The second half of the 2016 Horseshoe Tour season begins in Buffalo, TX on September 17-18. This site has hosted four previous events, and has one of the nicest facilities we have played at, with 32 sand courts, 8 covered, office building, concession building, and covered walks to and from the pitching area. Buffalo has drawn a large number of entries over the years, and we don’t expect anything different this year. These are some of the nicest people you can meet, and they are gracious hosts as well, you will not be disappointed when you attend one of their events. One reason for the high turnouts there is the Friday night doubles, named the “Buffalo Stampede” which is associated with the local festival there, and has a $5,000 payout. With the Stampede Friday night, and tour event Saturday and Sunday, this is well over a $10,000 weekend, and we are excited once again to be there. Remember, all information for Buffalo is posted in the menu, on the right side of this website, titled “Buffalo, TX Information”.

The Horseshoe Tour will travel to Erie, PA on June 25-26, and will partner with the Eastern National Tournament for our third event of the year. The 66th annual Eastern, is sponsored by the Erie Horseshoe Club, Thoroughbred Horseshoes, (manufactured by White Distributors), and the Horseshoe Tour. We are expecting a great turnout, and as in all our events, we’ll have a fun time there for sure. This will actually be our fourth time in Erie, and we are optimistic this will be our best event to date. White Distributors has been a strong supporter of the tour since it’s beginning in 2009, and we hope players will show their appreciation by attending this event. Because Erie is such a big tourist area, hotels are an issue there, so we will not offer a “host” hotel, players can get rooms where every they choose. On Friday night, we will have a reception after supper at their indoor facility starting at 7:30. This, and other Erie info will be posted as we get closer to the tournament.

2016 Big Game/Points Challenge

At the start of the 2014 season, we implemented our first version of the “Big Game Challenge” as a bonus to the already nice payouts of the Horseshoe Tour. Since then, it’s been tweaked and revised in order to find a way to keep it within our budget. After the 2015 season, we decided that we were going to have to make a major change this bonus to make it completely fit, or eliminate it all together, so to be able to continue providing this benefit to the players, we will attempt a new version, playing on the big games, and combining it with an old idea. This completely new system will be called the “Big Game/Points Challenge”. We have discussed this idea with our 2016 sites to give them the opportunity to make their tournaments even more attractive, but because there is some differences in funding at specific locations, our schedule will be updated to reflect single points, double points, and even triple points. This basically means that a big game, instead of representing a certain amount of money, now will relate to points, and at one site players could earn 1 point, 2 points, or 3 points, in a single game, depending on which event you attend. The way we determine a player’s number for the big games will remain the same (just one ringer over you NHPA average), but we will create a new points chart of 50 places for all forty and thirty foot players to compete for, (Open Division not included) with first place starting at $500 and descending to $42 for fiftieth place. We will keep the continuous points standings, and will list it on our website (www.thehorseshoetour.com), and updated after each event. We now will include all games pitched in any round, but because this includes the finals as well, it would not be likely we could have them available at the event itself, so big game stats will be tallied off the tournament scoresheets early in the following week and posted then. Once the standings are posted, just as before, it will be the player’s responsibility to double check results, and report any discrepancies to us immediately. We feel like the new version of the big games will solve a couple of concerns…..#1, to continue giving players a way to participate in the challenge, and #2, to give the tour a way to cap the payout. We are hoping our players will buy into this new exciting system, we think it will be a fun part of the tour, and rewarding in the end. The new chart will be posted soon.
The Tour Staff

Our first event of the 2016 season is in Newberry, SC on April 16-17. This year’s tournament date was moved back a week to include the “Pork in the Park” festival (Saturday) which boast some of the best bar-b-q in the south, as well as other activities such as “music in the park” right across from the Hampton Inn!! Also this year, a Friday evening reception is planned at the “Firehouse Conference Room”, adjacent to the Opera House, and again, just across from the Hampton Inn, all within walking distance (more details to come). Additionally, starting this year, the winners of the 40’ and 30’ divisions both will receive a free two night stay at the host hotel for 2017.

Once again, the Hampton Inn will be our host hotel, but there is only a limited number of rooms available to us, and these rooms will on a be first come, first serve basis, and the cutoff date for reservations is Thursday, March 31st. The location of the Hampton is convienent for players to walk downtown to restaurants and businesses, and is adjacent to the historic Opera House, and Firehouse Conference Center (location of the Friday evening reception). It is also withinn a mile of the horseshoe facility at Marion Davis Park. Hampton Inn: $104 per night, ask for SummerFun Horseshoe Tournament rate, call for reservations 803-276-6666. The deadline for entries for Newberry is April 6th.