Updated on
The 2024 BDGA National Championships was hosted at Silver Birch Disc Golf Club in North Wales. The event was be a PDGA XB tier and required participants to either have been resident in the UK for the entirety of the last three years, or posess a British passport.
The event was held the first weekend in July, with British Nationals travelling over to compete from all four corners of the British Isles (sadly no Northern Irish representation this year, although we hope to see people travel next year), and even players currently living in New Zealand, the USA and Denmark.
** The Event **
This was the first in a new iteration of British National Championship.
Historically, the event had been combined with and merged alongside the Tour Finale - the final event of the year. Qualification was open to anyone with enough tour points, but was not limited to the British citizens or residents that aligned with the rest of Europe.
The BDGA, SDGA and AIDGA were approached by PDGA Europe with the goal of aligning our most important event of the year with both the date (Finland, Estonia and Czechia held their events on the same weekend) and format (singles stroke play to crown a national champion) with the rest of the continent.
A new event meant establishing a new prestige and, of course, new perpetual trophies designed to be updated, engraved and returned every year.
These trophies were commissioned by EFX, who have also made trophies for events such as Formula E, British Comedy Awards and even the British Grand Prix!
This would not have been possible without the generous contributions of British Frisbee Legends Derek Robins (PDGA Hall of Fame) and Sue Underwood. We approached these two stalwarts of the community as a way to show the legacy both have left on Disc Golf in the UK and by giving their names to the trophies, hopefully leave an impression on future generations of British Disc Golfers just the same as the two of them have on our current generation of players.
We welcomed the following 6 divisions to compete for:
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The Derek Robins Mixed Professional (MPO) National Champion
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The Sue Underwood Female Professional (FPO) National Champion
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Mixed Masters (MP40) -
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Female Masters (FP40)
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Mixed Amateurs (MA)
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Female Amateurs (FA)
The Results
In the Mixed Professional division, European Tour competitors and rivals Noah Smithson (20) and Joe O’Brien (21) competed hard for the first position on the brand new Nationals trophy.
It was Smithson who prevailed, shooting the best average rating in British Disc Golf multi-day event history to take the trophy. J. O’Brien took a close second place and the two outpaced the rest of the field by a colossal 30 strokes.
In the Female Professional division, it was to head North over the border to Scotland with Rachel Turton, currently ranked in the top-25 in the world, who took a comfortable victory over Bella Tait and Elva Preston in third.
Over in the Masters division, overnight leader McNidder was not quite able to hold onto his lead and the veteran stalwart (and BDGA National Director) Iain McDougall was able to come from behind and take the victory despite not playing his best golf.
FP40 was won by Sian Lee.
In the Mixed Amateur division, another close battle was fought out between North and South. After a close run race, Scotland’s Callum Taylor was the worthy winner - he has now played nine events this season and has gone 9 for 9, winning every one - a name to look out for. Coming in a close second place was London’s Christopher Brown.
On the Female amateur side, Melodie Zendher from Manchester was the class of the field, averaging scores that would have seen her compete just fine with the professional ladies, and taking the win by almost 30 strokes!
Saturday’s weather aside, the event was well enjoyed by the vast majority of players, and was capped off by seeing England’s quarter-final penalty shoot-out triumph over Switzerland in the club bar after the event on Saturday.