1/11/2026

The Heart of Texas Tour

How we manage HOTT will be one of the biggest changes to my work load in 2026.

I've passed off Tournament Directors duties for most of my events.

It's time to get HOTT back to where we wanted it go.

I spent most of last year writing about my lessons learned from USWDGC and The Open.

I've learned what is important to me.

By the time HOTT Finals came in 2025 my transition was already in full effect behind the scenes. Goose Promotions would take over a handful of my HOTT events and help cross promote through their channels. I'm really excited to see Goose, Trevor and their team put their touch on some classic HOTT events like Red Rock Show and Oktoberfest.

Efrain Aguilar is also stepping up to add a few new events to HOTT at Live Oak and Sprinkle Valley. He's been a vital contributor to Mint and the overall scene at both of these brewery courses. He is what I call a lifer for this sport. Efrain has always been here to make disc golf better and the community more impactful.

Creating more HOTT events in Austin was also something that was really important to me. When this tour was first started by Patty and Mitch Justice the only rentable City course was Pease Park for COTO.

When Pease Park was retired in 2011, MetCenter had just opened and it became the main place that the community held PDGA events.

Many of the classic local events were never in the city limits.

We travelled to Moodys, Gonzales, Steeplechase, Shiner, etc.

Austin players never really got to compete in Austin before 2021.

Things are much different in 2026. We can use the City of Austin courses on a regular basis. I started running PDGA Leagues on them last summer as well to help raise money for the Austin Parks Foundation through the Central Texas Disc Golf Alliance.

We also have newer venues like Live Oak Brewing and Sprinkle Valley.

These venues are here for disc golf. Every single day.

Mint has also invested a ton of our energy into these places.

So let's put them to use on HOTT.

I've also spent most of my time since the 2025 HOTT Finals working on a new website for HOTT.

YOU CAN VIEW IT HERE

Why did we make this change?

Well to be fully transparent, we needed to move HOTT over to Shopify. The tools provided by this platform sync better with the rest of our business at Mint Discs. It's also the absolute leader in e-commerce B2C sales.

Being able to sell products on the HOTT website will not only improve our resources available to the tour, but also allow us to feature products sold by potential sponsors.

So yes, the HOTT website will start to have regular product releases just like we do over at Mint Discs. The websites will also be able to share inventory. I am working on a way to connect the Gift Cards to the active Mint ones as well, which then will give the rest of the HOTT events even more tools to play with. This will take me sometime to get online, but it's a Q1 goal to have done before we get into the April/May swing of the Tour.

The schedule is mostly filled out. I expect another 4-5 events to populate on the calendar over the next month or so.

In general, the website is still very bare bones. I've spent most of my time working on the calendar, event on-boarding and 2026 points system.

The HOTT points will system will have some changes in 2026...

We are adding a HOTT Summer League at Sprinkle Valley

This will take place on Wednesdays from June 3 to August 5. It is a 10 week league. 

I really enjoyed the Summer League series we ran last year. So for 2026, we are going to test out having the Sprinkle Summer League also connect to HOTT.

Given the amenities we have at Sprinkle, it makes sense to pilot it here.

If this does well, we'll explore ways to expand the HOTT League to other courses or regions. I want to get this right for 2026 though before we bite off too much.

My role with HOTT going forward:

I've run every type of PDGA event now.

That experience and my energy now goes into improving HOTT rather than running events every other week.

I will still run a few A-Tiers and the Sprinkle Valley Invitational in 2026. My hope is that by reducing my schedule demands, I can now mange the tour better as a whole.

So here's to making 2026 the best Heart of Texas Tour to date.