The Ledgestone team is happy to announce that they have struck an agreement with the South Side Mission of Peoria and Camp Kearney to use the new course at Camp Kearney for the 2021 Ledgestone event. Camp Kearney is a ministry of South Side Mission of Peoria and has been around for over 60 years. Their primary function is a youth camp for children from the city of Peoria and Central Illinois. Every summer they host 8 weeks of free overnight camp for children from under-resourced families. Nearly 400 children ranging in age from six through sixteen participate in their camp program each year.
The Camp Kearney Disc Golf Course is a private course. Their primary purpose is their summer camp ministry to the children that attend camp, so the course will not be available to the public during June and July. However, the course may be available at other times with permission. Their contact information can be found on their website, southsidemission.org, or their Facebook page or the UDisc app. The Camp Kearney Disc Golf Course offers a fun, challenging experience to even experienced players. There are holes that play through prairie grass fields, around water, and through the woods. Natural out-of-bounds and hazards are a few of the things that make this course unique. A few key components of the course include elevated tees, elevated baskets, hanging baskets and beautiful greens. The course is located about 20 miles south of Peoria on 155 acres of property, surrounded by fields and forest. The course is a par 60 property spanning 5,765’ that offers a wide variety of long and short holes. There will be a few additional alternate sleeves used for the Female and Junior divisions that will play this course.
Photo via @wittmer on UDisc
“In a few short years we have been able to expand Camp Kearney DGC to an amazing course on a beautiful piece of property. I am beyond words with how excited and blessed I am to be a part of adding Camp Kearney Disc Golf Course to one of the biggest tournaments in the world,” said Arin Haven, assistant Camp Director and one of the designers of the course.
“When Ledgestone registration filled quickly on February 16th, we realized that the demand for the event from female and junior players was much higher than anticipated. We did plan accordingly and we increased spots from 2020 to 2021 for these divisions but clearly it wasn’t enough. We have spent the last several weeks trying to come up with a solution to get more spots for these divisions into the event,” said Nate Heinold, Ledgestone TD. After working on several ideas over the last few weeks, an agreement came together quickly to have Camp Kearney join the course schedule. “We wanted to make sure the course was suitable for the divisions that would be playing the course while still offering a challenge worthy of Ledgestone. Camp Kearney offers a mix of wooded and open holes and is no slouch of a course. We are super excited to showcase this new course to players for the 2021 Ledgestone event,” finished Heinold.
Additional upgrades will be made to the course this spring, including pouring the final 4 concrete pads and purchasing 4 Disc Golf Park tee pads for the wooden platform teepads. Additionally, the Ledgestone team will be donating 18 brand new baskets to the course that will be installed later this spring. The following divisions will be playing this course and will see a small change in their course schedule: MA50, MA55, FA1, FA2, FA3, Junior divisions, FA40 and FP40. Each of these divisions will essentially see one of their courses change and they will instead play the Camp Kearney course. Additionally because of the slight course schedule change, this switch will allow the following divisions to see increased spots added to their fields: MP40, MP50, MP60, MA50, MA55, MA60, MA65, FA40, FA1, FA2, FA3, Junior divisions and MA3. If a division that is seeing added spots has a waitlist, the players on the waitlist will immediately be promoted to the registration list and any additional spots that are opened will be available for PDGA members to claim.
