♨️ Hot Stove season begins

Hello and welcome, this is The Players Meeting. The only newsletter that finds the time to watch every disc golf channel’s vlogmas.

Let’s get into it.

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NEWS
Contracts Watch

The signs of the holiday season are all around us… Mariah Carey is dominating the airwaves. A layer of white stuff puts a damper on your weekend. And pros are starting to drop sponsorship moves.

As the last few weeks of 2023 tick down, the leaving and joining announcements are trickling in. But don’t worry, TPM is here to round it all up.

🚨 NEW 🚨

• Andrew Presnell (Discraft, 1YR Extension) - After 5 years with Discraft, Prez re-ups again. He’s coming off a great season after getting his 1st win on Tour (Mid America Open, Silver)

• Connor O’Reilly (Latitude64 → Lone Star, 1YR) - Coming off a flat season (78th in DGPT standings), this National Tour winner wanted to go back to his TX roots. Bagging new plastic, he’ll be facing an uphill battle after barely qualifying for 2024’s Tour Card

Life updates

• Kona Montgomery (DD) - After the removal of her thyroid and iodine treatment, Montgomery is officially cancer-free. She has yet to announce concrete touring plans, but this is very promising

• Macie Velediaz (DD) - This Top 10 player and her husband are expecting their 1st child in June. Assume she’ll miss a majority of next year

AWAITING ANNOUNCEMENT

• Lykke Lorentzen (Left Prodigy) - Recently applied for an Athlete Visa, “Lucky” hopes to easily tour the US with her partner Bradley Williams. All signs point to Innova as her new sponsor, unless Williams jumps ship too

• Ali Smith (Left DGA) - After 2 years and a Silver win, Smith is moving on to hopefully a bigger company and $

RUMORS

• Eagle McMahon - TMZ Foundation rumors aside, McMahon’s post-surgery season will be an interesting story no matter what he throws… “I genuinely believe that the best version of myself has not hit the course yet.”

• Emerson Keith - Per Heimburg on Tour Life, Keith is “shopping around” for a new sponsor. Foundation reported that he was seen trying out some Innova plastic

MOVES MADE

• Deann & AJ Carey (Lone Star, 1YR Extensions)

• Casey White (Discmania, 1YR Extension)

• Matty O (Westside, 4YR Extension)

• Carter Ahrens (DD → Lone Star, 1YR)

• James Proctor (TSA, 1YR Extension)

POWERED BY POWERGRIP USA
Fresh Plastic

👉 Powergrip’s Highlight: Clash Discs 2-Year Anniversary Box
It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 years since this Finnish manufacturer started pumping out amazing plastic.

To celebrate, they’re releasing a limited batch of 700 boxes on Friday at 11 AM ET. In a birch wood box, these are filled with 6 guaranteed discs that have never been released before.

• 1 Double Steady disc, either a Mint (4|3|0|3) or a Cinnamon (9|5|-1.5|2) - Like last week’s Wild Honey release, these are Clash’s unique over-molded runs

• 1 Steady Sage (12|6|-1|3) - This new mold seems like a modified Salt or even reminiscent of the Time-Lapse

• 1 Steady Prototype Guava (5|5|0|2)

• 1 Steady Prototype Cherry (5|5|-2|1)

• 1 Steady plastic disc with ‘Clash Discs’ bar stamp (Molds vary)

• 1 Steady plastic disc with ‘Sound of Disc Golf’ stamp (Molds vary)

Remember, there are only 700 of these boxes in the world, so shop Powergrip USA to snag one for yourself.

QUICK HITS
Random Triples Quadruples

There’s a surprising amount of stuff going on this off-season. So to catch you up, “Random Triples” gets a temporary upgrade.

Here are 4 things I found worth talking about this week:

1️⃣ Not only is it hot stove season, but it’s also vlogmas. It’s when every content creator grinds out daily videos in hopes of growing their followers.

My YouTube page feels like an Advent calendar with all the new releases every day. Here are a couple that deserve your attention:

• Connor O’Reilly - From bombs to not-so-impressive throws, follow his journey as he learns his new Lone Star discs. As an Austin, TX native, he has rounds at all the impressive courses that make it one of the latest meccas

• Disc Golf World - This recap channel has been grinding all season, but this month they’re starting to hit on what makes them unique. One of the guys behind it is Jefferson Kearby who joined Drew Gibson as his “full-time caddy”. He’s giving a peek behind the curtain with Tour Stories starting with this video

2️⃣ Paul McBeth and his BFF Dylan Cease (soon-to-be previous White Sox pitcher?) had themselves a pretty good week. They had 3 significant announcements:

1. In the greatest crossover, nobody asked for, the 1st DGPT event of 2024 is now sponsored by Chess.com. Located on McCease’s latest course purchase (Gran Canyon), the previously named Florida Open is now the Chess.com Invitational

2. Back in June, the dynamic duo got sued by Trevor Toenjes hoping to make a quick buck. He wanted damages for being hit by a disc on their FL property. The case was recently dismissed, and now the course can be opened for public play

3. McBeth is now McStache

3️⃣ Thanks to the hardest working person in disc golf (Terry Miller), we got next-day coverage of the Chain Hawk Open over the weekend. It’s fresh tournament action from Gainesville, FL.

Names like Double G, Gavin Rathbun, & AJ Carey were taking advantage of the warm weather. No spoilers, so at the very least you need to watch Double G’s 2nd round where he put up a 1091 rating.

4️⃣ All it takes is a man with a passion AND a camera to get decade-old footage of many future Hall of Famers. That man is the father to 3 up-and-coming FPO stars: Melody, Aria, & Haley Castruita.

He calls it the “Best of Disc Golf Empire 2008-2013”. It’s 30 minutes of awesome putts mixed in with interesting editing. Here’s a sample:

Meme of the Week

Thanks for reading today. Get out and don’t be a fair-weather golfer this week!

- Charlie