AMBOY – You may have heard talk around town.

You may have read it in the paper.

Now, the talk and words about the Amboy City Park Disc Golf Course are reality as the nine-holes finalized construction on Friday, June 7 and were open to play Saturday, June 8.

“My son Louie, who is 29, is an avid disc golfer and he’s also a member of the Amboy Lions Club. He brought it to my attention, and I thought it would be a good project for the community,” said Amboy Lions Club member Greg Ohlendorf. “It kind of fits in with the Lions’ theme of getting people out, being active, and supporting health in the community. We want to supply activities for the community also.

“Rock River Disc Golf is an association Louie belongs to. They approached him and then they presented the idea to the Amboy Lions Club to see if we’d be interested in a disc golf course in the Amboy area. I jumped in because I thought it was a great idea. I headed the committee to see if we could get it done.

“Once we decided to go ahead with the project, we decided to solicit for sponsors. Jim Travi, Barb Harrison, Roger Wittenauer, and my wife, Patty Ohlendorf, basically did all of the selling. We sold all of the sponsorships in four hours.”

The Amboy City Park Disc Golf Course held a grand opening Saturday, June 29.

Ohlendorf, who has bee a Lion for the last 10 years, was impressed with how fast the course came from an idea to an actuality.

Plus the number of sponsors including Kaleel’s Clothing in Dixon, Amboy First National Bank, Becker Auto Body, Amboy Food & Liquor, the Leake family (donated to property in the early 1900s to the Lee County Board, which was turned over to Amboy for the city park), Long Branch, Amboy Fire Store, members of the Honor Flight Committee (donations came out of their own pockets, not the actual committee funds), The Last Alarm, and anonymous sponsors.

Gary Wilhelm, Amboy City Council Park Board Chair, helped the Amboy Lions find the location and the City of Amboy Employees helped clear the course.

“I’ve heard a few reviews through Louie from his club and people he’s associated with. We’ve had people come from as far as Savanna to play the course,” Ohlendorf said. “We’ve also had people from the LaSalle-Peru area. We hope to grow the number of players and where the players are from. The disc golf community like to travel and check out the different courses because it’s free to play. You just have to bring your own equipment.

“The appealing thing about this course is four of the holes are in a wooded area. The City of Amboy employees went through and cleaned up a bunch of the woods in the lower area so we could put holes in those locations. There used to be a horse arena down there and over the last 30-40 years it had grown over.

“They wanted it cleaned up and this was a good reason to do so. They needed a use for it to keep it clean and the area appealed to the Rock River Disc Golf people. They came and looked at the property and thought it would be a great place for disc golf baskets.”

The Amboy Lions Club hopes to have a disc golf tournament during Depot Days but the plan is in motion, nothing is officially settled or planned.

In the future, the Lions want to construct concrete tee-pads for teeing off. Right now there are markers indicating where to begin your drive, but better footing in terms of concrete is on the Lions’ to-do list.