Who is the King of Cornhole?

I got halfway through this article thinking that people from Cincinnati have a butt fetish. I’m still not entirely sure what this article pertains to, but it is sure, um, packed with epic quotes…

Cornhole crown at stake
Winter Sports Festival to decide national champion of local game
BY GINA DAUGHERTY | GDAUGHERTY@CINCINNATI.COM

The greatest bag tossers in the country will compete this weekend to settle Cincinnati’s biggest backyard dispute: Who is the king of cornhole?

Barroom arguments and tailgating smack-talk will fall silent after Saturday when the American Cornhole Organization crowns the winner of the first ACO Nationals cornhole tournament.

“I think it could capture the attention of ESPN,” says Frank Geers, CEO and president of the ACO. “Our long-term goal is to get onto a sports showcase, like bowling is on ESPN2. They’re dying for fillers. I mean, they’ve got paintball wars on. Cornhole is more exciting than bowling, I think.”

In addition to bragging rights, the winner will win $500 and the elevated status of competing alongside actual athletes, including gymnasts and martial artists, at this weekend’s three-day Winter Sports Festival, held in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky convention centers.

Favored to win is Alexandria resident Matt Guy, who has been striking fear into the hands of cornhole tournament players across the Midwest for years.

Who is this Kentuckian taking over Cincinnati’s homegrown sport? Well, he’s about 5 feet 8 inches, is a former sixth-in-the-world ranked horseshoes player, and his tosses are like laser-guided missiles right into the hole.

You do not want to get caught in a Cheviot back yard with Guy. Unless he’s your doubles partner.

“He wins 95 percent of the tournaments he enters,” says Geers. “When he’s on his game, there isn’t anybody who can touch him. I wouldn’t put major money on finding anyone in this country who could beat him.”

Tom Zapf, owner of Sneaky Pete’s bar in Clermont County’s Miami Twp., which features seven separately lit cornhole courts and a waiting list for them on Saturday nights, agrees.

“If I were a betting man, my money would go on Matt.”

But close on Guy’s heels is his cornhole doubles partner from Sharonville, Randy Atha, and cornholers extraordinaire Rick Taylor, of Covedale, and his buddy, Chu Farfsing, of Blue Ash.

That foursome won the Carson Palmer Cornhole Classic in June, and spent the summer on a tournament road swing, leaving cornhole players in Pittsburgh, Chicago and Cleveland to cry tears of defeat in their beers.

They’ll trash-talk players in every city but Cincinnati, with the most deference going to Palmer.

“He’s a little better at football,” is all Farfsing will say about No. 9′s cornhole skills.

“But the tournament was fantastic,” he adds. “We got to meet everybody and all of us threw well. I don’t think anybody scored more than five points on us all day.”

Including Palmer, who decided to do a cornhole tournament instead of a golf tournament after tearing a ligament in his knee.

“After being here awhile, I could just tell how much people were into it, how popular it was all over the area,” Palmer says. “I’m still a beginner. My skill level is nowhere near the top. In my tournament, I got beat by a group of 10-year-old boys.”

Blame it on the fact that he’s originally from California. When it comes to cornhole, Cincinnatians are the cream of the (corn) crop, Taylor says.

“We went to a tournament up in Cleveland and it was so easy up there it was unbelievable,” he says, “It was like taking 750 bucks from a baby.”

You could say Matt Guy is the Carson Palmer of cornhole. But more often he hears that he’s the Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan of cornhole.

The Enquirer – Cornhole crown at stake