Our 11th Community Connect event took place in the greater Peoria, Illinois area for the Ledgestone Insurance Open. With this event being so big and spread out among various courses, we reached out to Nate Heinold, the tournament director, to coordinate Uplay's efforts most appropriately with his schedule of tournament events. There happened to be a scheduled junior clinic for Tuesday, Aug 9th at Washington Park disc golf course.
The initial clinic hosts, Uplay Ambassador and Ledgestone Team Player- Missy Gannon, and Chandler Fry were more than happy to have Uplay add to the presentation. Uplay's on-the-ground Operations Manager, Dustin Keegan, headed up the communications & cross-promotion while rallying Uplay Pros, Ella Hansen, and Cynthia Ricciotti to come to assist. 
With all efforts aligned, the junior clinic was an incredible experience that these talented young disc golfers will remember for years to come! There were 40 people attending the clinic, including 21 children under 14 years old. Each kid received an Uplay x UDisc putter, a Trash Panda mini, an E.R.I.C. hat, and Uplay stickers for being a part of this event. Hannah McBeth joined the clinic on behalf of the Ledgestone team and got some awesome social media highlights for Uplay and Ledgestone.
Dustin led the clinic. He started with putting and had each pro give a tip, then had the kids execute that tip before moving on to the next pro and their next tip. Dustin then moved the group into driving and used the same format of delivery. It was a great way to deliver the information, the kids weren't overwhelmed and got to implement each tip right after learning about it. About half of the kids at the clinic had just participated in Junior Worlds, a few weeks prior, and were super excited about thorough instruction and tips- one-on-one with some of their heroes!!
We continue to hear that "the future is NOW" in disc golf, which is very true... but the future generations upcoming in disc golf are bright, talented, and eager to grow into our professional tour scene.
Educational Tour Teaching Stats:
- 11 states
- 1,821 children taught
- 310 Educators and adults
- 1,951 discs given to children
Thank you for your devoted efforts toward disc golf educational programs. Uplay continues to be honored to represent the great companies that support these events, and even more thankful for the opportunity to deliver them.
Next stop, Des Moines Challenge!
