How do we get women to travel over 100 miles to attend an event. Do any of you ladies out there drive more than 1.5 to 2 hours for an out of towner?

PDGA #24826

Yes, I will and do! But only if there are going to be women to compete with! I can play by myself here!

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Ronda Key
Team KeyChains/PDGC President
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

I feel the same. Now that our ladies group is growing, I will check to see which ladies will be competing before I make the trek. Its gets expensive and not fun to play alone.

As far as incentives when we do travel...I guess it doesn't take much to make us happy. I feel like LA States that Jaques just did would have been a great one to attend, but I was low on funds. He posted early on what the winners of the women's divisions could expect to win and the prizes were great! Other stuff such as nice players packs and extras like CTPs are always nice too.

The tournament you ran a few years ago in Birmingham..the Summer Sizzler...those players packs were GREAT! I just didn't like that island hole that most of us couldn't reach. ;-)

One thing that I am also seeing with the ladies is we care about SN Points. If it isn't sanctioned...we probably aren't going to attend. I don't really have a good reason for that, maybe someone else can expand on that. Just something I've noticed.

As for me, personally, I love to travel out of town. Sometimes it is difficult money wise traveling with two people and getting a tournament we both want to attend.

One final thing...us ladies remember the TDs that take care of us and really remember the ones who don't.

What Bolt and Ronda said are 100% true.

I have 1 more thing to add... I'm one of those cases where my skill level is higher than Intermediate but not quite Pro. Many tournaments don't have or won't offer an Advanced Womens division due to the lack of turnout of women. I'd be more willing to travel further if I knew there was an Advanced Womens division offerred.

Jen Dhir

What Jen said......!! Whats up Jen?

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Ronda Key
Team KeyChains/PDGC President
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

I would like to chime in on this thread as well. I am very interested in seeing what you ladies can come up with to get you to travel. My events are far away from you and it would be huge to have you here. But what will it take? The United State Womens Disc Golf Championships was held recently with a huge payout........did any of you consider going to this? If not, what was your reasoning? Travel? PDGA only? Cost of entry?

I have been working with my N.L.R visitors bureau for 4 years now and this year, they have asked me to put a bid in for money to have a Womens Only Disc Golf event here at Burns Park, AR. That money goes to players packs and trophies. I also would raise money for the event of course, but it will be something to look for next year!

Trackin01 Wrote:
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> The United State Womens Disc Golf Championships was held recently
> with a huge payout........did any of you consider
> going to this? If not, what was your reasoning?
> Travel? PDGA only? Cost of entry?

We used to travel many hours for tournaments, but priorities have been changing. If we do travel now, it is two or so hours. If it is a championship, we are inclined to travel more hours. I really wanted to go to the USWDGC in Texas, but work wouldn't allow it. The Rocket City Chain Gang of Huntsville hosted it in 2008. We still have the biggest payout ever in that championship. We will be hosting it again in September of 2012. I'm happy to report that we already have 5,000 added cash for next year. Please come and join us! :)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2011 07:27PM by Karen J..

I will be there Karen J.

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Ronda Key
Team KeyChains/PDGC President
Fort Walton Beach, Florida

We used to travel many hours for tournaments, but priorities have been changing. If we do travel now, it is two or so hours. If it is a championship, we are inclined to travel more hours. I really wanted to go to the USWDGC in Texas, but work wouldn't allow it. The Rocket City Chain Gang of Huntsville hosted it in 2008. We still have the biggest payout ever in that championship. We will be hosting it again in September of 2012. I'm happy to report that we already have 5,000 added cash for next year. Please come and join us! :)

What was the reason it moved from Texas back to Huntsville, AL again? I think it is a great thing to have back there with $5,000 already added! That is huge! The problem with me is September is never a good time for me. My son has his Birthday on September 17 and my neice has hers on the following weekend and the previous weekend before my son's birthday is another family members birthday. All running back to back to back! lol

I've got to get something involved with the women. We have a few women here (two) and three in Jonesboro, AR (Meyers Family) that all play pro. Not much going on in the Amateur department though.

Trackin01 Wrote:
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> What was the reason it moved from Texas back to
> Huntsville, AL again? I think it is a great thing
> to have back there with $5,000 already added! That
> is huge! The problem with me is September is never
> a good time for me.

Texas and the RCCG put in bids at the same time. I guess the PDGA wanted to let them host it before us because we had already hosted it once. It used to be in Peoria, Illinois for years. Now the PDGA looks at competing bids and moves it around. I knew Texas would probably put on a great tourney. They always have many people at the Texas Women's Championships. I believe they have the attendance record,

I would also like to see point out that there are many factors that go into entering a tournament. I look at how big the women's field is, what the payout looks like, what the the courses are, time off for work, if I think it will be a fun tourney, the camaraderie of other disc golfers who I haven't seen, the td's past record, etc.

We will see you in September, Rhonda. :)

I travel that far all the time. Interesting twist is that I have moved into the Advanced Masters division to play. While I was playing in the Pro or Pro Masters Womens division there were never more than one or two competitors. Now it is typical to play against 20 - 28 others on any given weekend. It is so much fun to get to worry about which card you'll be on. (Granted, so far they have been kicking my tail, lol) The Guys have more than welcomed us into that division and I appreciate it.

So I don't think there is a really good answer for your question. I've always said, if you want more Women to play in your tournaments, make the tournament Women friendly.

*Make sure there are open bathrooms or Portalets.
*Give them good players packs with lighter weight discs that they can throw.
*Don't crowd the cards. (Fact is we throw more times. That takes longer.) No more than 3 or 4 depending on the skill level.
*Offer the Advanced Am Division.
*If it's a 2 day, consider having some skills clinics.
*Women's bagtag holder CTP's.


These are just some thoughts on increasing the number of Women playing Golf. I for one always try to work with new players to encourage them and give them a few tips, but mostly to welcome them to our Great Series.

Lynn

We have to travel at least an hour and a half to get to tourney's in Memphis and 2 hours to Little Rock. We have driven over 3 hours to Tupelo and Hot Springs.
Our biggest draw is having a tournament for the whole family, as we travel in a pack! Our family includes Intermed Men, Advanced Men, Adv Master Men, Pro Master Woman and Pro Women. So we generally bring 4-6 people but we need something for all categories or we usually don't go. Plus with that many people going in our family it can be difficult for everyone to get the weekend off. We try to hit as many Memphis tourney's as we can since it's the closest.
Having the SN championships the same weekend in the same city also was a draw for us. We did not attend this years as Pro/Am was split weekends and cities, which is usually the case. We did love it being the same weekend in Memphis the time before. Our family was in attendance at that championship.
We still have our sites set on traveling to Mobile at some point in time. We hear great things about the courses and have met and played with many of the great people from Mobile!

We made it to Mobile this past January and played in the Fairhope Jubilee. What a fun crowd!! And a really nice course. Got to meet a couple new women, unfortunately, the drawback for me and my daughter were that there were no other pro women to compete against. There was 9 Am women, which was great, but we were disappointed to not have any Pro's to play against. It made for an easy win, I guess, but I neither of us played very well by ourselves...
Hopefully next time we get back down to Mobile, we'll have a group of pro women to play with!!

Our next tourney is the Dogwood in Memphis, May 6, then Arkansas State Championship in Little Rock, May 12, then finishing out May at the inaugural NPC Championship in Russellville, May 26.
After that the First annual Masters only tourney at Bud Hill, June 9-10!!
Then I think we can rest until...July....maybe!
Andrea and I have qualified for the SN Doubles Champ., Pro Women division, in July.

Cant wait and hope to see some of you women soon--at a tournament near you!!

Your not coming to the Pro Championships in Mobile??

Michelle "Snap"





pdga# 30918
wdga# 098

omg! I hadn't thought that far ahead!!
not sure if we'll make it there or not, would love to, of course.
have to wait and see how things pan out further down the road.
We didnt go last year because only me and Andrea were playing pro. this year my husband has played in one prograndmaster event so far, but Andrea's boyfriend is playing Advanced currently. it wouldn't be much fun for him to not get to play if the three of us are playing...we'll see...