5th Glass Blown Open

[wlbkr]

If you do have it earlier, please watch out for the last weekend of April. That's the traditional date for the successful Walk the Plank Tournament in Council Bluffs. Last year we had 104 players with total purse of $5,200.

[smitty]

Mike-

For PDGA A-tier event, the TD has little to do with picking the date. I think that the two events may be on the same weekend. The GBO is on the PDGA schedule for April 26/27.

[wlbkr]

Hey Smitty. Being only 230 miles apart, am I allowed to have the Walk the Plank on the same weekend?

-Mike

[TanK]

You can have a B tier whenever you want Mike. The only problem would competing for the players. You could move "The Plank" back a weekend , to the first weekend in May, with the closest A teir 8 hours away.

Just a suggestion..

I personally dont want to miss either one...

[McCabe]

Yes, but I'd recommend trying to have it another weekend if possible. That way people don't have to decide which event to attend..I know I'd like to hit CB next year....just a thought...

[smitty]

http://www.pdga.com/documents/2008/08TourStandards.pdf

Check out table 5.

You cannot have a B-tier with in 200 miles of an A-tier. The TD of the larger event, can alway waive the protected radius.

[Ruder]

On a side note, I think rescheduling dates of tournaments to be able to accomodate more players and not competing for players is good for the sport right now. It will make for a better tour throughout the year. You know, if you can compete for an awesome purse two weekends in a row instead of missing out on one because there were competing tournaments.

[wlbkr]

Just a question Smitty. Why would the Glass Blown want to keep moving their dates each year? Wouldn't they want to establish a traditional date? It seems to me, each time The Glass Blown moves, it create B tiers (like the Plank) to move off traditional dates and local committments . It makes it tough for B tiers to grow to A tiers if the B Tiers keeps getting shoved off their traditional dates. Any advice?

[smitty]

Just a question Smitty. Why would the Glass Blown want to keep moving their dates each year? Wouldn't they want to establish a traditional date? It seems to me, each time The Glass Blown moves, it create B tiers (like the Plank) to move off traditional dates and local committments . It makes it tough for B tiers to grow to A tiers if the B Tiers keeps getting shoved off their traditional dates. Any advice?

Mike I agree with everything you posted. There are many events that people know the weekend of because of tradition.

I think the problem that Eric and the Emporia crew have run is, timing.

The GBO has normally been a mid summer event. It use to be a B-tier, but finally in the last two years has got to the point were it could be an A-tier. We have always had pretty low numbers for the quality of event that they put out, that is just Kansas. It normally gets kicked around by the PDGA. They always have had to compete with worlds and many ohter A-tiers. Last year they had a conflict with A Call to Arms.

The major reason for the move was to try and catch people when they had the desire to make events. I am 100% sure that the E-town crew had no idea that your tourney was scheduled for that time of year when they contacted the PDGA.

[wlbkr]

I understand and even have empathy for the GBO on trying to find a date that works best for them. That's what a good TD does. Here is my thinking on the ripple effect of that move.....Iowa Western and Council Bluffs have spent 3 years establishing a tournament venue, on a particular date, that could bring together the best talent from Des Moines, Kansas City, Omaha, South Dakota, as well as Kansas. We are in a very unique location to do that, but it wasn't an easy tradition to build. Now that we have the organization in place to possibly see great matchups like McCabe, Tank, Smitty, Smith, Sprague, Olsen, Blase, etc, etc....and in one quick jump, find ourselves having to start the process all over. And when we pick a new date, we will be possibly doing the same thing to someone else. With great regional matchups on the line, at least we should watch out for those of us within regional geographical boundaries.

[Ruder]

I think since you have managed to start a great tradition, people will come regardless of the date.

[wlbkr]

Yes, I agree. It does seem to be a shame to have players choose between two good tournaments. IMHO, the best case scenerio is for the best players in a region to be able to compete against each other, and not be split as to where to go.

[Schoen-hopper]

Lots of great events in April around KS and the midwest. Some I can think of...

Herington
Salina
Emporia
Council Bluffs
Kansas City (Ted's Dread)
Bowling Green
Lamoni

A lot of my favorite events all in the same month!

[chappyfade]

Lots of great events in April around KS and the midwest. Some I can think of...

Herington
Salina
Emporia
Council Bluffs
Kansas City (Ted's Dread)
Bowling Green
Lamoni

A lot of my favorite events all in the same month!

Unfortunately, Glass Blown and Graceland (Lamoni) are on the same date, meaning people in the middle geographically (like Kansas City) that traditionally send lots of golfers to both events will have to choose between the two events, instead of being able to play in both, meaning the field size of both events will go down, perhaps by as many as 20-30 players, since KC has a lot of golfers that travel to these events. Actually, Graceland was so disheartened by GBO moving to their date, they've decided not to even hold the event this spring, perhaps moving it to the fall (it's not been decided)

Personally, I thought Emporia had carved out a great niche in August....it was a fun tourney in a period that didn't have many events. I don't know why they'd want to move it to a time when the weather is dicey, there are lots of competing events. It's not on a date that's even convenient for the travelling pros....I just don't get it.

Chap

[Rusco]

There has been plenty of discussion about why we decided to change the tournament date so I won't go in to that anymore. The EDGC decided to hand the tournament over to Dynamic Discs in hopes that it would attract more players. Everyone felt like this was a good idea at the club meeting. I spent a lot of time on the phone with the PDGA trying to decide on a date. Our first choice was April 19-20 but they didn't really like the idea of having 3 A-Tiers on the same weekend so we went with the next weekend. Our thought process on changing the date wasn't to make everyone upset. We felt it was in the best interest for the GBO and didn't think that it would be too much of a change for other events to move one week earlier or later... In the whole scheme of things I don't think it really matters....look how many players played at Lamoni last year and how many played the GBO? There really weren't that many who attended both events. Same with the other PDGA events that were scheduled on the same day.

I don't know about the math on EACH event losing 20-30 players....that would meanan that 40-60 players attended both events last year....that would have been half of the tournament field at the GBO. Touring Pro's don't come to the GBO! Which touring pro's came to the GBO last year? I think Nikko was the furthest traveling at 5 hours. No other pro's show up that are considered traveling pro's (in my opinion a traveling pro would be coming from more than 5 hours away).....Is that because of Worlds being the week before? We haven't attracted traveling pro's in the past....what an awesome thing it would be to get some though and that was the reason for changing the tournament date! I guess the week after Worlds is a great week for pro's to be traveling, just not to the only A-Tier in the United States that weekend.

I really felt like the GBO would hit well over 150 players if the tournament was in April and I don't think 180 would be a long shot for that date but maybe we'll never know. Instead we will try to keep it at the same traditional date in August and shoot for 120 players again for the only A Tier in Kansas which I think deserves more of an attendance than that.

We will change this tournament date on Monday if at all possible in order to make everyone else happy! We dont' want to step on others toes. Things are in the works.....we'll keep you posted.