The Black Cats + WGE is a tournament that will be played in Varaždin on Saturday August 6th, and will be part of the PDGA Women Global Event.
Even though event was announced as a 2-day, it will be played only on SATURDAY!
Even though event is played by both male and female players, the focus is set on female divisions and their fight for the global rankings.
The purpose of this tournament is to provide women, of all ages and disc golf skills, with the opportunity to participate in the competition with players from around the world. This weekend tournaments are played all over the world, and all players are ranked globally according to their results, so if a player in our tournament is the only one in her category, she will still be included in the world rankings and have the opportunity to win some of valuable prizes provided by many sponsors.
We hope that this tournament will inspire women to get involved, play, connect and share experiences with other women from our sport.
So far, since 2012 the PDGA Women Global Event has been played 5 times, so this will make it the 6th edition.
In the fourth edition, played in 2018, 80 tournaments were held in 14 countries (including one in Varaždin), with the participation of 2,092 players.
In the fifth edition played in 2021, during the Covid19 pandemic, when competitions could not be held worldwide, a record was broken and 99 tournaments were played (including one in Varaždin) with the participation of 3,224 players.
We hope that the 2022 tournament will break these records, and that another Varaždin tournament will contribute to that.
For more information on the entire PDGA Women Global Event, visit the PDGA website.
Disc golf course Vodovodna, that is located in Varaždin on a green area between Vodovodna Street and the city cemetery, is an ideal location for WGE tournaments because holes are short and all players, even those who play disc golf relatively short, can throw up to basket and score a "birdie". In addition, the course consists of 9 holes, so in one round each hole is played twice, which gives players a better chance to play a good round and achieve a good global ranking.
At the Black Cats tournament in 2021, the players who played in this tournament achieved excellent global placements in their categories - Kaja Gorički won in the category of girls under 6, Ira Molnar Gorički won 2nd place in the category of women over 40 FA40, Jelena Geček took the 2nd place in the most numerous Novice division among more than 500 players, Ana Gorički won the 3rd place in the Junior category under 18, and Maja Šimenc won the 4th place in the Intermediate category. Last year's WGE was sponsored by ZUCA and many other sponsors, so our players won valuable prizes - the most valuable - ZUCA cart was taken by young Kaja, and there were also disc golf backpacks, T-shirts and more.
In addition to the mentioned players other females that competed were Danica Pajtak (80th place in Advanced), Tina Milenković (87th place in Recreational), Diana Bokulić (96th place in Novice), Marina Starčić Krvavica (159th place in Novice), Martina Cikač (348th place in Novice) and Laura Žiković (405th place in Novice).
The results of all categories can be found on the PDGA page.
In addition to all the previously mentioned arguments why female disc golfers should play Black Cats 2022 in Varaždin, we can mention that, for example, Danica Pajtak in the weekly league played on May 20th 2022, scored -11, which would be a rating of around 970 in the PDGA tournament, and which would bring her a sure victory in the Advanced category at WGE 2021. So, if you come and have a good day - you will have a very good chances of winning some valuable prizes (most likely a Zuca cart for each division winner - like it was in 2021).
In addition to professional women's categories, the following amateur categories are open (with PDGA explanations):
FA1 - Advanced Women - the highest amateur female category for all players under the age of 40 and a PDGA rating of 825 or higher.
FA2 - Intermediate Women - a category for players with a PDGA rating lower than 825, who have developed basic disc throwing techniques, can throw a disc at distances between 35 and 60 m, will hit between 3 and 5 times in a basket from 6 m distance, and can throw backhand relatively accurately.
FA3 - Recreational Women - a category in which players with a PDGA rating lower than 775 who are still perfecting disc throwing and disc golf techniques.
FA4 - Novice Women - a category in which players with a PDGA rating lower than 725 (or without a PDGA rating), who are just learning disc golf techniques.
Amateur Master Women 40+ - a category in which players who will turn 40 in 2022 can play (even if they turn 40 on December 31st 2022). With equal conditions, categories have been opened for players who will turn 45, 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70 in 2022.
Separate junior categories are open to girls who will be 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 18 in 2022. So, if a junior is turning 15 on January 2nd, she was 14 on January 1st, and she can play FJ12 at this event.
To get an idea of spread of players among divisions, the last edition of the PDGA Women Global Event in 2021 was attended by 12 players over the age of 70, 509 complete beginners (Novice Women category), 28 girls under 8 and 3 girls under 6.
The tournament will be played as a one-day event consisting of two 18-hole rounds, without a final.
The girls who will play in the under 6, 8, 10 and 12 years play only one round of 18 holes which will last around 90 minutes. At the same time, all participants in these categories must be accompanied by an adult.
In other women's categories for the WGE global rankings, only the 1st and 2nd rounds of the tournament are considered, while the third round scores are important for this tournament, but not the global rankings.
Registration
To sign up for the competition, open a separate registration page.
Given that the tournament is played on a 9-hole course, the maximum number of players is 45. As recently the interest in participating in tournaments is higher than this, and if it will be like that for this occasion, we are considering the option to run the event in two groups of up to 45 players, so the maximum capacity of the tournament will be 90 people. We will make a decision about that when we see how the registrations are going, but for now we are preparing the tournament as if there were more than 45 players.
The results of the competition will be published on the PDGA page.
Registration fee for the tournament in women's "recreational" categories (all junior and FA4 and FA3 is a symbolic 20 kn / 3 €), registration fee for other women's categories is 60 kn / 8 € while registration fee for male players is 100 kn / ~ 14 € and includes organization of the competition, fee to the Croatian Flying Disc Federation and awards to the best participants in each category.
Use the following information to pay the registration fee:
Company: Lagoda jd.o.o.
Address: Varazdin, Ivana Cankara 9
IBAN: HR6323400091110550349
SWIFT (BIC): PBZGHR2X
Bank: Privredna banka Zagreb
You can leave the call number field blank (or enter 00 or 99 if you are asked), and you can specify "Tournament registration fee" under the payment description.
You can follow the weather forecast for Varaždin on the Yr.no page.
Tournament program
The tournament program has not yet been finalized, and the preliminary program can be found below.
Saturday, August 6th
from 9:00 - meet up at the course
9:30 - Players meeting
10:00 - Start of play for Round 1 (expected duration until 11:30-12:00)
12:30 - option for a lunch, restaurant (we did not finalize the play yet as our first choice is not open :) )
13:45 - Players meeting
14:15 - Start of play for Round 2 (expected duration until 15:45 - 16:00)
16:15 - Winners ceremony
Course
The course will be designed as semi-permanent on a green area (young forest) between Vodovodna Street and the City Cemetery.
The course consists of 9 holes, so in each round all holes are played twice.
Baskets used for the tournament are locally produced (Lagoda basket), while all the tracks have a turf tee pad (but some might not be perfectly leveled).
Holes are suitable for beginners and are 47 to 68 meters long.
The play in one round lasts about 90 minutes.
You can download the course map in PDF format on this page.
The records records achieved until this tournament are for men 39 (-15) played by Zack Bevelacqua (rating 1014) and for women 45 (-9) played by Tina Milenković (rating 930) and Ira Molnar Gorički (rating 923).
A list of the 10 best results achieved on this course, for the men's and women's categories, can be downloaded in the PDF document on this page.
Parking
Participants can use the parking lot of the Varaždin City Cemetery (Bus Parking Varazdin on google maps), which is about 250 m away from the gathering place (trail 9).
GPS location of the parking lot (from google map) is: 46.308110, 16.327241
Please DO NOT park at the Vodovodna street.
Toilet
As there is no toilet at the course, we suggest going to one of the two nearby cafes located at the opposite end of the parking lot of the Varaždin City Cemetery - Caffe bar Aleja or Gossip bar (400-500 m on foot), or to Konzum shopping Center at Gustava Krkleca 1 (on foot 700 m, by car 1 minute).
You will be able to use toilett at the place where we will meet up for lunch.
Photos
All the photos we take in the tournament will be added to the Google Photos Album at the end of each day, and you can download and use them for social media.
