A Look Inside Professional Cornhole Tournaments
How much do you know about professional cornhole tournaments? Okay, let’s back up. Did you know that professional cornhole tournaments existed? Well, they do, and it is more of a thing than most people would expect. We’ve got all the information we could find on our backyard favorite sport!
Professional Cornhole Tournaments: Rules, Rankings, and Risks
First, a quick refresher of the rules. While cornhole boards are placed head to head with 24 feet between them for casual games, a professional cornhole court spaces the boards 27 feet apart. Just like a casual game, the boards are placed on a flat, level surface, and the front edge of each board marks the foul line players stand behind while throwing their bags at the opposite board.
Pro games are always played between 2 teams of 1 or 2 players; players take turns throwing all 4 bags and scores are added up before the next player’s turn.
The American Cornhole Association states that a bag that goes through the hole in the board is worth 3 points, and a bag on the board is worth 1 point. Cornhole uses net scoring, with only 1 team receiving points for each round, and games are played until a team reaches 21 points.
Rankings
Here are the top dogs in the professional cornhole world.
Singles – Top 5
- Russ Funk (OH)
- Jr Williams (VA)
- Steve Mullis (NC)
- Darrell Hoag (OH)
- Jeff Reynolds (OH)
Doubles – Top 5 Teams
- Russ Funk & Darrell Hoag (OH)
- Jr Williams & Tammy Williams (VA)
- Chad Easterling & Claude Miller (KY)
- Chris Clark & Dale Tanner (NC)
- Dustin Parker & Austin Swann (GA)
Awards
Like most professional sports, the American Cornhole Organization awards prize money to its top champions. Winning a professional cornhole tournament isn’t as lucrative as other, more ubiquitous sports, and professional Cornholers don’t get paid the kind of salary you’d expect to find in another pro athlete’s contract.
First Prize pays out $750, second pays $500, third and forth win $225, fifth through eighth get $200, ninth through sixteenth take home $125 in prize money, and the top eighty are all awarded an American Cornhole Organization PRO jersey.
Of course, we wish cornhole would be officially recognized as America’s favorite corn-based game and inspire the building of epic stadiums, and lazy Sundays spent watching as the tournament plays out, but we also know enough to savor the honesty of a smaller sport.
Sometimes Things Don’t Go as Planned!
In a match between Arkansas and Kansas, an Arkansas player made a perfect throw that didn’t manage to knock down the other bags piled around the hole on the board for unknown reasons. The lesson is clear: cornhole can be a cruel mistress.
Taking a look at something a little less professional, a cornhole fundraiser meant to raise money for local schools in an Atlanta suburb in Georgia took a sharp turn from being a friendly game with a $500 prize at stake when a disagreement about scoring suddenly escalated into a fistfight. This is why it’s important to know the rules of cornhole!
Have we inspired to you start training for a professional cornhole tournament? Or maybe just pay some cornhole with friends more often? Whatever your aspirations, Cornhole Worldwide has the cornhole boards, bags, and accessories to make your dreams a reality! Need a cornhole board? Click below to visit our store.
