|
|
|
| |
| Many times great things come from small ideas, and the United States Women’s Disc Golf Championship is one such example. It developed from the seed of an idea in 1998 and has grown into ‘the’ elite Women’s disc golf event today. Jonathan Poole, Event Director at Innova Disc Golf Inc., had always felt it was the responsibility of companies benefiting from the growing success of the sport of disc golf to promote the game and give |
| back in some way to the players. While visiting a trade show in 1998 Jonathan shared his thoughts about a special players tourney with Harold Duvall. His suggestion was to come up with an event like none other at the time in the sport. The two men devised a tournament modeled after the very popular and successful U.S. Open in ball golf: one division, one tournament! They wanted to pit the very best the game had to offer in head to head competition. |
| |
|
|
Jonathan took his idea to the PDGA and began working out the details. It was important to create a one-of-kind event that was easier to run than tournaments at the time, as well as to ensure it was palatable to the general public. At the time there really weren’t any large-scale tournaments that got all the great players together at one time. Innova wanted the tournament to be a “One tourney, One Champion” style event, but after much consideration the PDGA felt that format would work for the men’s event but wouldn’t be the best approach for the women’s event. It was felt that because of the relatively low number of registered PDGA female players at the time, it was important to maintain the divisions of traditional tournaments. Today’s USWDGC still maintains the same divisional structure as regularly sanctioned events.
The original title considered for both the Women and Men’s events was to be the U.S. Open, but at the strong urging of the USGA, the name wasn’t adopted. Despite the fact there were many “US Open” events in other sports, our ball golf cousins at the USGA felt the two sports were too similar in nature and the event instead became known as the United States Women’s Disc Golf Championship! |
| |
| The inaugural USWDGC took place in 1999 in South |
|
|
| Carolina where it stayed through 2001. In 2002 the event was moved to Peoria, Illinois under the stewardship of Wilbur “Old Man” Wallace. During the first few years of the event the men’s tournament seemed to get preference, but “Old Man” Wallace took the reins and grew the USWDGC into the wonderful event is today, more than tripling the number of players from the first event in 1999! Jonathan Poole was the Tournament Director for the first four years of the event, at which time he felt that the event had grown in size to where it was no longer appropriate for a major disc manufacturer to be organizing the event. At that point the host city/club for the event became responsible for running the event. 2006 was to be the fina l year for the USWDGC in Peoria, and today the |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
| tournaments location is decided by a bidding procedure through the PDGA. Bids for the 2009 USWDGC were accepted in 2007, with this year’s event being awarded to the Quad Cities! The United States Women’s Disc Golf Championships has become a “must play” event on the schedule of most female disc golfers and the Quad Cities are proud to continue that tradition when they host the 11th Annual USWDGC! |
| |
| |
|
