Last year was my 9th year of running a consecutive tour. This is mind blowing because running a “10 year in a row tour” seemed like a long shot in our area. Little did I know that there would be people who would not only come out to support, but invest their time, money, hard work and even sacrifice a lot of home/family time to make these tours continue to happen year after year. To all of you who have chosen to be a part of this journey you are truly appreciated members of the Ozark Disc Golf Family that I am thankful and proud to be a part of. To each and every one of you who have played, continue to play, and will play more events in the future, thank you for making each year bigger and better. As the slogan loosely borrowed from President Trump suggests, you have made disc golf great again this year just like previous years! Just as our country remains great year after year, so have our disc golf tournaments been. I am thankful to live in this country where we are free to play this great sport we are fanatics about! Fly on Old Glory and keep your Discs Flying too!

With nearly twenty stops on the tour in Missouri and Arkansas it was quite a ride.
Last year we had a huge year breaking many records and raising the bar in our area for tournaments. 2017 saw a rise in the average players per PDGA event, 102. This was up from well under 100. Our largest growing event of the year was the Jared Hilton Memorial in Lebanon, MO. The event grew by 32 players pulling off 137 players. In Harrison Arkansas, the North Ark Open continues to overfill where we have to add holes to accommodate every year the event has been held. The tour raised $8,500 for different charities in the area that included, two food pantries (Heart of the Hills in Ava, MO and L-Life in Lebanon, MO), we also helped Freedom’s Rest (which is a women and children’s shelter), we also helped a local youth baseball team during our Dale Roberts Memorial tournament. This would have made Dale proud as he was a big fan of both youth and baseball. For the second year we helped our local zoo with the Cheetah Habitat project in our Disc’n for Cheetahs II event that is held at Grubaugh Park in Ozark, MO. Our largest and new record breaking charity amount was $3,810 to the Educational Disc Golf Experience (EDGE). This is up $810 from last year when we were the number one contributor for a tour. We also had 6 events over 100 players. This is an awesome stat because most of these events only have one eighteen hole course to play on. As always the 4 States Open continues to be our largest event bringing in almost 230 players to the Joplin, MO area. We also had 21 female players at our Monkey Trap Open in Springdale, AR. To say that we made disc golf great again this year is an understatement. The Ozark Disc Golf Family continues to “Grow the Sport”.

There is so much that goes into a tournament as many of you know. Getting course approval, making sure the course is tournament ready, sanctioning the event, setting up pre registration, ordering players packs, making sure they are done in time, collecting and sorting prizes, sponsor gathering, proper paper work for the day of, then there is the day of the event things that are done behind the scenes. Multiply this times 20 and it can make for a wild and crazy, and sometimes stressful ride. None of this can be done without sponsors. Because I have sponsors from every city/town that I run an event in, I couldn’t possibly list them all without missing some. Just know that if you are reading this and you are a sponsor your help is priceless and not only does Disc Golf Monkey appreciate your partnership and help, but the players are thankful as well. I hope that all of DGM’s sponsors find the efforts taken to promote your company on tour are above average. If we can do more within reason let us know.

As we head into the 2018 season and prepare for the 10th consecutive tour, we stay focused on trying to make each year better than the previous. How long can we continue to do so is strictly based on how long people continue to believe in and support the events. This Year’s Gettin’ It Done Tour 2018 has big shoes to fill, but I have no doubts that together (players, sponsors, clubs, cities, churches, and parks & recreational departments) will all come together and make it happen again. If you have any questions, concerns, ideas, possible sponsorship help or leads, please contact me through my website or on Disc Golf Monkey’s Facebook page.

I hope to see you at as many of you on the upcoming Gettin’ It Done Tour 2018 as possible! Love, Aces, and Deuces to all of you!!!