I am sorry to report that the Bryan, Texas Horseshoe Tour Tournament scheduled for May 23-24, 2020 has been canceled. As we did for Newberry, any entry fees paid will be immediately refunded. Unfortunately, the host site was forced to cancel due to the Covid-19 virus restrictions within their area and in surrounding states. With many states extending travel restrictions deep into May and beyond, and not knowing whether social distancing orders will be lifted by then in East Texas, there was no choice but to cancel. It’s a shame because a lot of effort over the past year went into working out this event. We’d especially like to thank Jeff Finke, all the Bryan area club members, and the local CVB people who helped organize the event. On the bright side, we’ve been told that Bryan, Texas will be on the Tour schedule for 2021… so that’s some good news!

Now, we must look ahead to the next scheduled Tour event in Lowell, NC scheduled for June 20-21, 2020. We still have a green light for Lowell, so please send in your entries as you normally would and as soon as you can so we can get a gauge on what to expect for this one. It was a great tournament last year and we sure hope to repeat that. One other thing… with everything being so uncertain right now, I’ve decided to postpone the Hall of Fame and Tour Achievement Awards Ceremony until 2021 in Newberry, SC. We just won’t be able to do it justice trying to squeeze it in somewhere this season and I don’t want to do degrade the experience for those involved.

As I’m sure it is for you, it is very discouraging for all of us involved in the Tour to watch our season erode away like this. A lot of the seeds for what should be taking root this season were planted one, two, perhaps even three or more years ago and seeing it just fall apart really hurts. Be assured that the last thing we want is to cancel and that every effort is being made for each one of these events to go forward. That’s why we’re taking this one event at a time… with three events still in play, we’re hoping to still salvage some assemblance of a Tour and for now we remain hopeful that we can complete the 2020 Tour season. We will continue to update you on all events through the website and Facebook.

Sincerely,

Bobby White, President
The Horseshoe Tour

Horseshoe Tour Tournament Cancellation, Newberry, SC SummerFun (April 18-19):
To all those planning on attending the Newberry, SC Horseshoe Tour Tournament on April 18-19, I have made the decision to cancel this event due to the Covid-19 concern across the USA. With all indications of a worsening threat to the US population, an immediate decision was needed to address this growing concern. With the majority of our players being elderly, the highest risk age group, and the fact that many will travel through multi states to get to Newberry, stopping in hotels, restaurants, rest stops, and other very public places along the way, it just doesn’t make sense to take such risks at this time. By tournament time, the danger could be far greater, and I feel we have an obligation to protect our players, our staff, and the Newberry community from this threat. After several discussions with Newberry and Tour staff on how best to do that, I’ve decided that cancellation is the only viable option.
What about the rest of the 2020 Horseshoe Tour schedule?
We expect it to become less and less likely to cancel future 2020 tournaments, but being just down the line from Newberry, our tournaments in Bryan, TX and Lowell, NC are still very much a concern for us. We’ve decided to deal with each tournament as they come along. We do not expect the August and October events to be affected by any of this, but we will post updates down the line as we know more on those events. We remain hopeful that no other events will be cancelled.
Please proceed as normal with entries and don’t fear losing your entry fee or anything like that. The earlier you can enter the better for us, so we can get a good gauge on who plans on attending each tournament, which will aid us in our decision on each event. All entry fees will be immediately refunded in full for any cancelled tournaments.
What about Hall of Fame Inductions planned for Newberry?
We are looking at moving that to the Lowell, NC Tournament in June and will post more on that as soon as we know more. If we can’t work it out for Lowell, we will just move it out to 2021 in Newberry.

Bobby White
Horseshoe Tour President

The 2020 HOF induction ceremony will be held at the Firehouse Conference Center, located just behind the Opera House, at 6:00 PM on Friday evening. No current players have earned the required number of points this year, but three supporter/organizers will be inducted. More info later……

The address is 1227 Mckibben St, Newberry, SC 29108.

Newberry will again host the “Pork in the Park” Festival on the same weekend of the SummerFun Tour event. The activities are located in the square, across from the Hampton Inn, if you like bar-b-q, you will love this.

The room block for the host hotel in Newberry has been set, and once again, because of the festival that weekend, we only have limited number rooms available at the Hampton Inn, and will be on a first come, first serve. When you call, ask for the “SummerFun” rate. The direct number to the hotel is 803-276-6666. The Hampton Inn is located in the center of town, adjacent to the Opera House, and the Pork in the Park festivities. Only about a mile from the courts. The final day to reserve a room is March 27th, check in time is 3:00 PM.

Hampton Inn, Newberry Opera House
1201 Nance Street
Newberry, SC 29108
Phone: 803.276.6666

Address to Park:
Marion Davis Park
2905 Fair Avenue
Newberry, SC
(located on Highway 121 at Nance Street)

Additional Hotel Information

Holiday Inn Express and Suites
2012 InterContinental Hotel Group Torchbearer Award Winner
I-26/Exit 76 (Main Street/SC Hwy. 219) 121 Truman Avenue
Newerry, SC 29108
Phone: 803.321.3955

Newberry Manor
1710 College Street
Newberry, SC 29108
Phone: 803.597.5031

Econo Lodge
1147 Wilson Rd
Newberry, SC 29108
Phone: 803.276.1600

Days Inn
I-26 & Hwy. 34 Exit 74
Newberry, SC 29108
803.276.2294

Campgrounds

Dreher Island State Park
3677 State Park Road
Prosperity, SC 29127
803.364.4152

Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area
302 State Park Rd
Ninety Six, SC 29666
864.543.3535

Saluda River Resort
1283 Saluda River Rd
Silverstreet, SC 29145
803.276.7917

We’ve always tried to keep things interesting with the Tour by taking on new sites and holding events at a variety of locations each season. A lot of our locations really like our events and have decided to lock us in for multi-year contracts, which is truly awesome! But that makes it tricky to keep mixing things up with new sites every season. In both 2018 and 2019, with so many of the sites locked in, we were unable to come up with a fresh new one for you. We came close in 2019 by adding Lowell, NC back in, a site we hadn’t visited since our first season way back in 2009.

But 2020 is a different story! We’ve managed to lock in all of the 2019 sites, plus add a fresh new site in Bryan, TX, May 23-24, 2020. Bryan is a small city, in southeast Texas. At a bit under a hundred thousand in population, Bryan is the perfect size host for a Horseshoe Tour tournament. It offers a wide selection of hotels, restaurants and plenty of other activities. So if you want to make a little mini vacation out of it, this is a perfect place for it!

The Horseshoe Tour is no stranger to Texas, having held five other Tour tournaments in Buffalo, TX between 2012-2016. The Buffalo tournaments were amazing events and we’re sure Bryan will be the same! It takes a lot to get an offer together for one of our events and we have to send a big thanks to Jeff Finke, the president of the local club, for all his diligence and hard work with the local CVB officials to put this event together. It’s been a couple years in the making and Jeff has been instrumental in making it happen.

Obviously, a tournament is much more than just one person. There are also many people in the Bryan club, The Tour staff, and the Bryan CVB working right now to make this an amazing event and we thank them all. We hope our Louisiana following will appreciate having another Tour event relatively close by and we sure hope to see all our players down in Bryan, TX in May… It’s just around the corner, so start planning now… there’s tournament info on the Tour site and we will continue to post more travel info there and on Facebook as we get it.

Don’t miss this one!

Bobby White, President
The Horseshoe Tour