Three years after retiring the name, Dynamic Discs is bringing back the Glass Blown Open this month with a format that harkens back to its roots.
Tournament Director Jackie Morris said the 2023 GBO, set for April 22 – 30, is an amateur-only event designed to give players a “pro experience.”
“We want to give the amateurs their own spotlight and give them the same opportunities that we give professionals,” Morris explained. “We’ll have more courses available to them in town because usually when the pros are here in town they usually take Jones and the [Emporia Community Club].”
Now, amateurs will get the chance to play the same courses favored by professional disc golfers while getting the full tournament experience.
Dynamic Discs announced in Nov. 2020 that the Glass Blown Open would be known as the Dynamic Discs Open in the future. Former tournament director Doug Bjerkaas told The Gazette at the time that the name change had come up over and over as the GBO — and Dynamic Discs — got more and more popular.
Started in 2003 as an 88-person Professional Disc Golf Association-sanctioned B-Tier tournament, the GBO grew into the world’s largest disc golf tournament, drawing more than 1,600 players and even more spectators to Emporia in 2019.
Morris said the return of the GBO is not a retirement of the Dynamic Discs Open. In fact, that pro-only tournament returns to Emporia June 16 – 18. She expects to see around 200 competitors and more than 2,000 spectators converge on the city for that event.
That’s why she felt it was important to split the amateurs from the pros in the first place.
“Because this sport is growing so much, it’s a lot to manage 1,600 players and 2,000 spectators,” Morris said. “The events were getting so big that we couldn’t just focus on one anymore.”
But, that doesn’t mean the GBO won’t include all the typical fanfare that the Emporia community associates with these types of events.
A poker party will be held from 6:30 – 11:30 p.m. Friday, April 28 at the Emporia Community Club, and a downtown block party is set for 6 – 10 p.m. Saturday, April 29.
Morris said she’s excited to welcome people back to Emporia again for the event.
“Emporia is the disc golf mecca,” she said. “We were rated the No. 1 disc golf community by Udisc and we have the most baskets per capita than anyone else.”
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