Facebook post by Bryan Gort:
I can't stop thinking about the PDGAs decision to reschedule the Champ Cup on top of an elite series event in Europe so I think it would help for me to explain for my American friends why this decision is so problematic.
I met the guys who run the Swedish Open in 2014 at the International Disc Golf Center. At this time, the PDGA hosted an event solely for tournament directors called the Directors Cup. This event was free to any PDGA TD and was an incredibly valuable experience for TDs. The event had a seminar component and a play component. It was wonderful to have a place to meet fellow TDs and bounce ideas off of them.
The Swedes came to the Directors Cup at least twice and were always both pleasant and eager to learn from U.S. TDs. Their goal was to host a large event back home in Sweden and were working very hard to follow PDGA guidelines and learn to go through proper PDGA channels to get their event.
In 2018 the PDGA discontinued the Directors Cup. I was sad about this (and fought with the PDGA about it but that's a story for another day). I was most concerned about how this cancellation impacted my international friends who had been traveling to the U.S. to learn from the PDGA.
Over the last few years I corresponded with my new Swedish friends which culminated in them inviting me to play the Swedish Open in 2023, which was now to be a DGPT Silver Series event. Through years of hard work and dedication the Swedes had accomplished their goal of hosting a large event in their country. Even better, the tournament had been legitimatized by the many international players traveling to player the event including Paul McBeth.
The 2023 Swedish Open was flawless. The event was so good that the powers that be including PDGA Europe and the DGPT awarded the Swedish Open its first ever Elite Series event in 2024. This event was going to be tied to a month long European swing that would encourage many U.S. players to play in Europe, including ones that have never come over before.
The unified schedule released for 2024 required players to either skip the Iowa event or the Swedish Open. Players would have a choice in this schedule which event they would skip. The new PDGA announcement eliminates that choice because a major is now scheduled on the same weekend as the Swedish Open.
A little history is needed now. In 2023 Europe had two tours, the Finnish tour and the everyone else in Europe tour. European disc golf was fractured by this. Earlier this year, for the 2024 season, the PDGA and DGPT announced that there would be unified European tour with 5 elite series stops. None of these stops conflicted with U.S. elite series events or majors.
This is what the PDGA said about the announcement of the new tour, "A new unified European tour, in collaboration with PDGA Europe and its PDGA Euro Tour, the European Pro Tour and the Disc Golf Pro Tour, was announced on Wednesday, ushering in a new era for professional disc golf in Europe."
Unfortunately, this "unified" idea was short lived. Yesterday, the PDGA decided to plop a major event in the U.S. on the same date as the Elite Series Swedish Open. This will gut both European and American participation in the Swedish open.
What's even worse is that the PDGA did not communicate any of this with the Swedish Open. Unfortunately this is symptomatic of the PDGA decision making process. On PDGA radio yesterday, they said this date fit perfectly because it was an open weekend on the schedule. This comment shows what a U.S. centric organization the PDGA is. Why should our friends around the globe trust the PDGA when it proves time and time again it had the U.S. interests at heart but not the world's?
So what happens now? Either the PDGA changes its date for the 4th time or the Swedish Open will be decimated. Will my friends in Sweden continue to support the PDGA as they have diligently for the last decade? Ultimately these decisions are out my hands but I hope you will share this thread and raise notice about this poor decision from the PDGA.
www.pdga.com
