Mars Springs is a one-day tournament scheduled to be played on Saturday March 4th 2023 in Varaždinske Toplice, in the format of two rounds of 18 holes each. This tournament will be the first round of the Croatian Disc Golf League in the 2023 season.
This will be the 7th edition of the tournament, and it will be held for the first time after 3 years because the tournament was not held in 2021 and 2022 due to the Covid19 pandemic and the poor condition of the course.
| Saturday, March 4th | |
|---|---|
| 9:00 | meet up at the course, practice |
| 10:00 | Players meeting, hole 1 |
| 10:30 | Start of Round 1 (duration up to 2 hours) |
| - 90-minute break (lunch at restaurant restoran Vila Toplissa) | |
| 14:15 | Start of Round 2 |
| - Winners ceremony (expected around 16:45) | |
Registrations
The event will be played in the following categories - MPO (open to male and female players), FPO (open female), Red (players of both genders PDGA rated up to 900), Green (players of both genders PDGA rated up to 850) and Purple (players of both genders PDGA rated up to 800). Any player can register for a higher category (eg all players can register in MPO), but you can only play in a lower category if your rating allows it, eg someone with a rating of 801 cannot play Purple).
Players who are not PDGA members and do not have a rating can play the Purple category only if they have not played PDGA tournaments so far, or they have played PDGA tournaments and the last 6 rounds are not worth more than 800 rating points on average. If those rounds are worth more than 800 then they can play the Green or MPO / FPO category.
The number of participants is limited to 72, so the event will be played in a maximum of 18 groups of 4 players.
The registration fee for the MPO, FPO and Green categories is €15, and the registration fee for the Purple category is €7.
The registration fee includes the organization of the tournament, a fee to the Croatian Flying Disc Association, a small trophy for the winner in each category and raffle prizes.
The registration fee should be paid to the bank account of Lagoda Disc Golf before the tournament:
Lagoda jd.o.o., Varaždin, HR6323400091110550349, SWIFT PBZGHR2X, Privredna Banka Zagreb.
If you do not pay the registration fee in advance, it will be possible to pay in cash at the tournament itself.
To sign up for the competition, open a separate registration page.
Competition results and live results will be published on the PDGA website.
Concept of play
The competition will take place in the following format:
Round 1 - groups will be formed with mixed categories and strong-groups determined by PDGA rating. We will try not to put players from the same clubs / countries in the same groups in the first round, so that through the play they can socialize with players they do not see regularly.
Round 2 - groups formed by result, without mixing categories.
Course
The 18-hole course is located in an old park forest, and consists of shorter holes and combines uphill and downhill shots.
You can download the Course map on this page in PDF format. Course map was updated on February 27 with elevation changes per hole and new OB for hole 17.
The baskets used are Lagoda Baskets from 2014 and some of them have damage and are not in the top condition, but they will be good for holding the tournament.
The tees are marked on the ground and there is no artificial grass carpet.
A similar layout was played every year, but due to the change of one hole, the same layout was played only once in a PDGA tournament (Mars Springs 2020), so the currently valid course records are 47 (-8, rated 987) held by Bato Sudžuković, and the best the women's score is 54 (-1, rating 902) held by Danica Pajtak.
Parking
There are no parking spaces next to the course, so for tournament participants we use the Minerva hotel parking lot (google maps location) and the Vila Toplissa restaurant parking lot (google maps location 1 or google maps location 2).
It takes 4-5 minutes to walk from the parking lot next to the Vila Toplissa restaurant to the field.
Lunch
Lunch for tournament participants is organized in the Vila Toplissa restaurant. If you want a lunch option, it will be necessary to pre-order one of the offered options in advance with the tournament organizers. An e-mail about it will be sent to all players in the week of the event.
The offer of dishes that you can order in advance is as follows:
A. Lasagna, 5.5 €
B. Pumpkin flour gnocchi in porcini mushroom and crushed pepper sauce, €7.00
C. Homemade sausages with baked beans, €7.00
D. Ćevapi minced meat, crispy potato fries €8.00
E. Vineyard schnitzel (boneless pork loin in porcini mushroom sauce, hunter's bread dumplings) €9.50
Toilet
As there is no toilet at the course, to use it we suggest going to one of the nearby cafes located near the park - for example, Nimfa pastry shop (google maps location).
The Vila Toplissa restaurant is only open from 11:00 on Saturday, so you can only use their toilet during the lunch break or after the tournament.
Weather
You can follow the weather forecast for Varaždinske Toplice on the Yr.no page. In case of bad weather, you can follow the lightning radar or the precipitation radar display.
Considering that the course is mostly located in an old forest, in the event of a strong wind (stronger than 10 m/s), the competition may be postponed (or moved to another location) for to the safety of the competitors.
Photos and social networks
All the photos we take at the tournament will be added to the Google Photos Album at the end of each day and you can download them and use them for social networks.
When posting on Instagram, preferably use #marssprings #discgolfvztoplice #varazdinsketoplice and tag Lagoda Disc Golf @lagoda_disc_golf and local Tourist Board @volim.toplice
Ace Pool
All players who wish to do so can pay €1 in cash, which is placed in a special piggy bank. There is already €53 in the Ace Pool piggy bank from past Lagoda tournaments.
The player who hits an ace in the tournament becomes the winner of the entire prize fund of the Ace pool. If two or more players hit an ace in the same tournament, they share the ace pool. If no player hits an ace, the ace pool is carried over to the next Lagoda tournament, and so on until the ace pool is paid out in one tournament. Ace pool will not transfer to Euro Tour Pro Forester.
A player who wants to participate in the Ace pool must pay €1 before the start of the first round. If the player hits an ace and has not paid the ace pool before the start of the first round, he is not entitled to the prize.
CTP – Closest to the pin
On hole 14 (53 m), we will organize an additional competition in who threw the disc closest to the basket, and it will take place during the game in the 1st and 2nd rounds. There will be a meter next to the basket post, and the player whose disc comes to rest near the basket can measure the distance from the post to the disc. The player whose disc has the shortest distance from the basket after the completion of the second round of the competition wins the prize.
For the result to be valid, the disc must be 5m or less from the basket, and you should send a photo from the distance shown on the meter to the official tournament WhatsApp group.
Prizes and Tournament respect raffle
At the tournaments we organize, smaller trophies are awarded to the best players in all categories while we additionally reward all players who have earned it through a raffle. The raffle is held at the end of the tournament, after the Winners ceremony. The usual top raffle prize is a disc golf backpack.
In order for a player to be able to claim a raffle prize, he/she must:
1. Be present at the Players meeting (when we read your name at the beginning of the meeting you should be there)
2. Pay the registration fee for the tournament in advance or during the tournament (no later than the beginning of the announcement of the winner)
3. Play all rounds of the tournament
4. Register on time (mandatory check-in) if this is stated in the tournament schedule
5. To be present at the Winners ceremony
If the player is drawn in the raffle, but has not met all four criteria, he/she cannot claim the prize, the next player will be drawn.
The same player cannot win a raffle prize in two consecutive tournaments.
At the Mars Springs 2023 tournament, players who won it at the Chasing Sparrows 2023 tournament cannot win the prize - Tomislav Ćavar, Tina Zrinski, Jurij Ivanovski, Davor Galic, Patrik Grof and Adrian Liber.
