This is a tough one to make. In 2020, we had no big competitions around Europe because of COVID. All Euro Tour events got cancelled and we were looking forward to 2021 with hopes and expectations. Unfortunately, the situation around Europe is not yet settled down, the vaccination goes slower than maybe expected, there are still many travel restrictions around and some countries are even entering third waves of COVID increases.
With the 2020 season called off, we worked hard to prepare the best 2021 season we could. With no COVID to limit us, we would have full PDGA Euro Tour MPO AND FPO feature/lead card coverage and on some tournaments even MPO chase card and also LIVE coverage for all of you to enjoy. We were acquiring new partnerships and building the Tour to become a backbone of professinal disc golf in Europe. Unfortunately, before we could announce the FPO coverage and all the other great stuff, it was obvious that the COVID will have a say in what was going to happen and here we are, a month later and we must announce something completely different instead.
Kokkedal Open cancelled
With the continuous travel restrictions in Denmark and the requirement for quarantining upon entering the country, we need to announce that the Kokkedal Open will not be played as Euro Tour event and will be played as a local B-tier event without international players. This decision was hard to make, and it is a result of extensive negotiations. Unfortunately, disc golf is not recognised as a part of Danish Sports Association, so we could not apply for exception for our players (although we tried anyway). With the team organising Kokkedal Open not being 100% sure about being able to hold the event later in year, the solution to cancel the Euro Tour completely was the last and only option available.
Alutaguse Open Postponed
Situation in Estonia is not any better. Estonia, as we speak, is under total lockdown with no competitions being held. If you follow football, the national team of Estonia had to play their qualification for World Cup in Poland! There is no way we could possibly hope to hold a disc golf event next month under such circumstances. The team organising the event is still eager to show the best in them though and after some discussion, we agreed to postpone the event for the weekend after Estonian Open! Even though this will be 5th weekend in a row with top disc golf event, holding two events back-to-back in one country seems like the best option right now. More information will be released in upcoming days.
EDIT 26.3.2021: New dates for Alutaguse Open are 29.-31.7.2021
Petzen Open and Pro Forester
We are still looking into options with these two tournaments scheduled for May/June. While situation in Austria does not look too good and the most likely scenario is the postponement of the event, Croatia is now opened to all EU citizens only with a negative PCR test and we hope to run Pro Forester as scheduled. We are trying to solve the media coverage problem that arises from the likelihood of removal of Petzen Open from this leg, which puts more pressure on our media teams to come from Finland AND players to come from other parts of Scandinavia as well. For all our decisions to be effective, we would like to ask you to take a very short 6 questions survey about your attendance of these two events under current circumstances: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/699KB8X. Thank you very much! If you have any other feedback, contact us on our social media at www.facebook.com/pdgaet or www.instagram.com/pdgaeurotour.