I hope that every one of the 15+ winners that are crowned at the 2019 USWDGC in Virginia gets to experience much celebration and recognition for the achievement of winning a US Title and winning a PDGA Major Event.
Once upon a time, there was no such thing as a women's only event - let alone a PDGA Major event for women! The USWDGC began as One Division, One Champion event, just like the USDGC. When the event moved from Rock Hill to Peoria in 2002, the Wallis family and the Peoria Frisbee Club ran the event like a Major. They had all the extra touches that make an event a major. There were player packs for everyone, scorekeepers for every card of players, lunches between rounds and special activities for the players. Eventually more divisions were added so that MORE women would want to attend the event. The effort to add more age protected pro and am divisions was spearheaded by Becky Zallek! Every year in Peoria, there was a Final Nine Showcase for ALL of the divisions, not just the FPO! It was great to see the Junior players take the stage for the Final Nine. All the players felt elevated and empowered and this wasn't just "another event" It was different, it felt different and all the women players felt recognized...not just the Pros!
In 2008, the USWDGC became a travelling Major event up for bid. Eventually some organizers decided they wanted to host the "largest event ever" so they started adopting not so awesome TD practices to achieve larger fields. Events added temporary holes, mixed divisions, added ghost cards, stopped providing player packs for Pros and the final nine showcases were discarded. The focus was on "more players" not on a "better experience". Once upon a time winning a division at the USWDGC was a fantastic achievement and the victory was celebrated. It was an amazing feeling to be a part of lifting up all women players, not just the FPO players. This event uniquely brought all women together to celebrate all women.
Now, somehow winning a US Women's title is nothing special because there are "so many" of them? Or they are just not special because they are Am titles or Master titles or Women's titles?
<3 I hope that each and every Champion at the 2019 USWDGC gets to experience celebration and recognition for the achievement of winning the US Title AND a PDGA Major event. <3