Putting some thought into this, one thing that concerns me as a player and as a fan of watching the pros play...(in regards to DGWT) I just don't think there's enough pros who are good enough to win against the elite players, resulting in the "same old, same old" group of guys playing over and over. Kind of ends up being something like the "Globe Trotters Tour". You have the same group of guys playing against each other at different venues. hmm...
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Disc Golf World Tour
- Thread starter DavidSauls
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filobedo
Double Eagle Member
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- Oct 20, 2008
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Agreed, 90% of touring professionals are the Washington Generals and 10% win the significant money.
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onemilemore
* Ace Member *
Another thought related to this: With McBeth signing on to do all the DGWT events, I wonder if you'll see some pros choosing other conflicting events so they can a)save some money on travel and b)have a chance at taking down more prize money without McBeth there. I know that to be the best you want to beat the best, but these guys have to stay afloat, too, and do what makes the most sense from a day-to-day living standpoint. Just a thought.
Star Shark
* Ace Member *
One year, we did have the season start with a west coast swing which was set up really nicely. Gentlemen's Club Challenge warmup, Memorial, Golden State Classic, Master's Cup and Beaver State Fling all in a row. If we owned our courses, this could be arranged for a more permanent schedule but we don't.
Well if events made TDs $ they might care who showed up and make it easier for all to accommodate.
Didn'tSeeThatTree
Bogey Member
Hats off to Jussi and the DGWT team for having the vision and actually trying to make something happen! We all have our own ideas how to "grow the sport", but very few actually have any skin in the game. I wish them nothing but success.
Growing the youth side is definitely valuable and seems to be happening (Yeti, and Des etc.), but I think Jussi is on to something. He seems to be a promoter at heart, and raising the professional profile will only help legitimize disc golf even more.
Growing the youth side is definitely valuable and seems to be happening (Yeti, and Des etc.), but I think Jussi is on to something. He seems to be a promoter at heart, and raising the professional profile will only help legitimize disc golf even more.
dehaas
* Ace Member *
So now that McBeth will be playing all of the events I wonder how long till it's announced Simon will too?
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QFT, and me two.
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I think this will definitely happen. I think people can appreciate Jussi's vision, but at the end of the day the pros still need to make money.
Quoting Paul McBeth, from an article on All Things Disc Golf:
"People like myself and other top level professionals will be focusing our time promoting these events. These could be meet and greets, media interviews, and all sorts of things. That's our job. We have a more important role now and have more responsibility with the DGWT. As players, we have to be more professional. That could be the way we dress or act on and off the course."
For those who've lamented that few top pros have helped carry the load in building the sport, and the pro tour in particular, over the years.
"People like myself and other top level professionals will be focusing our time promoting these events. These could be meet and greets, media interviews, and all sorts of things. That's our job. We have a more important role now and have more responsibility with the DGWT. As players, we have to be more professional. That could be the way we dress or act on and off the course."
For those who've lamented that few top pros have helped carry the load in building the sport, and the pro tour in particular, over the years.
There is a lot of truth in the matter that top pros are going to have to be promoters, and dare I say it, role models (I hate that term), if they want to see more outside money in the sport. I think Paul and a few of the other elites will go along with that, but I think a significant degree of the pros will still prefer to do those stereotypical disc golfer things than be someone's pitchman. The big question is, how many of us will use the cream, and how many of us will call these guys sellouts.
Reniger
* Ace Member *
Sooo... No Nikko then? :thmbup:
Some kinda of mindset changing advice I got from Paige was "PDGA Sanctioned events have a dress code, but to push the sport and change the world's vision of the 'stoner sport' why limit our dress code to PDGA Tourneys? Why not local Tourneys? Why not league night? Why not the casual round? Does a t-shirt make you play better than a polo?"
Thinking about that, unless it's very cold, I almost always wear a polo now. Leagues, always. Casual rounds, 80%. It does have an effect on my frame of mind and hopefully, if the culture shifts, can give a slightly different view on the sport...
Jussi has some good ideas with the World Tour, but I don't know how effective it will be unless they can get the pay-out to a level were pros could actually afford to do it.
Lol yeah tattooed NBA players to max dont get any TV time or adds.
Bunch of fluff and BS. Look at some of thr most prolific stars out there and being professional has little to do with it.
Bunch of fluff and BS. Look at some of thr most prolific stars out there and being professional has little to do with it.
Sometimes being a bad boy is marketable. In regards to Nikko, Josh Anthon or Jeff Layland perhaps not so much.
He said more than "the way we dress."
When local, regional, or top pros start whining about the tournaments they're in, I always think, "What are you doing---besides playing." Of course, most of them don't whine, and some local ones do a lot locally. But it's refreshing to see a top pro saying that pros need to do more than just play well, if they want bigger and better things.
Which isn't to say it'll work---I'm a skeptic---but I salute the recognition of that fact, and the effort.
When local, regional, or top pros start whining about the tournaments they're in, I always think, "What are you doing---besides playing." Of course, most of them don't whine, and some local ones do a lot locally. But it's refreshing to see a top pro saying that pros need to do more than just play well, if they want bigger and better things.
Which isn't to say it'll work---I'm a skeptic---but I salute the recognition of that fact, and the effort.
What you just described there is the very sort of yuppie conformist homogenization that a makes a lot of established players cringe when they hear the term "grow the sport". Next you'll be asking them to give up their beer (even after the round) and never use four letter words.
For every disc golfer I've met who wanted to make disc golf more mainstream, I've probably met about five for whom that time on the course is their few hours of release from the mainstream. That's what beings them peace the rest of the week. Dressing down for the occasion is part of the appeal.
Reniger
* Ace Member *
Did I just get called a yuppie? lol 
As you can see in my profile picture, I totally understand the appeal of the relaxing and relaxed side of the sport. But I also get in my head too much. So, for me, wearing slightly nicer clothes can support how I carry myself some days. Everybody feels special in a 3-piece suit!
As you can see in my profile picture, I totally understand the appeal of the relaxing and relaxed side of the sport. But I also get in my head too much. So, for me, wearing slightly nicer clothes can support how I carry myself some days. Everybody feels special in a 3-piece suit!
CreemCheese
Double Eagle Member
I can maybe see it for local tournaments, but not for weekly league. People don't usually put on a jersey for a pick basketball.
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DGWT dress code:
lyleoross
* Ace Member *
There are a number of things that really need to be thought through before the sport commits to some image on this topic. First, I'm a business manager, the tie and suit type. Second, the PDGA has been selling the ball golf image thing for disc golf for ten years now, and probably longer. Third, snow boarding.
Snow boarding is a stoner sport, and it's as mainstream as it gets. Instead of trying to look like skiing, they took on the bad boy image and integrated it into their marketing and business plan. Trust me, the guys making those decisions don't have tattoos, they aren't angry young men, they are business guys in suits who understand their market and demographic.
No ski resort tries to forego the boarding crowd (with a few rare exceptions). They embrace it and the money it brings. They sell merchandise and make thrasher courses for the young guys to rip it up. Simple enough.
Trying to make disc golf, ball golf is, IMO, a mistake. Make it what it is. Now, we are a little more complex the boarding in that we have a dichotomy. We have young thrashers, and old guys, and the two are very different. But as an old guy, and a businessman, I ain't interested in hangin' with ball golfers drinkin' martinis. I find them to be donkeys. Disc golfers are way more relaxed and way more tolerant IME.
Disc golf across the board has two things BG doesn't. First, we like that image of difference, embrace it, but second, we believe in taking care of our venues, ball golfers pay someone to do that. Don't hide the first, embrace the second. We like nature, we clean parks, we'd never dump a thousand pounds of fertilizer on a course, and let it soak into the ground water, we care about the world you live in. That's a powerful image, organic, and easy to market.
Back to the topic at hand. Pros as spokesmen. Let them dress as they will, and tattoo as they will. But no basketball player makes a donkey out of himself to the press. They understand, as well as an disc golfer does, that what you say, and how you act matters. How you look is your business. Rad clothes, fine, just conduct yourself like an adult when you are in the public eye. That will go a lot further than wearing a polo and plaid shorts. Then, when you do talk, talk about how disc golf gets you out in nature, away from manicured lawns, into trees and with animals. Talk about how the sport preserves the environment and how we want to convert people from high environmental impact sports to ones integrated into the woods. That message will carry with adults, and the younger players will see those cool clothes and buy the heck out of them.
JMO
Snow boarding is a stoner sport, and it's as mainstream as it gets. Instead of trying to look like skiing, they took on the bad boy image and integrated it into their marketing and business plan. Trust me, the guys making those decisions don't have tattoos, they aren't angry young men, they are business guys in suits who understand their market and demographic.
No ski resort tries to forego the boarding crowd (with a few rare exceptions). They embrace it and the money it brings. They sell merchandise and make thrasher courses for the young guys to rip it up. Simple enough.
Trying to make disc golf, ball golf is, IMO, a mistake. Make it what it is. Now, we are a little more complex the boarding in that we have a dichotomy. We have young thrashers, and old guys, and the two are very different. But as an old guy, and a businessman, I ain't interested in hangin' with ball golfers drinkin' martinis. I find them to be donkeys. Disc golfers are way more relaxed and way more tolerant IME.
Disc golf across the board has two things BG doesn't. First, we like that image of difference, embrace it, but second, we believe in taking care of our venues, ball golfers pay someone to do that. Don't hide the first, embrace the second. We like nature, we clean parks, we'd never dump a thousand pounds of fertilizer on a course, and let it soak into the ground water, we care about the world you live in. That's a powerful image, organic, and easy to market.
Back to the topic at hand. Pros as spokesmen. Let them dress as they will, and tattoo as they will. But no basketball player makes a donkey out of himself to the press. They understand, as well as an disc golfer does, that what you say, and how you act matters. How you look is your business. Rad clothes, fine, just conduct yourself like an adult when you are in the public eye. That will go a lot further than wearing a polo and plaid shorts. Then, when you do talk, talk about how disc golf gets you out in nature, away from manicured lawns, into trees and with animals. Talk about how the sport preserves the environment and how we want to convert people from high environmental impact sports to ones integrated into the woods. That message will carry with adults, and the younger players will see those cool clothes and buy the heck out of them.
JMO
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