The 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament near Peoria, Illinois, was from Thursday, August 3 to Sunday, August 6. The tournament was the second and final Disc Golf Pro Tour Elite+ Event of 2023. It also marked the first event in the new United Series, which allows transgender women to compete in DGPT events in FPO according to the more permissive rules from the 2022 season as opposed to the more restrictive 2023 rules.
MPO played two rounds each at Northwood Black and Lake Eureka. FPO played two rounds each at Northwood Black - Shorts and Sunset Hills.
Click or tap a section below to find out more about the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament:
- How and when to watch the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament live
- How to watch the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament for free
- Scores and stats for the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament
- Win probabilities for the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament
- Who won the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament?
- All past Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament winners
- History of the Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament
How to Watch the 2023 Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament: Live
You can watch archived live coverage of the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament on the Disc Golf Network (DGN).
The first round was streamed on the DGPT's YouTube channel at no cost, but you'll need a paid DGN subscription to watch the live coverage of the other three rounds.
How to Watch the 2023 Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament for Free
You can watch the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament for free via JomezPro (FPO and MPO lead cards), Gatekeeper Media (MPO chase cards), and Ace Run Pro (FPO chase cards). All offer condensed, post-produced rounds on their YouTube channels.
Scores & Stats for the 2023 Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament
You can shot-by-shot scores and in-depth stats for every round of the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament on UDisc Live for MPO and FPO.
2023 Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament Win Probabilities
Prior to the start of the 2023 Ledgestone Open disc golf tournament, these are the players UDisc Live's pro disc golf Win Probability model gave at least a 2% chance to win in MPO and FPO:
| Win Probability Before Event | Player: MPO | Win Probability Before Event | Player: FPO | |
| 20% | Ricky Wysocki | 22% | Catrina Allen | |
| 19% | Calvin Heimburg | 19% | Ohn Scoggins | |
| 14% | Gannon Buhr | 15% | Missy Gannon | |
| 9% | Chris Dickerson | 11% | Holyn Handley | |
| 9% | Matt Orum | 7% | Hailey King | |
| 4% | Kyle Klein | 7% | Valarie Mandujano | |
| 4% | Anthony Barela | 4% | Kat Mertsch | |
| 3% | Joel Freeman | 4% | Ella Hansen | |
| 3% | Isaac Robinson | 3% | Sai Ananda | |
| 2% | Simon Lizotte | 2% | Natalie Ryan | |
| 2% | Jennifer Allen |
On mobile, swipe left/right to see all columns.
These percentages were created prior to the start of the event and changed dramatically as it played out. To see how, check out Win Probability on UDisc Live.
Note that Win Probability doesn't always match up with Disc Golf World Ranking because Win Probability takes into account how players have historically performed on holes of specific distances and difficulties and compares that information just to holes they'll face at a single event. That means the probabilities above related to how players' historical performances suggested they'd do just at the 2023 Ledgestone Open whereas World Ranking is a broader assessment of past performance.
Who Won the 2023 Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament?
Cole Redalen (MPO, 36-under par) and Missy Gannon (FPO, 16-under par) won the 2023 Ledgestone Open.
Previous Winners of the Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament*
- 2023: Cole Redalen (MPO), Missy Gannon (FPO)
- 2022: Ricky Wysocki (MPO), Missy Gannon (FPO)
- 2021: Ricky Wysocki and Calvin Heimburg (MPO - event ended early due to extreme weather), Paige Pierce (FPO)
- 2020: Ricky Wysocki (MPO), Catrina Allen (FPO)
- 2019: Paul McBeth (MPO), Paige Pierce (FPO)
- 2018: Nate Sexton (MPO), Jessica Weese (FPO)
- 2017: Josh Anton (MPO), Valarie Jenkins (FPO)
- 2016: Paul McBeth (MPO), Catrina Allen (FPO)
*All winners of Ledgestone as a DGPT event.
Ledgestone Open Disc Golf Tournament History
In June 2011, Nate Heinold had an idea.
He wanted to run a disc golf tournament to get more eyes on his insurance business. Just two months later, the Ledgestone Open was born.
It started as an unsanctioned event in its first year but by 2012 had grown into a massive A-tier, serving as the finale for the Ledgestone Insurance disc golf tournament series in the greater Peoria area.
From 2012 to 2014, Heinold ran three successful Ledgestone Opens with A-tier status, watching names like Catrina Allen, Sarah Hokom, and Nikko Locastro take home victories. By that point the tournament had become a popular stop for many touring pros but wasn't yet known across the country.
That all changed in 2015.
The PDGA National Tour came knocking, wanting the Ledgestone Open to be a part of its series. This alone rocketed the tournament to the top of many players' must-play lists. But Heinold was able to pull off an even greater feat to make the 2015 Ledgestone Open a moment that went down in disc golf history.
“It was a turning point in the history of the sport,” he said.
The pro purse totaled $117,453, which was the largest payout in disc golf history to that point not considering inflation. The huge purse enticed nearly every big name to the event, which helped promote and hype the tournament even more.
The Ledgestone Open made history again the next year by being one of just six events on the inaugural Disc Golf Pro Tour in 2016.
As the event grew and gained more attention, it also had to adapt. The biggest change was that event staff decided to let go of one of the tournament's controversial hallmarks: stroke-and-distance out-of-bounds rules. These rules made it so that when a player went OB, they were forced to both take a stroke penalty and re-throw from their previous lie. Typically, a player who goes OB is penalized a stroke but gets to advance up the fairway to the place their disc was last in bounds.
Based on player feedback, the desire of the DGPT to move away from stroke-and-distance rules, and other factors, typical OB rules have been used at Ledgestone since 2017.
But Ledgestone hasn't lost its reputation for producing punishing rounds. In 2021, the extremely wooded Northwood course was introduced to the Ledgestone lineup after debuting on the pro scene at the 2020 Worlds. The layout played by MPO now called Northwood Black is generally considered the hardest course on the pro circuit, and two of its holes, 12 and 14, have become famous for their difficulty. Learn a bit more about them in our post "Hardest & Easiest Holes In Disc Golf 2022: MPO."
The tournament has continued to provide huge payouts for professional players while the amateur side of the tournament has kept growing. The 2021 event was the largest tournament in disc golf history to that time with 1,975 players participating across all divisions. It has become much more than just an event to promote Ledgestone Insurance.
"It has changed from promoting my insurance business to being a business on its own," Heinold said. "It's its own little village of people."
The ever-growing number of competitors, staff, and volunteers has allowed the philanthropic side of the event to shine through. In 2014, the Ledgestone Open began a partnership with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. It has since donated $400,000 to the institute.