With only six individual tournaments left on this year's schedule (the tournament year ends with the B-B-Q tournament), the race for the 2016 Grand Prix Individual Championship is extremely tight with only a little over five points separating the top four contenders. Although none of the top ten contenders are out of the running it appears to be a four to five-man race. Here is a rundown of contenders and possibles.
Travis McWhorter, for the second year in a row, is in the hunt for a
Grand Prix (GP) points title. For the past several weeks McWhorter, who is slated on the next Board of Directors ballot as the next president of the ASGA, has kept himself at the top of the leaderboard of the Grand Prix with a combination of steady play and a passion for always being in the hunt. McWhorter not only leads in points with 90.5 but is tied with Ken Garrett for the most events entered, twelve of them to be exact.
Right behind McWhorter is Jack Slayton, another steady player who has consistently competed for the GP crown over the last three years. Slayton sits in second place with 87 points. But looming large in the shadow of the two front runners is the presence of Terry Rodriguez, the 2015 champion, with a total of 85.5 points and a heathy tournament average of 10.7. Last year Rodriguez surprised the front leaders by coming from behind in the final tournament of the year to take the championship.
Samuel Jenkins is in fourth place with 84.5 points followed by Grady Morris with 78.5. Morris is surely a dark horse in the race for the crown as he boasts a very high per tournament average of 11.2 points having entered only seven individual tournaments this year.
Mike Sobremonte is tied with Morris at 78.5 points in that fifth spot. All alone in the seventh position with 77 points is long-time member and former board delegate, Jerry Newton. Dewayne Digby is in eighth place with 76 points followed by Kenneth Lauber in the ninth position with 73 points. Rounding out the top ten is Jim Abercrombie with 72.5 in only seven tournaments.
Other noteables include Wally Yousef who leads the ASGA with the astonishing high per tournament average of 13.4 collected in just five tournaments. Tom Walters is steadily climbing the ladder as he has entered only six tournament but carries a average of 10.8. Others in the "Average" catagory of the Individual GP are Jim Bennett with a 10.6 average and Wil Walther who is sporting a very respectful 10.4 average.
