The OTB Open returned for its second year on the Disc Golf Pro Tour in 2022 from Friday, May 20 to Sunday, May 22.
This heir to the San Francisco Open (more on that transition in the tournament section history later on) again featured a monster course laid out by master designer Leonard Muise across the Swenson Park Golf Course in Stockton, California. The MPO's layout was just over 11,700 feet/3,566 meters and the FPO's was almost 9,700 feet/2,957 meters.
And California's beloved two-meter rule was in effect on holes 1, 3, 5, 10, and 16.
Learn more about the 2022 OTB Open below:
- How to follow and watch footage of the 2022 OTB Open
- Who won the 2022 OTB Open and who made the podium
- History of the OTB Open
2022 OTB Open Hole-By-Hole Scores and In-Depth Stats
You can see hole-by-hole scores, tons of stats, and more for all competitors in both divisions of the 2022 OTB Open on UDisc Live.
How To Watch the 2022 OTB Open Disc Golf Tournament
How to watch the 2022 OTB Open:
| MPO | FPO | Paid subscription needed? |
|
| Live (also available as archived footage) | Disc Golf Network | Same | Yes (except last round, which is free on the Disc Golf Pro Tour's YouTube channel) |
| Lead Cards - Condensed | JomezPro | GK Pro | No |
| Chase Cards - Condensed | Gatekeeper Media | No |
Who Won the 2022 OTB Open Disc Golf Tournament?
Simon Lizotte (20-under par) and Paige Pierce (11-under par) won the 2022 OTB Open in MPO and FPO respectively.
Below you can see the other players who made the podium in both divisions.
Who shared the podium at the 2022 OTB Open?
Who came in second and third at the 2022 OTB Open in FPO?
History of the OTB Open Disc Golf Tournament
The history of the OTB Open starts with a tournament of a different name: the San Francisco Open (SFO).
SFO splashed onto the disc golf scene in 2018: a brand new event on a brand new course that was part of the relatively new Disc Golf Pro Tour.
The disc golf course built on the Gleneagles golf course that hosted the SFO instantly became a tour hit following the inaugural event, and in 2019, the tournament returned to Gleneagles with a few minor kinks worked out and again pleased pros and fans alike.
"We learned a ton in 2018, both what worked well and what didn't work well," said Shawn Mercy said, co-tournament director of the SFO and both OTB Opens. "That rolled over pretty well into 2019. We did try to do some additional things, but 2019 was pretty much a rinse and repeat though we did have the foundation of 2018 to go off of."
It may also interest some fans to know that the success of the 2019 SFO may have saved a fledgling DGPT from going out of business. Learn more in "History Of The Disc Golf Pro Tour, Pt. 3: 2019-2021."
The SFO crew was even more at ease and ambitious as they prepared to put on the third iteration of their event, but then COVID hit.
"We felt really good going into 2020," Mercy said. "We had two years of experience at that venue working with that course and running an event of this scale. We had pretty big plans to increase the scope of the event and felt more comfortable with the overall project. But that was cancelled."
Although the 2021 edition went off well, the pandemic forced some changes.
The most notable shake-up was the course. Though only two big events had been played there, Gleneagles had already become a favorite stop for many pros. But due to the COVID restrictions in the Bay Area, the event needed a new home.
When it was discovered that Gleneagles was no longer a viable option, Mercy and co-TD Sean Jack began looking at alternatives. Visit Stockton, which describes itself as an organization "charged with the promotion and marketing of the city of Stockton as a meetings, events, and travel destination," was part of the pitch to bring the tournament to Stockton.
"They've long been supporters of disc golf," Mercy said. "They basically came in and said, 'We'll help you out. What is it going to take to get you guys to come here for this event?' They were pretty aggressive in helping us with certain pain points, namely the cost of running it on a golf course."
With the support of the local community, Mercy and Jack decided on Swenson Golf Course because it had a strong cell signal for the DGPT live stream combined with access to 60 acres north of the course if needed for additional space. They enlisted the design help of Leonard Muise, owner and founder of Whirlwind Disc Golf and someone who knows a thing or two (or six, really) about installing disc golf courses on ball golf courses, to make it all possible. Muise also designed the disc golf course at Gleneagles.
"We're good friends and have a good working relationship with Leonard Muise," Mercy said. "In my opinion, there is nobody better at course design for a specific purpose and given specific constraints. Once I found out we had about an extra 60 acres, there was no doubt in my mind Leonard was going to be able to find a championship-level course out there."
In a perfect coincidence, Stockton is home to Only The Best Discs (OTB Discs), a disc golf retailer whose popularity had boomed the previous year due in part to investing heavily in advertisements on disc golf media and sponsoring a popular Skins Match series that's filmed and released by GK Pro.
As a local presence, OTB was already in talks with Mercy and Jack to sponsor the 2021 tournament and beyond, but the decision became even easier with the shop right up the road from the 2021 tournament site.
In 2022, the OTB Open was back at Swenson, but the course had undergone an extensive redesign. According to an interview with Jack and Mercy with Ultiworld Disc Golf, concerns about providing spectators a better experience as well as having permission to use the entire golf course for the 2022 event led to only five holes from last year's layout being reused. The thirteen new holes were also designed by Muise.
The FPO layout got a bit shorter and the MPO layout was actually extended a bit though it was already a monster 11,514 feet/3,510 meters last year.