Ladies only tour/tournaments for the future

[loki the trickster]

https://www.facebook.com/jussi.meresmaa?hc_ref
About women and Disc Golf: Maybe we can get something out of this discussion. I´m happy to discuss about this topic with people who can bring value to this. Not interested of arguing so I will ignore those comments.
Few thoughts about getting more women to Disc Golf. I personally believe that we can get more women to this sport. So..
We should have women´s only events where all of the support (for example money) goes to ladies and the event. I´m not sure how much we should even use money as a factor to get more women at first place. There should be other reasons. Separate event for women is the most fair way to proceed with this thing. What I understand women´s only events have been successful and often much more attended than mixed ones.
Having MPO and FPO divisions on the same tournament creates always questions of inequity. Promoters, TD, and sponsors wants to promote their events with the biggest stars them being male players at the moment. Who should they film when they have limited resources? Etc.
Having separate events for FPO That would also help adjusting the course to the right target group / skill level. That would make the course more compelling to play (and the footage to watch too).
Thoughts about this?...... from jussi's page.



I think it a great way to grow the sport and future. It will help more open me cause there will be more room and for the women the whole tour and tournament will be a womens spot light. Women's only may also help the ladies side grow with having the ability to have more friendly courses and a full feild.


Thoughts?

 

[aevew]

Interesting thought. I can't comment on FPO level tournaments because I am nowhere near that level and don't really follow the pro tours.

I will say that the Women's Global Event is what got me started in disc golf.

BF had played in university, but stopped and focused more on ultimate after graduating. I am not athletic and wasn't interested in ultimate, and so he thought I might be interested in disc golf. No bueno. It had taken me long enough to figure out how to throw and ultrastar reliably, and these weird little discs had flight paths that made no sense at all.

Fast forward a few years, and my sister tells me that she was roped into playing in a women's disc golf tournament with a division for total n00bs and asked if I wanted to join in. I said sure, and then went out a few days before the event to learn a bit from the person we knew who was involved. Having another woman explain how to throw these discs made it so much easier to understand what the heck I was actually supposed to be doing, and even though I was pretty awful, I had such a great time that I got BF to start disc golfing again with me.

I think there is really something to be said for women encouraging/teaching other women to play, and having men (the overwhelming majority in this sport) help facilitate that.

 

[aevew]

Don't let me derail the thread though. Just wanted to give a HUGE thumbs up to the Women's Global event for showing me (and a few other ladies, I'm sure) how much fun DG is.

 

[MarkDSM]

Build a female base into your local leagues and weeklies first. That a motivated individual could reasonably attempt. See how it goes. See if you have the will and learn. Big top down schemes are generally fantasies.

 

[SD86]

So... like what the LPGA is to the PGA in golf ball golf?

Might be the best solution in the overall, but what kind of participation are we talking, here?

 

[TheOtherBill]

The local club I started with had Sarah Cunningham (formerly Stanhope) as a member/officer and it certainly made a difference. Weekly doubles would have at least 2-3 women playing, sometimes more, but the club just the next suburb over had 0 at every event, weekly or monthly. Maybe you'd see a wife or g/f walking with a group but that was it, even if she was a disc golfer.

Personally, I registered my daughter for the PDGA the year before doing so for her older brother. She may never throw as far or win as many events (if any) but she will always have a lower PDGA # to hang over him.

 

[klay]

The Rocky Mountain Womens Disc Golf Championship is huge here in Colorado. Takes place every two years on a great temp course and hosts ladies from elementary school age all the way up to to top touring pros.

Every player gets a caddy, whether they bring their own or are assigned one from the pool of men who volunteer to do so. Its one of the best run events in the state and region and I'm certain it has done a massive amount for female participation and interest since its inception.

And, if you're wondering, it is the brainchild of Ray Woodruff (current CO state PDGA coordinator) and Doug Bjerkaas (now with Dynamic Discs)

 

[Mulligan]

I definitely think its the way to go.
Plus, separating these events from ones that co-exist with men's events just means an opportunity for guys to come out and volunteer/spectate more.

 

[loki the trickster]

So... like what the LPGA is to the PGA in golf ball golf?

Might be the best solution in the overall, but what kind of participation are we talking, here?

Well how many men in open was there pre 2000? Of course there will be empty space to begin but that also leaves room to grow in the future. As to the number i cant say cause i dont know.

 

[SD86]

Well how many men in open was there pre 2000? Of course there will be empty space to begin but that also leaves room to grow in the future. As to the number i cant say cause i dont know.

Okay, I'll try to phrase it another way: If the FPO women embrace it, it could very well be the best thing for women's disc golf. I hope it would have good people promoting and running it, people with integrity that care about promoting and growing women's DG.

 

[DanJon]

If Jussi is starting this conversation, sounds like Innova and Discmania would be willing to offer financial/logistic support.

There would need to be a considerable investment from sponsors to pull off an event/tour that rivals the top tournaments already in place.

I'm assuming they would want someone to film and edit it. Added cash, promotion, etc.
From what has been mentioned on here before, Innova and Prodigy both donated $8,000 each to the Women's Global Event. I'm sure other sponsors invested as well and that was just one event, granted spread out.

 

[DavidSauls]

Are we walking about big events, the equivalent of NTs or DGPTs, for top FPOs? Or local events, with every division from FPO to FA4 and juniors?

Running a tournament is a leap of faith, and the people going to the effort want players to come. To run a female-only event takes a really big leap of faith, to look at the numbers---in tournaments, local leagues, PDGA memberships---and believe that all of the effort in running an event will be repaid by good attendance. Or even to do so as a loss leader, knowing attendance will be bad but believing they're sowing seeds for future, well-attended events.

But it would be a great place to start, if those TDs can be found. Perhaps some of the women themselves will run some female-only events.

Sooner or later, we'll get to that point---and more masters-only and juniors-only and other limited-field tournaments, along with it. Whether someone can make it work now is the question.

 

[scarpfish]

I liked the idea until the spectators and filming part. You need to build a participant base before you can even worry about those things. Top down approaches don't work.

We need more destination events for people to play in that are women only, and that are planned and ran by women. They're going to know firsthand what the hurdles are to getting the ball rolling and how to overcome them. That presents the best opportunity to make similar templates for juniors only and old people only events down the road.

 

[DavidSauls]

How many female-only events are held now? (I'll confess to not paying close attention; but then again, I don't pay close attention to the male pros, either).

There's the USWGC, or whatever it's called, the USDGC equivalent, at least some years held separate from the USDGC, a venue for the top female players.

There's an annual event in Florida, I think doing well, I think still going on.

The global event, of course, which is a lot of events on day day.

Are there more? How are they doing?

*

A lot of what you get here falls in the category of people who know what should be done, and it doesn't involve them doing anything different than what they're doing now. Someone else---Innova or the PDGA or whoever---should do it. Well, perhaps the PDGA, which should do what its membership wants. But a lot of it will involve people who think it should be done, stepping up themselves and actually doing it.

 

[VictorB]

I think it would be a great idea. There are 15-20 women in my hometown that love to play, but don't love the standard tournament atmosphere. They are always looking to group travel to women's only tournaments. I'm all for promoting the normal tournament scene, but there's just something there that isn't working for them, so we need to change up how we think about tournaments. If you think about how the sports went that women players most likely played, it was an environment with very few men to interact with, and no men there competing. Maybe that's part of it.

They already do a couple of women's only events - and even a masters only event - and they are pretty popular, so I could see this working out in the future.

Being selfish, it would make logistics a bit more difficult for husband/wife teams that want to play in tournaments. More planning and possibly separate travel more often. That being said, my wife hasn't played in a pdga event since our son was born over 5 years ago, but I'd like to see that change.

 

[krupicka]

Rocky Mountain Women's Disc Golf Championship is another big women's only event.

 

[DavidSauls]

A resource---a website, a PDGA page, something---listing women's-only events would be a nice, and easy, first step for someone furthering this cause.

 

[mattc]

We went to a couple women only tournaments last year.
1st is the chick flick in Oregon always held around the first weekend in Aug at Hornings Hideout.
This tournament always sells out 2 courses, and holds the record for largest women only tournament.

The 2nd one was a new one called the La Nina in eastern wa near Yakima.
It also was a good one set up on a ball golf course.
It sold out also.
Good times being around that many women that all throw

I think you could do something big, it just might be a little slow getting started the first couple years.

 

[DavidSauls]

It's great to learn that there are more successful events out there than I was aware of.

 

[loki the trickster]

I think it would be a great idea. There are 15-20 women in my hometown that love to play, but don't love the standard tournament atmosphere. They are always looking to group travel to women's only tournaments. I'm all for promoting the normal tournament scene, but there's just something there that isn't working for them, so we need to change up how we think about tournaments. If you think about how the sports went that women players most likely played, it was an environment with very few men to interact with, and no men there competing. Maybe that's part of it.

They already do a couple of women's only events - and even a masters only event - and they are pretty popular, so I could see this working out in the future.

Being selfish, it would make logistics a bit more difficult for husband/wife teams that want to play in tournaments. More planning and possibly separate travel more often. That being said, my wife hasn't played in a pdga event since our son was born over 5 years ago, but I'd like to see that change.

The couple or husband wife thing got adressed by jussi on facebook and he had a good answer. I think a good answer is should we as a entire community submit to not doing anything so the 10 couples that go on tour can still tour together? The definition of insanity comes to mind!