Main Menu

Gentlemen’s Club Challenge Set to Kick off the 2017 National Tour in Las Vegas

Gentlemen’s Club Challenge Set to Kick off the 2017 National Tour in Las Vegas

Wednesday, February 22, 2017 - 12:47

The first event of the PDGA National Tour, now in its 15th year, is generally considered the unofficial start of the disc golf season. Pros and Ams alike, whether they’re preparing for yet another year on the road or for their first experience of “tour life” are brought together for the first time, reuniting one of the strongest communities in contemporary sports for their first high-pressure competition of the year.

This year we depart from the long-standing tradition of kicking off the National Tour in Phoenix, Arizona for the Memorial Championship, opting instead to head a few hundred miles northwest to one of the most exciting and unique cities on the planet; Las Vegas, Nevada. After years of running as a very successful A-Tier, the time was right to put the Gentlemen’s Club Challenge presented by Innova Champion Discs (GCC) in the lime light.

As expected, both that National Tour and the A-Tier that are being run concurrently filled up quickly, combining for nearly 600 competitors hailing from 30+ states, Canada, Finland, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, and Australia. The competition is fierce, to say the least, with the Open division alone having 36 men with PDGA Player Ratings of 1000 or higher. Additionally, the 36 ladies registered in the Open Women’s division is a particularly impressive feat, one that very few events have ever matched or bested.

player-map.png

Map of the home states/countries for each of the GCC competitors. Click to view full size version.

The Venue

Wildhorse Golf Club

The 2017 GCC takes place just a few miles off the Las Vegas strip on the grounds of the Wildhorse Golf Club, a beautiful 18-hole golf course that now houses two permanent disc golf courses. The club has been incredibly accommodating, allowing for the entire complex to be completely decked out and taken over for the week.

As you make your way up the drive that leads to the clubhouse it feels as if the entire venue was and always has been a disc golf-only facility. The disc golf courses on site have even impacted the Wildhorse staff, a great example being that Wildhorse General Manager Derrick Hunter now plays disc golf and he’s even competing in the event this week!     

wildhorse-pro-shop.jpg

Even the pro shop at Wildhorse Golf Club is decked out for disc golf.

The Courses

To accommodate the massive amount of competitors, an additional 18-hole course has been added to combine for three total courses packed into the property.  For the GCC, each course has been named after their respective title sponsors: Course adidas® Terrex, Course Innova, and Course DiscGolfValues.com.

Following what has become a fairly standard design practice for disc golf on ball golf courses, the holes are laid out in a way that creates a lot of high risk vs. reward scenarios. Cart paths that play as out-of-bounds lines help to narrow the fairways, sand traps play as hazards, and baskets are often placed right up against them. Combine that with the high winds here in the desert and the high-speed short grass of the fairways and you have a set of courses where precision and accuracy will always prevail over power.

One particularly interesting design comes from Hole 6 of Course DiscGolfValues.com. At first glance, one might wonder why a 333’ hole is listed as a par 4, but when you’re standing on the tee you quickly understand why. The hole consists of three different small rectangular landing areas set at different distances from the tee, with the smallest of the landing zones by far being the island green. Even a perfectly placed spike hyzer could easily skip off the island, meaning you are now throwing a dangerous 240’ shot for three from the first drop zone.

hole_6_gcc_the_gmabler.png

Hole 6 of Course DiscGolfValues.com has three island landing areas.

Coverage

Media coverage will be in full effect all week here in Sin City thanks to the hardworking people behind the YouTube teams of The SpinTV, Central Coast Disc Golf, and SmashBoxxTV. Post-production round coverage videos and live coverage (Saturday and Sunday only) will all be centrally located on The SpinTV’s YouTube channel, so make sure to subscribe to their page and to notifications to get early access to all of the videos coming up this week.

We’ll have live hole-by-hole scores up and running all week as well on pdgalive.com, complemented by live updates, pictures, and videos coming in from the PDGA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. With four days of tournament play on the schedule and an incredible field of players, we are all looking forward to an incredible week of disc golf!

Round 1 begins bright and early on Thursday morning and tee times are posted. Stay tuned!

GCC Tee Times/Results