While a large part of the disc golf spotlight was in Vermont for the 2018 PDGA World Championships, the seventh and final event of the 2018 EuroTour was being held in Nokia, Finland.
For Team Discmania’s Mikael Räsänen the Nokia Open 2018 got off to an inauspicious start before taking full control and taking the win by one shot.
Räsänen 62 (-2) to open the three-round event put him 11 shots behind the leader in a tie for 19th. From that point on, the Nokia Open was owned by Räsänen.
Round two saw Räsänen shoot the hot round by two shots to jump to fifth place. He was able to stay out of trouble with only one bogey to go with 10 birdies. Even with the 55 (-9), he was still seven shots behind the top spot with just 18 holes remaining.
As the holes counted down in the final round it was clear Räsänen was in the groove, but it wasn’t without a potential stumble out of the box. A bogey on the first hole could have meant the end of the run, but it was just a small bump in the road.
For the remaining 17 holes, Räsänen birdied 11 of them with no bogies to be found. Combined with others above him struggling to find birdie chances or running into trouble, he was able to hang on for the one shot win when the tournament came to a close. His 54 (-10) was again the hottest round of the day.
Räsänen says everything came together for the win, “I was on the chase card going into the final round and that provided me a stress-free environment to play my own game. My forehand and driving game in general worked well all three rounds. My most important discs for the victory were the PD2 and CD3.”
While this marks the end of the EuroTour, Räsänen is planning on competing in three local events to close out the year.
Team Discmania had a few others in attendance with Niklas Anttila finishing in 11th and Topias Kuhalampi in a tie for 20th.
