UPDATED 12:39pm 6/3/23
According to organizer Josh Fleming, all 18 disc golf tee boxes are installed as of Monday, and the course is considered “playable.” However, several tee pads are yet to be installed.
——————————-
A sport continuing to rise in popularity is about to get a revival in Galesburg.
Thirteen of eighteen “holes” are installed as part of a new disc golf course that is going up around Lake Storey Park, with the rest being ready to go in as soon as a couple weeks.
“The course starts right by the pavilion,” said Tom Simkins, City of Galesburg Special Projects Coordinator. “It starts kind of by where the water slide used to be, goes east along the lake, cuts through the timber in a couple spots, which is kind of cool. It goes clear to the boat ramp off of (U.S.) 150. Then the ‘back nine,’ if you would, number ten starts there — you could actually park there if you want to play the back nine — and then it goes west along North Lake Storey Road, then finishes there by the pavilion.”
Simkins tells WGIL he has been working with the city’s park and rec director, and a local disc golfer to design the course.
Josh Fleming has been a disc golfer for the past 20 years – something he calls a “low-impact” but competitive sport.
He suggested the city use Lake Storey, and it is. But, isn’t there already a disc golf course at Kiwanis Park?
“(Kiwanis Park is) a great park and everything, but most of the people go to Lake Storey to do walking, fishing,” said Fleming. “We’re right in the middle of the Quad Cities and Peoria, which host a lot of disc golfers and courses. I felt putting it out at Lake Storey — it’s kind of like the staple of Galesburg. It’s what everybody talks about. It’s where everybody goes.”
Simkins and the city say they don’t expect the disc golf course to interfere at all if there are large crowds at the lake, for say, Big Bang Boom on July 4th.
