Paul McBeth entered the second round of the 2022 Texas State Disc Golf Championship in first place with a two-stroke lead over Calvin Heimburg and James Conrad. By all accounts, McBeth was well on his way to doing what he did at the Memorial Championship and WACO …
Winning – and in convincing fashion.
As you know by now, though, Ricky Wysocki had other plans – namely, nabbing a sixth Texas State Championship: 2013, 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021 and now 2022, as well. The guy’s literally signed up for six of these things and won all six of ‘em, never finishing worse than first …
That’ll do, Rick – that’ll do.
Back to McBeast, though …
The aforementioned “second round” would prove to be the start of Paul’s undoing. Not only did he shoot a lowly even-par 63 on moving day, but he plummeted in the standings, finding himself in eighth heading into the third round – he’d make up no ground; he’d finish tied for eighth.
If you take a close look at McBeth’s second-round stats, the issues were pretty obvious:
- He had three mega-untimely OB throws – two on back-to-back holes: seven and eight.
- He hit 100% of his C1X putts, but an 11% C1 greens-in-regulation rate negates it.
- His 17% putting from C2 was far from close enough to undo the damage.
In simpler terms, McBeth was spraying the disc …
Off by an inch, he might as well have been off by a mile.
But while this might weaken McBeth’s image for some, on my end, it does the opposite:
Like me, Paul McBeth is capable of a complete meltdown. Unlike me, he’ll bounce back.
In seasons past, it often felt like Paul was incapable of making any kind of mistake. 2015 comes to mind, as it saw McBeth taking down an astounding 20 of 26 tournaments. And those other six events that he “failed” to win? The lowest he finished was on the podium in third place …
No joke, this is a thing that actually happened – see for yourself:
I don’t become a bigger McBeth fan when he crashes and burns out on the course – that’s not part of it. Whether Tom Brady, LeBron James or Mike Trout, regardless of whether I’m a “fan” of ‘em or not, I enjoy greatness in action – someone I’ll tell my grandkids about one day …
Paul McBeth is one of those athletes.
To date, the guy’s disc golf’s GOAT, and it’s not really all that close – sorry, Ken Climo. Still, if this past weekend’s play has you leaning in favor of “The Champ,” stay tuned to see what he does at the 2022 PDGA Champions Cup in April – the first major of the 2022 season …
He’ll bounce back – he always does.
As a painfully amateur disc golfer, I can appreciate the heck out of that – you can, too.
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