The Preserve hosting pro disc golf tournament in Clearwater, Minnesota
The best disc golf professionals will make their way to Central Minnesota this weekend for The Preserve Championship.
The tournament will take place at Airborn Disc Golf Preserve in Clearwater, Minnesota. This weekend is one of a handful of disc golf tournaments throughout the country as the top professionals compete for the top spot not only at The Preserve, but in the tour.
This disc golf course was designed by one of the top disc golf professionals in the world, Cale Leiviska, back in May 2020.
“Cale has built a great course,” said Seth Fendley, operations director for the Disc Golf Pro Tour. “That property has three disc golf courses on it and he takes and creates a larger scale championship course out of those three courses. He pairs it down into one and creates a championship course for the tournament.”
Since the opening, Airborn Disc Golf Preserve has been a popular place for many disc golf enthusiasts, especially in the Minnesota area. There are three courses at the Clearwater location.
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Timberwolf and Lynx are more for the experienced disc golf player as there are plenty of obstacles and challenges throughout the course. The Red Fox was made for the inexperienced disc golfers as it’s a par three and helps new players develop a love for the sport.
This weekend, the players will play on the Black Bear course, which is a par 65 for men and par 66 for women. There’s about 10,000 feet of layout for both of the courses for the two genders.
All of these courses are located right next to the Mississippi River in Clearwater and the area used to be an old golf course, so it was a perfect opportunity for Leiviska to make into a disc golf course.
“Minnesota, in and of itself, is one of the major states for disc golf in the United States,” Fendley said. “You only have like California and Texas that have more disc golfers in it. The crazy thing about it is that in Minnesota you can disc golf year round but most people don’t want to whereas California and Texas you can disc golf all year.
“That’s just a testament to show how strong Minnesota disc golf is in the country.”
The Preserve Championship will start on Friday and finish on Sunday with the best disc golf players in the country, and even the world. The 2021 women’s world champion, Catrina Allen, will be playing this weekend and she’s actually from Pipestone, Minnesota.
The 2021 men’s world champion, James Conrad, will also be playing this weekend along with many other top players on both the men’s and women’s side.
There will be 30 men from Minnesota playing in the tournament including three from St. Cloud: Aidan Guthrie, Jonny Twofingers Estes and Louis LaPorta. There will also be seven women from Minnesota playing this weekend and none are from the St. Cloud area.
“We have the best of the best playing this weekend in Clearwater,” Fendley said. “It’ll be a good weekend with a lot of competition.”
The Preserve Championship had its inaugural tournament last year and Nikko Locastro narrowly edged out a win over Calvin Heimburg and Simon Lizotte for the men. On the women’s side, Paige Pierce brought home the victory over Catrina Allen and Missy Gannon.
The Disc Golf Pro Tour and Leiviska agreed to have a maximum of 1000 people at this weekend’s event. They believe they can host more on the course, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they wanted to keep the tournament controlled.
The tickets for the weekend are sold out as there were only 100 tickets still available heading into this final week, but those are bought out by the middle of the week.
If people couldn’t buy tickets to the event and still want to watch the action from the weekend, there’s a live stream option to watch the top leaders online. The live stream can be found at Disc Golf Network and it’s a paid subscription.
Fendley said the Disc Golf Pro Tour plans to return to Airborn Disc Golf Preserve for future years to continue a yearly tournament.
“The Preserve is a beautiful course with plenty of challenges for these players,” Fendley said. “I know a lot of them are looking forward to playing this weekend.”
Brian Mozey is the high school sports reporter for the St. Cloud Times. Reach him at 320-255-8772 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrianMozey.
