Arizona: The Best Place to Play Cornhole in the Country

I know. I know. Here come the trolls! Some are saying “We have more players than you do!” Others are saying “Our players are better than yours!” Maybe you’re right but you’re missing the point...Arizona is "The Best Place to Play Cornhole in the Country!"

How can we make such a claim? Well, it’s a community effort that started long before KB Kornhole Games came on the scene in 2015. Early groups paved the way so that now players can play EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. in Phoenix.

THE PAST
In 2011, Tina Ehle started weekly blind draws at The Hub, a venue that is still going strong with 15-20 teams weekly. Nic Feinstein (BagBoards.com) was running a high payout Oktoberfest Tournament at Salt River Fields and T’Shaka Jackson and Dan Allen (CornBagCup.com) were running large events like the Doug and Wolf Cornhole Cup and the Cornhole Bowl benefitting Sun Devil Family Charities. We’re sure there are other directors and groups who were running weekly groups and other events prior to 2015 so please accept our apologies if we didn’t included you here.

And how can we write an article on Arizona Cornhole without mentioning Ray Sandoval of the Original Cornhole Company. The “Original” portion of his company name is fitting in that he is one of the pioneers of this sport that has been around since the beginning. Going in to 2019, there are few tournaments in the state where the bags aren’t hitting one of his sets of boards. We were fortunate enough to connect with Ray early on and it’s been so comforting knowing that when we send an order to OCC, we know the person who ordered the set is going to get a quality product.

THE PRESENT
Let’s jump to the present. There are so many dedicated players showing up weekly, often multiple times per week, to play a sport they love. There are also directors who are sacrificing their time and efforts to offer places to play for regular players on a consistent basis.

• Mondays: Scott Webster (East Valley Cornhole) runs a traditional league at The Draft in Mesa
• Tuesdays: Tom and Stacie Reichwald host an intimate group of regulars out to the Hitching Post in Apache Junction for their weekly blind draw.
• Wednesdays: As previously mentioned, you can compete in a blind draw at The Hub in Mesa. You may also see Jack and Tim recording their weekly Arizona Cornhole Weekly episode.
• Wednesdays: Arizona Jones and Chris Stevens (Back Yard Games) are just about to start their second league on the west side, a part of the city that was thirsting for a weekly cornhole group.
• Thursdays: We run a blind draw through by Scoreholio and integrated into the ACL for player points at The QuartHaus in Chandler.
• Fridays: Jack and Gigi have a nice crowd for their A/B blind draw out in east Mesa at a few different locations (The Vue or Fat Willy’s) depending on the time of year.
• Sunday, Ty and Val Lopez (Shot Kings Cornhole) have recently started up a blind draw that is growing each week down at The Duke in Maricopa.  

We’ll repeat...EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. you can find a place to play cornhole in the Phoenix area. Oh wait...we haven’t even mentioned what’s going on outside of Phoenix. As the popularity of the sport continues to grow, new groups in Globe (Wednesday and Friday Boomtown Baggers), Tucson (Tuesdays at Triple Play), Casa Grande (Thursdays at Airport Tavern), Maricopa (Sundays at The Duke), Prescott and Lake Havasu are working hard to get groups of players together to compete in weekly one-off events.

We left Saturday off of that list above. That’s when we usually do our damage. We just ran our last event of the year at the Arizona National Livestock Show. In 2018, we ran over 60 events and 100+ tournaments, and that doesn’t even count the weekly blind draw at The QuartHaus or the three national events I helped co-direct with my national director partner, Dave Weiser of Cleveland Cornhole, who has an amazing group of players in his area as well. Since we ran our first tournament in April 2015, KB Kornhole Games has run close to 200 events and over 300 separate tournaments. We’ve been fortunate to get asked to run many events locally but we are getting more and more event requests around the state and southwest. This sport has allowed us to travel to Wisconsin, Nevada and Florida on a number of occasions.

THE FUTURE
As we gear up for 2019, we are expanding our focus to continue to grow Phoenix and Arizona as the premiere place to play bags in the country. Our goals will be to:

1. Help support the competitive players, including our ACL Pros, as the number of those who want to travel and compete in high profile events continues to rise.
2. Continuing to find and develop new and emerging players so that they can play at a competitive level.
3. Continue to offer events to players who enjoy playing on a more casual basis (those not interested in traveling or playing for high payouts).
4. Work with groups who are looking to offer social events that can help raise money for any number of charitable causes.
5. Work with venues and sponsors to bring high profile events to Arizona and the southwest.

As we continue to grow the sport of cornhole in Arizona we are going to partner with different directors so that they can get experience running larger events using the format and structure that has made us so successful. Randi Enger has done a great job running some of our fundraisers and Joe Pizzolato has helped out when we couldn’t make a Thursday night. We’ll be inviting others in as we continue to grow.

Starting on January 19, Cassie and Matt Carey (Coleslaw & Carey Cornhole) will be taking over a majority of the ACL Regional events at the soon-to-be-finished QuartHaus in Chandler. Cassie and Matt have shown a true dedication and enthusiasm for the sport and have done a great job at the few regionals they have previously directed. We know that they are going to do a great job as their experience and confidence builds with each successful tournament.

Having someone we can trust run these events will free us up to focus on expanding the sport in other areas, especially developing a few high profile events each year for our dedicated players - The 4th Annual Arizona State Cornhole Championships, Conference events and even a national event with ESPN in our backyard.

Our goals are ambitious and what we have done collectively up to this point, with the help of everyone listed above, is unique to every other place in the country and that’s why we can confidently say that Arizona is "The Best Place to Play Cornhole in the Country".