For anyone who has played, it's probably obvious. But for those who are just discovering disc golf, or have maybe only heard of it in passing, it's important to keep communicating just how much this nascent recreational activity has to offer:

• 💵 It's affordable.
• 🗺️ It's easy to find courses.
• 👶🧓 It can be played by people of all ages.
• 🫶 It helps build community.
• ⌛ It takes less time to play than traditional golf.

And, there is now enough data to show that the sport's recent growth is not just a fad. Disc golf course construction and participation rates are durable and sustainable, proving that investing in this industry can provide value to communities large and small. Join us as we explore those trends, and more, in the 2024 Disc Golf Growth Report, diving deep into the facts and figures behind one of the world's fastest-growing sports.

Recreational play continues to be the lifeblood of the sport, with more rounds than ever tracked with the app. And, for the first time in UDisc's 12-year history, more than 1 million rounds were scored during each month of the year, proving that even during winter people are still itching to play.

• 🏟️ 1.4 million disc golfers used the UDisc app in 2023. That's enough people to fill Las Vegas' Allegiant Stadium, host of Super Bowl LVIII, 21 times.
• 🌱 That's also an increase of 200,000 people over 2022, making for a healthy 17% growth rate.

More context: Of those 1.4 million people, 790,000 kept score at least one time during the year.

• ☝️ That means that 44% of people who come to the app use it for purposes other than keeping score, like seeking out new courses, getting directions, and reading reviews. We suspect those people are still playing – that's all the more reason for disc golf organizers (and app developers) to continue finding ways to appeal to the everyday player base instead of focusing solely on competition.

It's part of what makes disc golf so appealing: Even as courses continue to be built, the vast majority remain easily available for new players, especially families. Borrow a disc from a friend, or pick one up for $12 at your local big box store, and hit the course. No tee time, or greens fee, required.

• 🏆 Many of the world's best courses tend to be pay-to-play. Even still, few cost more than $20 for a single round of disc golf.
• ⛳ Golf courses also continue to add disc golf as an attractive source of revenue.

Public parks are the easiest places to find a course – they make up 40% of courses in the UDisc directory with an identified property type. There are also several other properties worldwide that include disc golf courses.

Here's the breakdown from UDisc's course directory. Note that the sum of all courses listed does not represent all disc golf courses available, as not all are categorized.

Find a place to play near you by downloading the UDisc app on the App Store or Google Play!

With plenty of land and relatively temperate seasonality, Texas leads the way for disc golf infrastructure. The Lone Star State boasts 686 courses to its name.

• 🤠 If it were a country, Texas would rank fourth in the world for number of courses, coming in behind only the rest of the U.S., Finland, and Canada.
• 🏅 Texas has also had the most courses built per year every year since 2016. And in 2015 it tied for the top slot with Michigan.

It's not all about size, though. There are plenty of other good stories when it comes to disc golf course trends in the U.S.:

• 🥈 Michigan has officially topped 500 courses, good enough for second place in the U.S.
• 💯 West Virginia was the newest member of the Century Club in 2023, adding seven courses to bring its total to an even 100.
• 🦞 If Massachusetts and Maryland build as many courses in 2024 as they did in 2023, they should also break into triple digits.

And how about participation rates? Forty-five of 50 states saw more rounds of disc golf scored in 2023 than in 2022. Add in the nation's capital (with a staggering 411% increase in play!) and you get 46 of 51 locales demonstrating growth.

The top performers:

1. North Dakota: ▲33%
2. Montana: ▲27%
3. Indiana: ▲26%
4. West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa: ▲23%

Of the five states that didn't see the same upward mobility last year, some experienced extreme weather events that may have impacted the amount of disc golf that was able to be played. And, thankfully, none of the declining numbers surpassed 10%.

• Hawaii: ▼8%
• Maine: ▼3%
• California: ▼2%
• Nevada: ▼1%
• Louisiana: ▼0.1%

That's like watching Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour concert film 15 million times.

The wildest part of this statistic? That's nearly 10 million more hours than players spent on the course in 2022.

• ☝️ Keep in mind: This is just among players using the UDisc app.

Why does time spent on the course matter? It demonstrates that disc golf can provide valuable recreation hours to a community.

• When it's time to fund a new project, municipalities are, of course, looking at getting the most bang for their buck. But they also want to know their citizens will be well-served.
• A single pickleball court costs roughly $28,000-$35,000 to build and can only support four players at a time.
• An 18-hole disc golf course costs roughly the same – and in many cases can be done for a lower price – and can have four people on a single hole. That means more than 70 people can be served at the same time.
• With an average round on UDisc at an 18-hole course taking only 2 hours and 7 minutes, that means more throughput – especially during the long days of summer – and more people in your community who will benefit for a similar price. You can also get comparable value out of a nine-hole track.

Plus, who doesn't like to have a little more time in their day for their non-recreational pursuits? An 18-hole round of disc golf takes less than half the time to play as a round of traditional golf, so players are more easily able to make it a part of their everyday lives.

📖 Go deeper: Validate disc golf by showing how many people a course can serve

Since the introduction of UDisc's free league scoring platform in 2020, participation among those who want to dip their toes into the competitive pool has skyrocketed.

• More than 80,000 league events ran on UDisc in 2023.
• That number has nearly doubled since 2021.

While on one hand this is an indicator of increasing market share, on the other it gives us confidence that providing low-cost, low-stakes events are a great way to build community and encourage players to adopt disc golf for the long haul.

For your consideration: At 1.1 million rounds scored, league play still represented only 5% of all scoring activity on UDisc. That said, if your league needs a scoring tool, you can sign up for free.

When youth soccer coach Luisa Bartolome was introduced to disc golf in 2019 in Malaysia, she was, like many others, instantly hooked. In addition to her own joy, she immediately saw the impact it could have on the kids that she coached, and when the pandemic put a pause on soccer in the beginning of 2020 she pivoted to bringing her pupils to the course.

"I didn't expect that they would love it, but they did," Bartolome recalled. "I decided I was going to do disc golf coaching for kids for free." She also helped craft kid-friendly places to play, which she dubbed "little disc golfer" courses, to help make the game more accessible.

But when further pandemic restrictions forced her to return home to her native Philippines later in 2020, she returned to find a lack of the same support and infrastructure for disc golf that she enjoyed in Malaysia.

"It was heartbreaking," Bartolome said. "I had been there for 10 years. And then friends said, 'Oh, Luisa, I think that you need to start disc golf in the Philippines." And so she set out to do just that.

• ☝️ Bartolome said disc golf existed in the country's capital, Manila, back in 2012 in the form of an object course, and that in 2014 there was some interest from churches and universities. But on the whole, there was very little organization of the sport.
• ✌️ "The American player that introduced them to that went home," she said.

Just like she had in Malaysia, Bartolome started by trying to bring disc golf to young people in several communities.

• Step 1: Help redesign the Road to Damascus, the country's first permanent course that was installed in 2021 as part of the PDGA's Marco Polo grant program but, according to Bartolome, was too difficult to appeal to a community that was new to the sport. "I rearranged the course to be a simpler, intermediate and recreational player course," Bartolome said. "And we did lots of clinics there, and I think 500 people have been taught in that community."

• Step 2: Work with local governments to get more courses in the ground. She's done that in her home province of Tarlac, where the JVY Recreational Park now plays home to another course thanks to not only the aforementioned Marco Polo program, but also the strong support of Governor Susan Yap.

Plus, there are now nine holes available for play just outside Manila, near a resort and casino that draws plenty of foot traffic (and even some globe-trotting professional disc golfers). That provides regular access to the sport for the city's nearly 2 million residents.

• 🚀 The Philippines now have four fully-fledged courses, three of which were built in 2023, and Bartolome said several more were in the works. As a result, participation in the country has exploded, growing by more than 400%.

Being able to give kids an outlet for their health and wellness has been the key to success and has continued to spur government buy-in. Clinics and events are a consistent draw, and the sport has even made a couple appearances on national television.

"If you do something great for the community, especially for kids, that's the catch here in the Philippines," Bartolome said. "When you include people who can't normally do it, or can help them, you get support. That's happening, and it's growing – it's actually growing, and we're happy that we are now at the point where I can say, when someone says 'disc golf,' people say, 'Ah, we know that.'"

In a representative survey of more than 1,200 active UDisc members from January 2024, 90% of respondents said they traveled more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) last year to play disc golf.

• 🧳 Of those, 58% said they took a trip specifically to play disc golf. So they weren't just traveling to a far-away home course or sneaking it in on a business trip.
• ✈️ These numbers are almost exactly the same as compared to a survey conducted in December 2022, showing disc golf travel isn’t going anywhere – but the players are.

Why do disc golfers travel? It's all about making memories.

• 🆕 50% said that playing new, cool courses was the main reason they took a trip, while another 29% ranked it the second most important factor, making this kind of course discovery and collection far and away the favorite excuse to hit the road.
• 👪 Bonding with family and friends and adding courses to their career play counts were also high on the motivation scale.

How long are they gone for, and how far will they go?

• 📆 Among those who took a disc golf trip last year, 46% said they took multi-day excursions, and the typical length of the longest trip travelers took was two days. Here’s to all the weekend warriors out there.
• 🗺️ The median distance disc golfers traveled on their longest trip was 193 miles (311 kilometers). More than 100 disc golfers even told us they traveled more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) one way on their adventures.

What type of disc golf do people play when they travel?

• 😀 Two out of three disc golfers who took a trip specifically for disc golf say their longest trips involved playing casual, fun rounds.
• Only one in five say they played organized, competitive rounds.

And if it wasn't clear that disc golfers are hungry to get out and explore more, there's this: 95% of players said they planned to play a course more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) from their home this coming year. Pack your bags.

And for good reason. With objectives that mirror those of traditional golf, there is already a familiarity to the gameplay that new players can easily adopt. Add in the flight of a disc, which for many conjures images of carefree days tossing a Frisbee with family and friends, and it's a recipe for success.

• 😍 As more courses go in the ground, that means even more opportunities to meld those positive sentiments with a new recreational outlet.

But it's not just about bringing new people to the sport. It's also about choosing your own adventure. Whether you want to get some exercise, pick up an inexpensive new hobby, cultivate a community, compete, or make memories with friends and family, there's a little something for everybody in disc golf.

That's the main takeaway from this year's report: Disc golf is for everyone, and if you or someone in your community needs to be sold on the sport, there is plenty in here to work with.

• Want to help? Be part of the 89% of players who share the love of disc golf with someone else. Download the fact sheet and help grow your local scene!

That's both the beauty of where disc golf is right now, but also the challenge that lies ahead: There are countless reasons why your town or city should have a course, but we still need to keep chipping away and making the case. And someday, when there's a place to play on every corner, we'll all look back fondly on these times and remember all the work that went into this period of growth.

Until then, let the march to 20,000 courses begin.

• 👀 Get a closer look: Zoom in to see how much disc golf is being played in your area!

The vast majority of the statistics in this report were derived from UDisc's course directory, scoring records, surveys, and interviews. Other information came from the following sources:

• Tennis Industry Association
• National Golf Foundation
• United States Golf Association
• European Golf Association
• USA Pickleball
• DiscGolfPark
• The Sports Facilities Companies
• Dunkin'