The Gran Canyon Course in Brooksville is closed until further notice. Below is the letter that was sent to all players from the Independence Day Clash.

It is with quite an enormous amount of frustration that I need to inform everyone that Sun King/Millennium present Independence Day Clash X is being forced to relocate the event away from Gran Canyon/Throw Down the Mountain course.

The nature of the forced relocation is due to a pending lawsuit against McCease LLC which is the corporate entity that Paul McBeth and Dylan Cease formed to purchase the Gran Canyon property in early March 2023. Most of you are aware of how much effort it took to save the Gran Canyon course from being snagged up by a developer and subsequently sold to Paul and Dylan instead in the attempt to preserve the course for all future generations of Disc Golfers.

The pending lawsuit has now suspended all future play at the course until the lawsuit is resolved. The lawsuit was filed by a competitor at Throw Down the Mountain XI who has refused to operate through the proper insurance channels provided by the PDGA.

Lastly, with my 20+ years of promoting Disc Golf at every level, it is of my opinion, that this lawsuit is not only frivolous, but as I just mentioned, might even be purposely designed to stall or even completely prohibit the Gran Canyon from becoming a permanent course. This means that not only is Throw Down the Mountain XII in 2024 in jeopardy of not taking place, but so are all future events, including any plans with Disc Golf Pro Tour, DG1 and any other tournament partners. I’m very serious when I say that if this lawsuit is successful at any level it will have massive negative implications for our entire sport at all levels.

With one of the main purposes of this event being to outline our rights as citizens of the United States as put forth by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, we are going to live by the motto of “pursuing happiness” and we plan on still having an amazing event and experience for our players!

I hope that most players will see this relocation for what it is; just a disappointment, but will stick with us in a show of solidarity against the selfishness of the lawsuit.

If you have any questions, let me know, but for right now I won’t be answering any specific questions about the pending lawsuit via email or text.

Michael Barnett – Tournament Director

PDGA 21456