The 12th edition of the biggest disc golf event in the world kicks off today. It all begins with the first round of the Disc Golf Pro Tour portion of the tournament.
This year's tournament surpasses the 2021 event in terms of greatness, much like 2021 did in relation to 2019. Bigger payouts. More players. Floods of spectators. Larger crew of Ledgestone staff. More discs produced than ever before.
There can be a lot of numbers behind an event of this caliber, so we’ve picked out key stats to give you a better picture of what goes into making Ledgestone happen.
40,000 discs were released in “The Drop” (the most discs ever made available at once by the Ledgestone shop). Over 30 molds of varying plastic types and limited-edition runs had consumers salivating as they waited for the products to become available on August 4.
16,000 bottles of water will head out to the courses to keep players, staff, and volunteers hydrated. Eight pallets containing 400 cases of water each arrived this week at the Ledgestone warehouse to be divided among the courses.
10,000 feet of rope to mark out-of-bounds throughout the course at Eureka Temp. For context, that’s enough rope to wrap around the entirety of Lake Eureka and then climb up the iconic Eureka water tower 12 times.
8,043 miles of travel made by the farthest competitor. Bryce Kennedy has made the trip from Kerikeri, New Zealand to participate as an Amateur Master at this year’s Ledgestone Open. His travel time lasted over 34 hours.
2,222 players will be participating in the 2022 Ledgestone Open. That’s 300 more players than the 2021 event and a 2,016% increase from the original field of 105 players at the inaugural 2011 tournament.
1,521 Flex C tier participants during Ledgestone Week. Between Saturday, August 6 and Thursday, August 11, Ledgestone runs 11 total Flex C tiers to get players excited for the tournament and experiencing as many courses as possible in the greater Peoria area. Most events are completely full with 4-person cards teeing every 10 minutes from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
922 feet of water carry at Lake Eureka. Holes 1, 13 and 17 demand a daunting shot directly over the lake. Each shot requires a minimum of 290 feet of distance from the tee to reach the opposite shoreline. Those that fail, move to a drop zone with a penalty stroke. Each year the lake claims hundreds of discs.
821 OB strokes per round at Lake Eureka in 2021. With punishing OB, required landing zones and drop zones all over the course, players constantly face difficult shots. In a single completed MPO round at Lake Eureka last year, players averaged about 5 OB strokes each.
580 VIP Passes have been sold to an elite group of spectators to gain access to all four rounds of both MPO and FPO tournaments. VIPs receive exclusive access to the VIP tent at each course, special viewing areas, limited edition discs, and free parking.
50 spotter flags will be handed out to the volunteer spotters on the MPO and FPO courses. Red and green flags will be used from farther down the fairway to signal the players whether a shot has landed in bounds.
14 courses from the greater Peoria area are part of this year’s event, the most in Ledgestone history. Eureka Perm, Wildlife, Northwood Blue, Northwood Black, Westwood, Washington, Sunset Hills, McNaughton, Kennel Lake, Bradley, Camp Kearney, Illinois Central College, Maxwell, and Eureka Temp will all be played.
11 countries will be represented at this year’s tournament with the most distant being New Zealand. Read more about these international players and what brought them here from their homes overseas.
10 hazard sand traps at Sunset Hills. The FPO, MP40, MP50, MP60 and MA1 fields will be challenged with penalty-inducing sand traps on the traditional golf course at Sunset Hills. Six different holes contain the pesky hazard areas where players take a penalty stroke, but still throw from where their disc landed.
1 player has birdied Northwood Black's hole 12 twice in the same tournament. The iconic 1,050-foot par 5 (725-foot par 5 for FPO) entered the equation as part of the 2019 Worlds layout at Northwood Gold. It was included in the Northwood Black redesign and hasn’t lost any of its teeth. Between the MPO and FPO fields, the most difficult hole on tour has only been birdied a handful of times, and only once by the same player within a single tournament: Anthony Barela in 2021.
