrew Presnell, who shocked the disc golf world by taking down Champion's Cup with a commanding win. Winning this tournament gives him Major (ha) bonus points for his ranking here, as does following up that event with another top 5 the next week at DDO, a course that couldn't be more different than the tight wooded track of Northwood Black.
Prez played solid golf all weekend long at Champion's Cup- he was the only player in the field to not record worse than a single bogey for the event, and he led the event in both fairway hits and C1 in regulation, two HUGE stats for a course like Northwood. His putting was solid but nothing amazing, it just felt like he avoided the major screwups of the rest of the field and survived the attrition game of playing four rounds on the notoriously tight track.
To commemorate his big win, Presnell was promoted back to the Discraft Elite team and given a couple commemorative discs. The first are Colorshift Drones with a commemorative stamps, the second is a Tour Series release of his own. And not just any tour series, Discraft released the first run of their new Swarm, a flat-topped and overstable midrange in the new Jawbreaker Z FLX plastic. Prez claims these are the most overstable discs in his bag (and he's a notorious Drone thrower), and I think this is a great addition to the Discraft lineup. You can snag a Drone or a Swarm here at The Armory now if you're in the market for one of those and support Andrew AND your favorite disc golf store 😉
Champion's Cup was obviously a breakout event for Presnell, whose average event finish on the year before his win was 30th place. Most people expected him to drop back to about that afterwards, but he had an impressive show at DDO, climbing from 15th to 9th to 5th over the course of the event. He then skipped OTB in lieu of some time away from the tour and of some B Tier wins closer to home, and it'll be interesting to see how he carries the momentum whenever he does return to DGPT action.
#6 - Simon Lizotte (MVP Discs)
Dropping 3 spots to number 6 this week is fan favorite Simon Lizotte, who had a walkoff win at the Music City Open before heading back to the homestead for the birth of his child- hard to imagine a better stretch of two weeks. He's dropping a few spots in the rankings simply due to a lack of appearance on tour, but it's not due to injury, so he's holding decently strong.
Simon will be back in the action soon, and when he DOES come back, he's going to be coming with his new Team Series Proton Teslas in tow, which look AMAZING. This art is some of my favorite for a Tour Series disc in recent memory, and Proton plastic is always top of the line. MVP is also FINALLY releasing the Conrad Detour in both stock and Conrad Special Edition stamps alongside Electron Entropies and Fission Time Lapses. Apparently Simon's fellow Crush Boy is already on the Fizzy Time Lapse hype train, and I'm excited to see these fellas huck 'em left and right because it's hard to imagine a farther flying disc than what is essentially an extra-gyro, slightly light weight Destroyer. We're missing seeing Simon out carving lines and are excited for him to rejoin the Tour soon.
#5 - Niklas Anttila (Discmania Discs)
Holding down the fort in the middle of our rankings once again this week is Niklas Anttila, who remains difficult to rank because he's either amazing or amazingly mediocre. In the last iteration of the power rankings I mentioned that he bounced between podiums and 60th place finishes, and his most recent events have been similar. He got second at Champion's Cup, which is obviously great, especially at a major, even though he (or anyone else) never REALLY made a push to make Presnell sweat down the stretch. He then followed up that up with a very mediocre showing at OTB, where he came in at 26th place.
Worth noting, he also got 2nd at Copenhagen in between Champions Cup and OTB. That IS a Disc Golf Pro Tour event, but honestly if anything he loses points in my eyes for not winning there. He DID shoot his rating, in his defense, but he was the highest rated player in the field by ELEVEN points. Gotta bring those home, dawg.
Niklas is one of the most enjoyable players to watch bc of his buttery smooth form, and he would definitely make the card if I were to hand select who I want to see carving up some wooded fairways. Given that smooth form, it's kind of strange to see him swinging up and down as much as he has- it LOOKS like he should be one of the most consistent players just based on his form. Maybe the Nordic Phenom just needs a new tour series disc to get that extra bit of STABILITY in his game- if you haven't seen, Horizon DD3s are coming in the next few weeks. I'm curious if they will be in the "Halo Destroyer" realm of flight, because if so, I think these will be incredibly popular. Regardless, they look sweet.
#4 - Ricky Wysocki (Dynamic Discs)
Moving up to number 4 this week is Ricky Wysocki. I will say once again that he was my pick to win player of the year this year, and even though I'm biased because of that and really want him to win just so I can say I'm right, I DO think that he's having a really really solid season. Right now Rick is the "better version" of Chris Dickerson (which again is great, because Dickerson has been playing super solid golf this year). What I mean by that is that he is consistently up in the rankings but has yet to take a win on the tour thus far- he's got 3 podiums and several appearances on lead card action, but close isn't close enough if you want to push into the top 3 of these rankings.
He KIND OF choked DDO, given that he was leading the tournament going into the final round and that's a track that he's historically been great on, but that was really more about Calvin winning and less about Ricky losing. I also say "choke" loosely because that would only apply to someone in the echelon of Ricky Wysocki, who has set an absurd standard for himself because of his performance over the years. His final round at DDO was still 1030+ rated, but at no point in the entire final round did he pick up a stroke on Calvin and he bogeyed each of the final 3 holes to drop to a 5th place finish.
That sounds like a lot of negativity for a guy that is sitting in the #4 spot, but that's once again just because of the high standard Wysocki has set and the respect he's earned by winning events year in and year out. Speaking of which, how high does HE jump with a win? If Ricky takes down Portland- which is a DGPT+ event, his season immediately looks A LOT like Gannon's and not too far off Calvin's... that obviously is dependent on what the other top guys do at that event as well, but Ricky is well within striking distance to make a lot of noise going into the middle of the season.
#3 - Gannon Buhr (Discmania Discs)
Our first podium placement for the power rankings this time around is Gannon Buhr, who has somehow dropped in the power rankings after moving into first place in tour points for the year- it's a crazy world we live in.
Gannon IS the leader in tour points because he's been consistently finishing in the top 10 all season long- his 8 top 10s are the most in the entire MPO field, and if I had to put money down on who I would think would go on the longest top 5 streak right now, it would be the young gun from Iowa. He finished second at DDO thanks to a blistering 1073 rated final round, and I ALMOST called a ridiculous comeback on the final day that was spoiled by another gargantuan effort by Vinny buckets.
Speaking of crazy final day comebacks, the Las Vegas Challenge wasn't a Disc Golf Pro Tour event this year but it might as well have been given how deep the field was. Gannon was leading that event before Connor Rock went absolutely bananas to come from behind and take the win there, but his second place finish there still resulted in a 1057 rated event and put him over multiple other 1040+ rated players.
BECAUSE of his consistency and the fact that he already has a win under his belt, Gannon is also squarely in contention for that player of the year recognition. If HE were to win Portland, I think there could be a very serious case made for him over AB, especially considering that it would make his 2 wins on the year BOTH at DGPT+ events. That's obviously a hypothetical, but we all expect Gannon to at least make a strong push for it to become reality at the turn of the month.
#2 - Anthony Barela - (Discraft Discs)
Taking home the silver in this week's power rankings might be the most contentious player on the list, given that these are power rankings, not season standings. Anthony Barela has REALLY fallen off the pace that he set at the beginning of the season and has only taken a single top ten (a 10th place finish at Champion's Cup) since the last power rankings. To be fair, it was inevitable that AB would fall of the pace that he was on at the beginning of the season, but the surprising thing for myself and many others was how consistently he has been OUT of contention after lighting the disc golf world on fire for the first full third of the season (with some SWEET Venoms to commemorate). Since winning Jonesboro, he's taken 7th, 10th, 14th, and 18th in his last 4 Disc Golf Pro Tour events, but he still gets a TON of "residual points" because of the way he started out the season.
I think the most surprising thing for me is that with the exception of Champion's Cup, I feel like the courses that the Pro Tour has been at lately have lined up with Anthony's strengths- namely, throwing 700 feet off the tee and navigating these park-style courses. Don't get me wrong, AB would still absolutely get my vote for player of the year if the season ended today, and he would still almost certainly get it if the season ended a month from now unless something ridiculous happened over the next few events, but it'll be interesting to see how he pushes back and pushes forward over the course of a long season.
#1 - Calvin Heimburg (Innova Discs)
Maybe it's because Calvin just makes the game look easy by hitting fairways and making all his gimme putts. He led the field at DDO in both C1 and C2 in regulation and strokes gained tee to green, which allowed him to win by essentially 4 strokes even while having a fairly mediocre putting performance at 86%. Then at the OTB Open he once again led the field in C1 in regulation and strokes gained tee to green while also topping the charts in parked percentage, which allowed him to win the event while only putting at a 79% clip. The "low ceiling open" really set up well for Calvin's game, and the trend of "drive for dough, putt for show" continues on the pro tour level.
Calvin has now racked up 5 top 5 finishes in his last 6 events to go alongside his back to back wins and is right back into the middle of the discussion for player of the year, which would be a back to back honor for him if he were to win that this year. I don't think any of us expect Calvin to go away, and even though AB and Gannon had better starts to the season, if I were a betting man I think I would go with Calvin to have the best second half of the season overall. Worlds is going to be at New London tech this year, which is a course that sets up well for his game, and we might finally get a chance to see a long-awaited 1x next to Heimburg's name on some Halo Destroyers.
I know I've mentioned several players for the player of the year battle, but I think that there is a very realistic line for these 4 different guys to make a legitimate push at it, which is really exciting. I love following the storylines and progression of the ebb and flow of the season and I'm excited to see what shifts happen once the tour kicks back up in Portland. I'm also a fan boy that is holding out hope that Paul McBeth is just one event away from putting it all back together and making his way back to the winner's circle, because making these lists without his name on it still feels weird to me.
Be sure to let us know what you think in the comments below who you're cheering for to make a move up the list!