While many disc golfers aspire to play all the world's best disc golf courses in their lifetime, some have a different dream: playing as many different courses as they possibly can.
Take 2009 pro disc golf world champion Avery Jenkins, for example: By the end of 2024, he'd played over 1,600 disc golf courses.
Playing that many disc golf courses is an insane achievement – even when you consider the fact that Jenkins has been playing disc golf for over 30 years and is a professional disc golf course designer. Something even crazier is that Jenkins isn't even the most prolific disc golf course collector keeping count with UDisc.
A craft brewer named Kyle Harrop has likely played more disc golf courses than anyone else alive. His count was near 3,500 when we published this post.
But even Harrop is nowhere near playing every disc golf course in the world – in fact, he hasn't even covered a quarter of them.
So, how many disc golf courses are there? Before we can answer this question, we need to define what qualifies as a disc golf course.
What Qualifies as a Disc Golf Course?
While figuring out the number of disc golf courses in the world, we decided on an open approach with regard to hole count. The purpose of this tally is to publish an updated number through which the reach and growth of disc golf can be measured, not to arbitrate longstanding debates over how many holes a disc golf course needs to be a so-called "real" course. If you can go to a location specifically designated for disc golf and throw a disc at a target there, that's a course for the purposes of this count in most cases.
And, yes, we specifically used the word "target" and not "basket" on purpose. Why? There are a variety of alternative disc golf targets in use.
To get our number, we started with the full UDisc Courses directory, our disc golf course database where players from all over constantly update information on all the world's disc golf courses. From there, we removed all courses categorized as invite only, special event, permanently closed, and deleted. These were removed because we wanted to only include courses still open for the public to play at some point during the year.
With the semantics out of the way, let's dive in.
So How Many Disc Golf Courses Are There in the World?
As of the end of 2024, there were 16,267 disc golf courses in the world.
These courses span the globe, from Arctic Circle Disc Golf in Kotzebue, Alaska, to Ross Island in Antarctica and from Hillcrest Farm on Prince Edward Island, Canada, to Lakes of Pelangi Indah in southern Malaysia. Let there be no doubt that disc golf is now truly a global phenomenon.
Want to browse all 16,000+ courses on Earth? Then check out the UDisc Courses directory or UDisc Places. Places can help you discover everything there is to know about the disc golf landscape of any place on earth, from its courses to leagues to stores and beyond.
