The original title considered for both the Women and Men’s events was to be the U.S. Open, but at the strong urging of the USGA, the name wasn’t adopted. Despite the fact there were many “US Open” events in other sports, our ball golf cousins at the USGA felt the two sports were too similar in nature and the event instead became known as the United States Women’s Disc Golf Championship!
The inaugural USWDGC took place in 1999 in South Carolina where it stayed through 2001. In 2002 the event was moved to Peoria, Illinois under the stewardship of Wilbur “Old Man” Wallace. During the first few years of the event the men’s tournament seemed to get preference, but “Old Man” Wallace took the reins and grew the USWDGC into the wonderful event is today, more than tripling the number of players from the first event in 1999!
Jonathan Poole was the Tournament Director for the first four years of the event, at which time he felt that the event had grown in size to where it was no longer appropriate for a major disc manufacturer to be organizing the event. At that point the host city/club for the event became responsible for running the event. 2006 was to be the final year for the USWDGC in Peoria, and today the tournaments location is decided by a bidding procedure through the PDGA.
