Here you can learn about one of the world's best disc golf courses, Blue Ribbon Pines in East Bethel, Minnesota. Blue Ribbon Pines is a beloved track near the Twin Cities reserved just for disc golfers with 27 holes, a shack selling refreshments (including local craft beers) halfway through the course, and constantly-rotating basket configurations.
Blue Ribbon Pines is ranked #13 in the most recent World's Best Disc Golf Courses top 100 released annually by us here at UDisc. The rankings are based on millions of player ratings of over 16,000 disc golf courses worldwide on UDisc Courses, which is the most complete and regularly updated disc golf course directory in existence.
Read the whole post to get a full picture of Blue Ribbon Pines or jump to a section that interests you most in the navigation below.
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- Basics: Times in top 100, year established, designers, cost to play, & availability
- History of Blue Ribbon Pines
- How hard is it?
- What's it like to play?
- Three real five-star reviews
Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course: Basic Info
- When did Blue Ribbon Pines open?
2006 - How many times has Blue Ribbon Pines made the annual World's Best Disc Golf Courses top 100 since the rankings were first released in 2020?
Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Top 100? - Who designed Blue Ribbon Pines?
Timmy Gill, Steve Beckman - Is Blue Ribbon Pines free or pay-to-play?
Pay-to-play. See its UDisc Courses entry for pricing. - When is Blue Ribbon Pines available for public play?
Year-round
History of Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course
Until about a year before his course opened, Blue Ribbon Pines owner and proprietor Ray Jordan would never have expected to create any disc golf course, let alone one of the best in the world.
"Most people start disc golf courses because they’re addicted to the game; I started Blue Ribbon Pines without even being a player," Jordan said.
The series of fortunate events that led to Blue Ribbon Pines' opening began in 2005. Jordan is part of a family-owned sod farming business, and that year he helped an out-of-work friend from high school by giving him odd jobs on one of his family's farms. That friend happened to be wild for disc golf. When he noticed the farm's boundaries also included a huge expanse of woods used for nothing other than a small amount of hunting, the friend couldn't resist trying to convince Jordan to set up a course.
"He said, 'Let’s grab a beer and walk through the woods,'" Jordan recalled. "We did, and the woods were pretty, and I told him, 'That sounds like a good idea.'"
Jordan's friend talked enthusiastically about the property at a league night following the walk, and eventually the news reached the ears of Timmy Gill. At the time, Gill organized the largest league in Minnesota (perhaps the U.S.) and was Minnesota's best player and a course designer. Gill got in touch with Jordan, and they set up a meeting to discuss building a course.
When Gill arrived for the meeting, Jordan and some of his family and business associates were there to greet him.
"We’re kind of grizzled guys, a little on the conservative side, hard-working, up early in the morning, and Timmy Gill showed up in a beat-up Toyota pick-up with sandals on, hair down to his shoulders and looked like some surfer dude," Jordan recalled, laughing. "My brother and three partners looked at each other and said, 'No way this is our guy.' But I said we had to give him a chance. After the pleasantries, he wanted to walk through the land a bit and see what he would have to work with.
"After we started showing him around," Jordan continued, "he just turned to me and let me know about his credentials and background in disc golf and told me the land looked as good to him as anything he’d played anywhere. He explained where he thought the sport was heading…and, well, we were in the woods about an hour, and I came out drinking the Kool-Aid."
Though his family was skeptical, Jordan convinced them to let him give it a try. From there, things moved relatively quickly but with Jordan insisting at every step that if he was going to build a course, it needed to be special. Utilizing the equipment from his family business and other connections, Jordan had ponds made, boulders brought in, and other landscape features created.
Blue Ribbon Pines was planned throughout the end of 2005 and beginning of the next year, and in August 2006 – after Jordan had delayed the opening several times due to a desire for perfection – the course was opened to the disc golfing public.
Though some found the idea of paying for disc golf outlandish in 2006 (the fee was $5), Blue Ribbon Pines soon became known as a must-play course. Jordan said within the first year he already knew the course would be popular enough to be successful in his eyes, with people from all over the state showing up to play it. And, now, with Jordan's careful upkeep and constant additions, the course can count itself not just a local favorite, but a pillar of Minnesota disc golf and one of the best disc golf destinations in the world.
Despite its success and renown, Jordan still isn't satisfied with his creation and vows to keep working to improve it.
"I’ve told people the same thing since the beginning," Jordan said. "We’ll never stop trying to make this course better."
How Hard Is Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course?
Blue Ribbon Pines constantly rotates basket positions and has a huge number of possible layouts that could be available for visitors. Though it is not available in all seasons, this is how its "standard" layout of 27 holes stacks up in terms of distance, difficulty, and more.
| Layout Name | Distance |
Technicality | Overall Difficulty | Par Rating* | Scoring Average* |
| No Combos | Long | Technical | Challenging | 208 | +14 |
*Scoring average and par rating constantly adjust as more people score rounds with UDisc. These numbers reflect stats from the time of publication and may have changed slightly since then.
To see how current active layouts at the course look, view Blue Ribbon Pines' UDisc Courses page.
Learn more about what the categories for distance, technicality, overall difficulty, and par rating mean in these posts:
What's It Like to Play at Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course?
Blue Ribbon Pines doesn't have "pines" in the name just for kicks. The hallmark of the course is tight, wooded fairways that usually make accuracy, not distance, the key factor to a good score. That isn't to say there aren't moments when players are invited to let it rip. Take, for example, how pro disc golfer Kevin Jones attacked the 760-foot/232-meter hole 18, which is also known as "the driving range hole" due to the distance markers placed down the length of the fairway:
But, overall, what's likely so lovable about Blue Ribbon Pines to many is that it combines a sense of achievability with a high level of challenge. If you throw the lines, the birdies are there for the taking on most holes for experienced players. However, hitting every one of those demanding and varied lines would be a near superhuman achievement.
The pro shop, drinks, and bar and grill on site don't hurt the experience, either.
Three Real Five Star Reviews of Blue Ribbon Pines Disc Golf Course
Three five star reviews of Blue Ribbon Pines from disc golfers on UDisc:
Note that the publication date of this post reflects the last time we made minor updates to it. Some information has not changed since a major update in 2023.
