Day one of the 2015 Ledgestone Insurance Open presented by Discraft was…well, pretty insane. It was a long day filled with surprises. Huge trees were falling all over the place at Northwood, a 14 year old spent hours as the clubhouse leader in the Open division, Paige Pierce hit an ace that ended up taking the #1 spot on Sportscenter’s Top 10 Plays, and if that wasn’t enough, the day ended with a PDGA Board of Directors member (Kevin McCoy #9453) tied for the lead in Masters.

It’s easy to look back on it now and laugh, but we cannot stress to you enough just how frightening it was hearing the sound of that enormous tree hitting the ground this afternoon. Tournament staff members, competitors, and spectators all sprinted towards the area immediately, presumably all with the same horrifying thoughts racing through our minds. We were all extremely relieved to find that no one was hurt, not a scratch. Relieved indeed, until a few hours later when it happened again!

How was this happening on a warm sunny day with no wind?! We escaped without worry once again as the second instance involved a smaller tree in a location where innocent bystanders were nowhere in sight. It was a powerful reminder that our sport takes place in areas controlled by Mother Nature, not by man. I’m not a superstitious person, but as part of a community of people that care deeply about our parks and the disc golf courses housed within them, it certainly seemed like Karma had our backs today.

Open

Every ten minutes, for 9 straight hours, Open division competitors teed off at Northwood chasing the high-stakes big-money dream of cashing at the Ledgestone Open. Northwood is a beautiful course on a gorgeous piece of land that in its default layout would be difficult on its own. Add to that OB ropes that narrow the fairways and USDGC-style “stroke and distance” penalties for going OB, and it’s easy to see how a round can go from good to bad so quickly.

Scores for the round were all over the place. Players you’d expect to be near the top of the A-Pool after the round, in some cases, aren’t even in the A-Pool, giving others that we’ve always known were extremely talented a chance at the limelight.

For much of the day, the clubhouse leader was Izak McDonald #49631, the 14 year old phenom that we’ve already seen multiple times this year, most notably on the lead cards of the USADGC and Am Worlds. His score of nine under par (49) seemed unbeatable until Zach Melton #38631 came along.

Terry Miller interviews Izak McDOnald dueing the SmashBoxxTV live streaming broadcast of Round 1 at Northwood.

Melton finished his lights-out the round at Northwood 11 under par, bogey free, for an unofficially rated round of 1079! He will be joined on the lead card for Round 2 at McNaughton Park by Nikko Locastro #11534 and Nate Krahn #29352, both of which shot one off the hot round at 10 under, also bogey free. Teeing off last on the lead card is Cale Leiviska #24341 at -9. Keep in mind, none of these guys are safe. There are 20+ players within three strokes of Leiviska, just to give you an idea.

Open Women

The women play completely different courses than the men all weekend, with their first round yesterday taking place at Westwood Park, a relatively new course to the area. The course is tight and wooded with some elevation involved, and a bit muddy from the rain that pummeled the Midwest in the days leading up to the Ledgestone Open.

3X Women’s World Champion Val Jenkins #17495 finished the day as the overall leader with a seven under par. When it was all said and done her round of 50, which came in rated at 1016, was enough to give herself a three-stroke cushion over second place finisher Catrina Allen #44184. Jessica Weese #50656 and Ragna Bygde #8559 will be on the lead card with them, one and two throws behind Catrina, respectively.

Coming in at the top of the chase card is another 3X Women’s World Champion, Paige Pierce #29190. She is seven strokes off the lead, and probably not too happy about that. But, after her ace on Hole 6 ended up being the first disc golf clip to ever make the #1 spot on Sportscenter’s Top 10 last night, it’d be fair to say she probably hasn’t thought about it all that much.

The women will take on Sunset Hills for Round 2, which is built on a traditional golf course and is far less technical than Westwood. They play Round 3 today as well, heading to Bradley Park, another tight and technical layout that some would label as a “birdie or die” course.

It’s going to be another long day of disc golf here in Peoria for Day 2 of the 2015 Ledgestone Insurance Open. Follow the hole-by-hole scores on pdgalive.com all day and watch the women’s round at Sunset Hills live on SmashBoxxTV starting at approximately 8:30am CDT.

We’ve created the Ledgestone Open Video Coverage page as a means of centralizing all videos from the event and we’ll be adding to it and updating it each day as more and more videos are made available. Follow the PDGA on Facebook and Twitter for updates & info, pics, and videos. And check out photos from each day on the PDGA Flickr page, taken by Lauren Lakeberg of LELPhotography!