After career-threatening injury, Pensacola disc golf champ makes triumphant return
Pensacola's Paige Pierce won the Portland Open on Sunday, her first Disc Golf Pro Tour win since suffering a career-threatening ankle injury in Norway in July 2023.
Pierce, the five-time Professional Disc Golf Association World Champion, finished the four-round event with a two-stroke lead over second place finisher Holyn Handley. It was Pierce's first victory since capturing the European Open championship in 2022.
Her next PDGA tournament is June 21-23 at the Preserve Championship in Clearwater, Minnesota. Pierce had previously won the Portland Open, a Disc Golf Pro Tour Elite+ event, in 2019 and 2021.
Afterward, an emotional Paige reflected on her once uncertain future after breaking her left ankle in three places while practicing before the European Open championship last year. Some had questioned if she would ever be able to play again.
Pierce told the Disc Golf Network following Sunday's final round that winning "is definitely icing on the cake for sure. Just being back and feeling confident again and stepping up to a tee pad and knowing where my disc is going to go, that's the more exciting part. It's more about the confidence that this is going to give me moving forward. It's so much bigger than a tournament."
In October, Pierce still had her left ankle wrapped and had only recently had a cast removed when she appeared as a guest at the Pensacola Urban Disc Golf Tournament in downtown Pensacola. Friends and Pensacola disc golfers have followed and supported Pierce throughout her recovery.
On Monday morning, during a layover at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on route home to Pensacola, Pierce recalled the ominous warnings her surgeon revealed to her following her injury.
"I was told there was a tiny chance that I might not walk again,'' Pierce said. "Hearing that was like a ton of bricks, but my doctor was optimistic. Still, that was one of the possible outcomes."
Pierce, a Texas native, had recently moved to Pensacola with now-wife Allyssa Van Lanen when the injury to her left ankle occurred. Her surgery was performed at the renowned Andrews Institute in Gulf Breeze. She underwent lengthy rehabilitation at PT Solutions in Pensacola.
"I was fortunate that we had moved to Pensacola and had such a great place like (the Andrews Institute). There were so many emotions during the healing process. I was finally able to walk again and put weight on it. But I had to wonder if my body was going to reject the new metal in my body." (She has two metal plates and 12 screws in her ankle). I was wondering how quickly I would be able to play disc golf. My surgeon told me that full recovery would take up to a year."
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Less than a year later, she's a champion again.
"It's such a relief,'' she said. "I don't even know how to explain it."
The cold gets to her though and she tends to get stiff when the temperature drops.
Some mornings, she said she feels she needs WD‒40 for her metal pieces.
Her Pensacola fans were excited to see her at top form again.
"We could see how hard she worked," said Mike Osley, retail manager at the Flight Factory disc golf store in Pensacola. "She was going through physical therapy and playing a lot, really working on her game. That's what champions do. She doesn't have that gene where she gives up. She's a fighter and it was apparent this weekend."
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola's Paige Pierce wins Portland Open disc golf championship
