Wildlife Prairie Park to Return to 2021 Ledgestone

Wildlife Prairie Park to Return to 2021 Ledgestone

Ledgestone TD Nate Heinold is happy to announce that Wildlife Prairie Park will be added back to the Course Schedule mix for the 2021 Discraft Ledgestone Insurance Open. This is the fourth announcement in our series of announcements for the Twelve Days of Ledgestone. Wildlife Prairie Park is located in Hanna City, IL and was first featured in the 2015 Ledgestone event. Since that time the park has received an extraordinary amount of work.

“The 2015 Ledgestone saw significant rain right before the event, which made some of the holes at Wildlife tough to traverse. We made several adjustments to the course for that year’s event at the last second, but it wasn’t a long term solution. The team at Wildlife has been working on the course ever since to help the course become more playable in adverse conditions, and 95% of that work is now complete,” said Heinold.

Additional work will be completed in the spring. The work at the park has been led by Betsy Silzer and her great team of volunteers. Additionally, Fortune 500 Company Caterpillar has committed to manpower and equipment to help finish the task. Over the last several years, significant work has been done, including new sets of stairs, walkways, walkpaths, cut-out paths, switchbacks, railings, etc. The Ledgestone team recently hosted an event in September and the course was in the best shape it has ever been. Nate identified about ten additional items that will further enhance the course for safety reasons, and a project list has already been created with tasks starting in the Spring. All upgrades are expected to be completed well before the 2021 Ledgestone event. “Since the last Ledgestone tournament was held at Wildlife, we asked for feedback, listened to that feedback and implemented several changes. We widened some of the more narrow fairways, removed large amounts of brush, cleared out some of the invasive species, built 100’s of steps, added hand rails and built new trails to holes. Though most of your favorite, unique holes are just as they were, it’s not the same course from the previous Ledgestone iterations,” said Silzer.

Wildlife Prairie Park is a hidden gem in the Peoria area. The course is the brainchild of Brian Lucas, who spent years building the course. The property goes up and down steep hills, over ponds, through ravines and includes several significant 50’ elevation changes. From the long tees the course measures 8500’, while the short tees offer a distance of just under 5,000’. “Even though it’s considered a wooded course, the fairways are very fair, especially with all of the work that has been done. The course does have significant length, but many of the wooded holes still play more open,” said Heinold.

The tentative course schedule for the 2021 Ledgestone will be released soon! The 11th Annual Discraft Ledgestone Insurance Open will take place August 5th to the 8th in Central Illinois. Registration will take place exclusively at Disc Golf Scene and will open in early 2021. Registration for AM players and age protected professionals will take place here and registration for the DGPT event will take place here.

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