European Open leaders stay on top heading into round three
Salonen and Buhr kept the European Open lead after moving day, but Tallinn's open fairways and wooded traps had not yet created real separation.
The European Open hit moving day in Tallinn with the same names still carrying the load, and that was the story as much as the scores themselves. Eveliina Salonen’s 1037-rated 9-under opener and Gannon Buhr’s 1093-rated 11-under burst had already set the tone, and by the time Saturday’s pressure round settled in, neither division had been blown open.
That matters at this event because the 2026 PDGA European Open is not just another stop. It is the second PDGA Pro Major of the season, the only PDGA Major in Europe this year, and it was staged June 18-21 at Tallinn Song Festival Grounds as part of the European Disc Golf Festival, alongside the Presidents Cup. About 160 players were in the field, with tournament director Tarmo Laiksoo running the show and Merje Põder serving as assistant event director.
The layout has helped explain why the leaderboard has stayed tight. The RockStar course mixed open fairways with wooded sections, elevation changes and strategic obstacles, a combination that rewards the hot start but punishes any slip once the round turns into survival. In a setting like that, a big score can still look fragile two rounds later. The leaders did not need to match their opening fireworks on moving day, they just needed to avoid giving the chase card a door.
In FPO, Missy Gannon, Anniken Kristiansen Steen and 15-year-old Kristýna Jurčíková were still in the picture behind Salonen, who had already posted the kind of round that forces the rest of the field to make up ground, not just keep pace. In MPO, Ricky Wysocki’s 10-under opening round kept him close to Buhr, while Roland Kõur and Ville Kivisilla joined the lead card after round one and gave the home crowd more reason to watch the top end of the board. The fact that those names were still the ones under the spotlight says as much about control as it does about the course refusing to separate the field.
That is the real pressure story heading into round three. Tallinn has the size and noise of a major, with packed grandstands and massive screens giving the event a stadium feel, but the scoring has not yet broken wide open. If anyone is going to steal the tournament on Saturday, it will happen in the same places that have already asked the most questions: the wooded corridors, the climbs, and the spots where a single bad decision can turn a lead into a chase.
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