The Ledgestone tournament team is happy to announce several details as it relates to the 2022 Discraft Great Lakes Open presented by GRIP6. The DGLO announcement is the 10th in our series of announcements on the Twelve Days of Ledgestone. GRIP6 will be the newest sponsor of the DGLO event and will step in to the role as presenting sponsor to support Discraft’s efforts. This year’s DGLO will see the addition of two new courses for the AM side, additional added cash into the MPO/FPO fields, the release of a special 40 year logo with DGLO merchandise and a marquis item added to the DGLO player packs for the 2022 event.
The Ledgestone team has had a long-standing relationship with GRIP6 and is thrilled to be working with them in an expanded role to support the premier event in the Great Disc State of Michigan. “GRIP6 is a company I am insanely proud to continue to work with. I love the fact that they, like Discraft, make their products in the USA. I am a proud supporter of GRIP6’s products and am excited to have them on board to support the 40th annual DGLO event,” stated DGLO TD Nate Heinold.
American manufacturer GRIP6 has been an ardent supporter of disc golf for many years and is now partnering with the Ledgestone brand for the 4th consecutive year. GRIP6 manufactures American Wool socks, minimalist wallets, and of course, their flagship low profile belts. All GRIP6 products have an unlimited lifetime guarantee and the Ledgestone team is proud to continue to work with a company that has their focus in the USA. "GRIP6 is proud to continue to work with the Ledgestone team. GRIP6 values working with a company like Ledgestone that is pushing the sport of disc golf forward while continually prioritizing their commitment to charitable causes. Relationships like this are what disc golf is all about." said Kevin Rogers, GRIP6 COO.
For the 2022 event, and in order to facilitate the continued demand for this event on the AM side, the tournament is adding two courses to the course matrix: The Original Course at Hudson Mills and Independence Lake. The tournament’s course schedule can be found here. The tournament already uses the Monster course at Hudson Mills, so it was only natural to include the Original course in the event as well. In addition, Independence Lake, another highly rated course in the area, will be used. The event will use an 18 hole layout from Independence Lake, and these three courses will supplement the other two AM courses used at the event: Black Locust Blue and Green. “On the AM side, having two parks (Hudson Mills and Kensington Metropark) house four of our courses makes the event much easier to run. Having central staff at two locations instead of 4 locations makes things smoother for the players,” said Nate Heinold, DGLO TD.
On the professional side, the event is planning to add additional added cash to continue to push the payout forward. “For the 40th year of the event we wanted to make sure we blew things out of the water on the payout. Our plan is to add a minimum of $45,000 to the FPO/MPO purse, which will make it the largest DGLO payout in the history of the event,” said Heinold. MPO and FPO will continue to play the Kensington Toboggan layout for the event. While no major changes are planned for the course, minor tweaks will be made on a few holes, including hole 15, which will see the fairway adjusted to be more forgiving on the tee shot.
The tournament is also happy to release a special 40 year logo to support the marketing and merchandising efforts for the event. “The logo that we introduced last year will continue to be the main tournament brand logo, but we wanted to release a special 40 year logo to commemorate the long history of this event,” finished Heinold. The tournament plans on releasing three Limited disc releases to support the event efforts, as well as special 40 year apparel. The three limited disc releases that are planned for the event include a Midnight Z Wasp Tooled Buzzz SS, an ESP Tour Series Swirl Wasp Tooled Buzzz SS and a Midnight CryZtal Raptor.
And finally, the tournament is thrilled to announce that this year’s players pack will dwarf the player’s pack that was released last year and will include this marquis item: a special custom color Ledgestone disc jockey from Bushnell. Bushnell is a major sponsor of this year’s DGLO event, in addition to sponsoring Ledgestone and Combined Worlds. This disc jockey will be included in all player packs and will also be available later next summer for sale exclusively at the Ledgestone retail website. The rest of the player’s pack will include several additional items including 3 Discraft discs, a shirt, a tube of Zanfel, a hat and more items to be announced at a later date.
The 40th Annual Discraft Great Lakes Open presented by GRIP6 will take place July 29th to July 31st in and around Wixom, Michigan. Registration will take place exclusively at Disc Golf Scene and will open in early 2022. Spectator passes will go on sale early in 2022. Demand is expected to be very high for players who participate in the event and for spectators. Registration for AM players and age protected professionals will take place here and registration for the DGPT event will take place here.
