Another Challenge at Goat Hill Park is in the books!
I feel like the event was a smashing success! We had a tremendous field of players who performed like the professionals they are. They gave a great show for the large crowds of spectators to watch (I think we had around 500 on Sunday?). Managing crowds like that while implementing COVID protocols was tricky, but we did our best. Goat Hill Park was in beautiful condition and looked great on the Central Coast Disc Golf, GKPro and Disc Golf Network video coverage (please view on YouTube, like and subscribe to all three!). And our tremendous volunteer staff went above and beyond to make the event pleasurable for all involved.
Congrats to our 2021 Champions! Ricky Wysocki (MPO), Lisa Fajkus (FPO), Chris Shotwell (MP40), David Devine (MP50) and Mike Reeves (MP60) – you showed tremendous skills and I was proud to hand you your goat trophies!
I have so many people to thank! Maxine “Fairy Golf Mother” Duncan was our volunteer coordinator and made so many phone calls, so many decisions and taught me how precious and important our volunteers are. Shaun Watkins was my right hand – anything I needed doing, Shaun was there to do it. Tremendous! Mark Verrochi handled the UDiscLive and PDGA Live scoring, training new scorekeepers and fixing hiccups along the way, like the professional that he is. Chris Cauchon organized the Player/Goat disc auctions – something I had no clue how to do – helping us to raise funds for the event and the players. Glenn Duncan exhibited so many of his stellar skills: adding the final artistic touches to the big metal goat trophies, fixing my mistakes on the baby goat trophies, and creating solutions as problems popped up – he must be the best “whack-a-mole” player on Earth! A.J. Risley helped ensure that my vision for the course design was implemented in the field, stepped in front of the camera to put our best face forward and listed to so many of my crazy ideas and angry rants and brought me back to reality – I love you my son. Kevin Best stepped forward and took ownership of final course setup details, and then went out to the Goat to take down the Goat-a-Mids and donate the straw bales to a local tack store in need. Bill Maury-Holmes and Michael Sorich were the voices of the event at Tee 1 – A task that I used to handle but have now handed off to people who entertain and introduce with flair. Jackie Chamberlain was the glue that kept Tournament Central together – she handled question, problems, and jerks with grace and skill – Thank You! And so many more people who wore the blinding yellow volunteer t-shirts and helped in so many important ways.
Many thanks to John Ashworth and Eli Ivey of Goat Hill Park and all of the staff at the course. They allow disc golf to take over the course every year and we are very grateful for that. The staff are so helpful and so pleasant to work with. I feel like Goat Hill Park is truly our partner in this event and I look forward to working with them to take The Challenge up to the next level of disc golf competition and entertainment!
It was a pleasure and a learning experience to work with Jeff Spring, Seth Fendley and all of the staff of the Disc Golf Pro Tour. I learned so much from them through this experience and I hope the tournament was as successful in their eyes as it was in mine. Ian Anderson’s Central Coast Disc Golf crew and Luke Sampson and the GKPro guys were great to work with and made the event look spectacular on video (like and subscribe!). And the UDisc and PDGA staff helped us share the event with so many people who couldn’t watch live in person – this is a valuable service to our fans.
Innova Disc Golf – I don’t have enough words to describe how much I value our partnership. You guys help me in so many ways, teach me so much and make me look like I know what the hell I’m doing. I’m so proud to be an Innova Ambassador and to be able to show off the brand I have thrown since 1983. Mark, Sam, Joe, Jeff, Levi, Mike, Thomas, Suzette, Jonathan and Dave – thank you so much for everything.
I will thank our other event sponsors in a follow-up post, but I hope you all know how much I value your support and I hope you stay with us for the long haul. Bigger and better in the future!
A special final thank you to my son and daughter, AJ and Katie. You put up with so much of my craziness and rambling and messiness as tournament time rolls around. You own the success of my events as much as I do. And you own the smiles on the faces of the players, fans and sponsors as well.
As I told the crowds gathered on the first tee each day to watch the lead MPO card – I have played disc golf for over 45 years, and we’ve always said that “one day our sport will make it big.”
Well…TODAY is that one day!