Another record-breaking weekend at Arizona Open

By Mike Bates

As they say, records are made to be broken, and some are meant to be shattered. With 1,144 entries in the tournament, the previous mark was stomped like a narc at a biker rally. The 2005 Arizona Open had 722 total entries; this year's beat that by 422 if you are doing the math correctly.

It started with a full field of 128 in the Blind Draw on Friday and ended with over 200 players still playing in the last Doubles event. And, how about the Saturday Singles, which had an amazing 275 players and seven levels! The Doubles on Saturday could only muster up 162 teams, which translates to 324 players playing at one time.

On a down note, it was advertised as a $25,000 payout; but, when the final tally came down it was over $27,000 - sorry, we miscalculated. To say it was overwhelming would be the under-statement of the century. We knew it would be big, but no one could have predicted a 40 percent increase!

A big thank you goes to all the players who waited patiently for the Mixed to start. Tobin, Scott and Mick were juggling boards and charts like there was no tomorrow.

They had seven Singles brackets going while setting up five Mixed brackets and getting them ready to go. What a great job they did!

The Sixshooters staff handled the onslaught with true professionalism. The beers were going down like Kool-Aid or, well, like beers. And oh yeah, lots of great darts were being thrown as well.

A great thank you goes to the Corona people for picking up the tab on the T-shirts. We sold every single T-shirt and some twice. Plans are already in the works to make next year's event bigger (if possible) and better. We will add lots more boards and have plenty more space. It will continue to be the cream of the crop in Arizona State dart tournaments.

Thanks again to all who participated and all of our great sponsors!