Forward Momentum (Day 10 of 365)

The 2025 Heart of Texas Tour is ready to go!

But first, a history lesson.

The Heart of Texas Tour was started by Mitch and Patty Justice in 2008. They ran it until 2021 when Mint took over. A year that changed disc golf. The boom.

From what I remember, the tour was typically around 8-10 events per year. I don't think it was ever more, and looking up stats on that is harder than you'd think. 

Most of them were also C-Tiers. It was shotgun starts. It was eating lunch with your card mates. 2 Rounds a day. Every time. It was about getting to hear Adam Case tell you how many putts he missed. And how he still beat you.

We only had 1-2 tournaments a month back then. So each tournament felt special. Flex Starts didn't exist. The Friday before an event was for doubles, not c-tiers.

That early HOTT is the community that Mint Discs spawned out of.

To be honest, we never really expected to take over HOTT when we did.

We had always wanted a crack at running COTO(Capital of Texas Open), but that was it.

TAKING ON ALL OF HOTT WAS NOT IN OUR BUSINESS PLAN.  

But the show must go on. They asked us to take over. We had to.

We needed a plan for what to do with HOTT, and fast.

I had been the TD for zero PDGA event before 2021. I wasn't ready to run HOTT. 

We needed to get our feet wet, and fast. The Bat City Open was created. Feb 7, 2021. It was my trial run at being a TD. 

We also had the first Mint Discs Open that year at Belton. The Ian Hovey Memorial started. Those events only exist because we took over HOTT. No question.

Covid restrictions impacted most of the other changes we made. For the most part we just wanted to get a feel for it. We didn't really do a points system(they did before we took over). We were figuring out what worked. It was a fun year.

Oh yeah, the Ranch also opened up that year.

We hosted our first event there that September. People played 2 rounds in a day. After the event, I had to promise everyone to never do that again. Turns out the Ranch was really hard. It's legend was born. Adam Case had the best course in Texas. Mike Olse polished up another gem.

Now remember back to hearing about all those putts Adam used to miss?

Those good memories are why he built The Ranch. Those friends. Those putts. Those conversations.

That's HOTT.

For 2025 our focus is consistency and value.

The schedule is staying pretty much the same for the first time since 2019. Thank you to all the TD's and communities that have worked together to make this shift happen over the last few years. 

The point system will be mostly the same too. We just added more ways to earn points(1st to 5th).

Also...we're teaming up with Fuego Friday in 2025. Krissie will be running her Flex start series in tandem with most of the HOTT events this year. 

If you hit the link below, most of this years events are already set up.

You can see registration details and current event plans. The TD's are hard at work getting them ready.

See you out there.

Visit https://www.hottdiscgolf.com/ to see the schedule

Upcoming Blog Topics:

• 1/11: Sprinkle Valley
• 1/12: Team Tryout 2025 Recap & 2026 Plans
• 1/13: Community Hero
• 1/14: Thoughts on PDGA Rule Changes
• 1/15: Weekly Team Recap
• 1/16: Brain Dump