Are You More Likely To Win A Disc Golf Pro Tour Event With A Hat On?

What a weird question. Who cares this much about hats?

Me. I care about hats.

I’m a hat wearer and enthusiast.

• Maybe it’s because my late Papa was a bald man who always wore hats and I loved him. 
• Maybe it’s a great way to instantly recognize if someone is a fan of a sports team. 
• Maybe it’s because I just look awesome in all hats.

Fun fact: A PGA golfer who signs the minimum sponsorship for a hat gets $150,000 per year from their sponsor. There are other rules, such as who is allowed to be a hat sponsor, vulgarity, and all those other things. The average sponsorship for a hat is much higher, around $250,000-$500,000. And the top 10 players earn millions for wearing something on their dome.

Kristin Tattar signed a deal to play for Latitude 64 for $125,000 per year. So she’s earning about half of what a PGA player does for their hat sponsorship. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll see a big company sponsor a disc golfer’s head in my lifetime. Disc golf is growing. There are plenty of eyeballs watching this sport. And as we see it grow from tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands of folks watching, sponsors will want to get in front of those eyeballs.

I’m going to include visors in hats as I write this blog. They’re very similar and perform similar functions. However they do seem to vary for long hair players depending on where they put their pony tail. I picked up a nice one at the TPWDGC this Fall. That’s right, I’ve got a photo of me in a visor as well.

I’m a hat/visor fan for a number of reasons.

1. It gives me something to shade my eyes from the sun. And it’s even better in the rain at keeping the drips out of my eyes.
2. My hair is nothing special, according to my younger brother.
3. I can throw my hat on the ground when I miss that third 25-28 footer of the round. Unless it’s a sanctioned round, because I don’t want to violate rule 812A.3.C courtesy violation of the PDGA rulebook.
4. I can show my fandom of businesses/teams. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me about my Morse’s Sauerkraut hat.

When people walk in wearing a New York Yankee’s cap I always threaten to charge them double to play at Sabattus. They know I’m a fan of the Red Sox and it usually leads to laughing and it’s a great conversation starter.

Off the top of my head (hat pun), who regularly wears hats/visors on the Disc Golf Pro Tour?

MPO

1. Paul McBeth
2. Eagle McMahon
3. Chris Dickerson
4. Kyle Klein
5. Adam Hammes
6. Simon Lizotte
7. Garrett Gurthie
8. Paul Ulibarri
9. Jeremy Koling

FPO

1. Paige Pierce
2. Catrina Allen
3. Missy Gannon
4. Heather Young
5. Hailey King
6. Sara Hokom
7. Kona Panis

Shoot, as I make this list it’s probably shorter to name who doesn’t wear hats.
I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Tattar wear a hat. I also don’t think I’ve seen Barsby, Heimburg, Sexton, or Conrad in a hat. But for the most part I think I see almost everyone wearing a hat.

I’ve taken a journey for you. Going back to the final round of each of the DGPT events from 2022, I looked to see if the winner wore a hat during their final round.

In the 19 tournaments for MPO, two players didn’t wear hats when they won tournaments. Both Ricky Wysocki and Calvin Heimburg didn’t wear hats in their victories. Ricky also won 2 tournaments while wearing a hat. So I guess for Ricky it doesn’t matter if you wear a hat or not, he just wins.

However, team hats won 78% of the time in MPO. It would be interesting to see the percentage of players in the field who wore hats in each tournament as well, but I don’t have that data. Maybe I can convince UDisc to add a hat and cart marker to their live scoring so I can gather more data… But probably not.

In FPO there was only one player who didn’t wear a hat when she won, Kristin Tattar. Her 2022 season is one for the record books. When she didn’t win on the Disc Golf Pro Tour, she was on the podium every single time. Maybe she’s too powerful to wear a hat, or if she wore a hat we’d think she was like Spongebob when he took that drivers test.

Team hats won 70% of the time in FPO. Again I’d like to see that compared to the percentage of players who wear hats at each tournament. Anecdotally I think that fewer FPO players wear hats than MPO players. But again, until UDisc adds that little hat marker on live scoring I won’t know.

I’ll probably update this as the disc golf pro tour continues in 2023 and beyond, if that’s something folks are interested in.

Oh and because this is a Sabattus blog I should mention that if you’re looking for disc golf hats you can get some great hats here in our pro shop. We’ve got ball caps, dad caps, and beanies.

May your discs miss all the trees,
Andrew Streeter #70397