It’s not often that the world’s top professional in any sport loses. Even more rare is when that top-ranked player loses by a landslide.
But this past weekend, Emporian Eric McCabe pulled off such a feat.
McCabe upset the world’s No. 1-ranked disc golf player, Barry Shultz, at the Carrollton Open in Carrollton, Texas, on Sunday, but McCabe didn’t just beat Schultz. He nearly broke a few records in the process.
McCabe finished with a four-round score of 47-under par, a whopping nine strokes ahead of Shultz and the 27 other professionals that made up the Carrollton Open field. On his way to the title, McCabe tied the round record with a 12-under par in both the third and fourth rounds, and his final shot total of 205 was one shot off the course record.
“Going into it, I knew I had a pretty good chance at winning,” McCabe said. “I knew the course, both of them. I played the tournament last year. I knew if I played my game, I knew I could win.”
McCabe, the 73rd-ranked disc golf player in the world, was hot from the start, as he shot a 9-under par, 54, in the first round to take a two stroke lead over Shultz going into the second round on Saturday. McCabe lengthened his lead to six shots going into Sunday’s third and fourth rounds, but rain clouds rolled in, and it looked as if McCabe’s joyride might come to an end.
However, McCabe brushed the weather aside and managed to birdie his first five holes of the final round, and even held a 12-stoke lead at one point.
“That’s when I knew it was pretty much over,” McCabe said. “It was rainy the whole last day, but I still upped my lead, so that kind of tells you what kind of zone I was in.
“All I had to do from then on was match his (Schultz’s) score and everything would be great.”
So what was McCabe’s prize for defeating the world’s best? Try $1,015.
The most McCabe had ever made at any other tournament was around $750.
“My sponsor (Discraft and Dynamic Discs) called me up to congratulate me,” McCabe said. “It felt great to win like I did.”
While McCabe is no stranger to success on the Professional Disc Golf Association tour — he had beaten every player in the field except for Shultz, and even had finished higher than the world’s No. 2 player, Ken Climo, in other tournaments — McCabe said there was something a little sweeter in his victory this weekend.
“It’s not often a guy wins an event like this where the second-place guy is nine strokes back, and he’s the No. 1 player in the world,” McCabe said. “It was very exciting for me.”