The 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament was from Friday, June 23 to Sunday, June 25. The tournament was a Disc Golf Pro Tour Elite Event.
All three rounds of the Des Moines Challenge were at Pickard Park, which is one of Iowa's top five disc golf courses.
Click or tap a section below to find out more about the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament:
- How and when to watch the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament live
- How to watch the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament for free
- Scores, and stats for the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament
- Win probabilities for the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament
- Who won the last Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament?
- All past Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament winners
- History of the Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament
How to Watch the 2023 Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament: Live
You can watch archived live coverage of the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament on the Disc Golf Network (DGN).
The first round was streamed on DGPT's YouTube channel at no cost, but you'll need a paid DGN subscription to watch rounds two and three.
How to Watch the 2023 Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament for Free
You can watch the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament for free via JomezPro (FPO and MPO lead cards), Gatekeeper Media (MPO chase cards), and Ace Run Pro (FPO chase cards). All offer condensed, post-produced rounds on their YouTube channels.
Tee Times, Scores, & Stats for the 2023 Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament
You can find shot-by-shot scores and in-depth stats for every round of the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament on UDisc Live for MPO and FPO.
2023 Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament Win Probabilities
Prior to the start of the 2023 Des Moines Challenge disc golf tournament, these are the players UDisc Live's pro disc golf Win Probability model gave at least a 2% chance to win in MPO and FPO:
| Win Probability Before Event | Player: MPO | Win Probability Before Event | Player: FPO | |
| 16% | Calvin Heimburg | 62% | Kristin Tattar | |
| 15% | Ricky Wysocki | 11% | Paige Pierce | |
| 11% | Gannon Buhr | 5% | Hailey King | |
| 8% | Chris Dickerson | 5% | Holyn Handley | |
| 8% | Matthew Orum | 5% | Valerie Mandujano | |
| 6% | Kyle Klein | 4% | Missy Gannon | |
| 4% | Isaac Robinson | 2% | Kat Mertsch | |
| 3% | Anthony Barela | 2% | Ella Hansen | |
| 3% | Simon Lizotte | |||
| 3% | Joel Freeman | |||
| 2% | James Conrad | |||
| 2% | Evan Smith |
On mobile, swipe left/right to see all columns.
These percentages were created prior to the start of the event and changed dramatically as it played out. To see how, check out Win Probability on UDisc Live.
Note that Win Probability doesn't always match up with Disc Golf World Ranking because Win Probability takes into account how players have historically performed on holes of specific distances and difficulties and compares that information just to holes they'll face at a single event. That means the probabilities above related to how players' historical performances suggested they'd do just at the 2023 Des Moines Challenge whereas World Ranking is a broader assessment of past performance.
Who Won the Last Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament?
Gannon Buhr (MPO, 19-under par) and Kristin Tattar (FPO, 17-under par) won the 2023 Des Moines Challenge.
Previous Winners of the Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament*
- 2023: Gannon Buhr (MPO), Kristin Tattar (FPO)
- 2022: Simon Lizotte (MPO), Kristin Tattar (FPO)
- 2021: Paul McBeth (MPO), Missy Gannon (FPO)
*All winners since the event joined the DGPT line-up
Des Moines Challenge Disc Golf Tournament History
The Des Moines Challenge has gone by other names and been played at various venues, but it has stood out as one of the Haweye State's premier events for almost three decades.
Steve Nixt directed the first iteration of this long-running competition in 1994 and called it the Central Iowa Disc Golf Challenge. At that event Phil Arthur took down a 12-man MPO field while a young woman from Orange City, Iowa, named Juliana Korver bested the Advanced Women's division.
In 1995, the name changed to the Des Moines Disc Golf Challenge and would remain that way until 2001 when "Disc Golf" was dropped. During that time span, Korver won every single year as she became an ever more dominant player on the professional disc golf touring scene. In 1999 – the year she won the second of her five World Disc Golf Championship titles in FPO – Korver was commissioned to design a brand-new course at Pickard Park.
Pickard Park lies in the small suburb of Indianola, just south of Des Moines. Korver got to work designing a championship-level course that offered a variety of hole distances and fairway shapes. The seasoned pro incorporated park-style holes, open shots, tightly wooded fairways, and plenty of elevation change into her design.
It wasn’t long before the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) came knocking and Pickard Park was chosen as a site for the 2004 Professional Disc Golf World Championships. The Des Moines Challenge eventually moved to the well-loved and challenging course, too.
The tournament continued to rise in prestige, achieving National Tour (NT – a now-defunct PDGA event series) status in 2006 and never dropping below A-tier status after that. The tournament's growing reputation attracted top-tier players of the early 2000s like Ken Climo and Avery Jenkins.
The tier rises also resulted in more name changes for the event. For the NT in 2006, it was dubbed the Greater Des Moines Challenge and in 2008 it morphed into the First Class Challenge. Things changed again in 2012 when G&L Clothing signed on as a sponsor and the tournament was called the G&L Clothing Challenge. But the next year in 2013, the good old Des Moines Challenge was back.
The tournament remained a prominent A-tier through the 2010s with high-profile winners like Nikko Locastro and Paul McBeth gracing the podium. In 2020, COVID forced a cancellation of that year’s tournament. But the pandemic would also crack open the door for a bigger opportunity in 2021.
The DGPT had scheduled a European swing during the 2021 season, but when international travel restrictions from COVID ground that plan to a sputtering halt, the DGPT had to act quickly. In a last-second move, they partnered with the Des Moines Challenge, elevating the event to Elite status where it remains to this day.
Pickard Park was chosen for the Elite stop and, for the first time in two decades, Korver’s original design was tweaked. The DGPT lengthened the course to provide more distance and challenge for the players.
