Have you ever wondered if you are the only one in the world to not get an ace? We’re going to dive into the cold, hard statistics from this years State of Disc Golf survey to find out how often aces happen, and who they come from most often. First, we’ll look at the straight data to see how many hole-in-ones occurred in 2018.
Alright! So we see that most of you did not card an ace last year. In fact, if we pit the aces against the no-aces, this is what it looks like:
55.8% of survey respondents did not ace in 2018, leaving 44.2% with the excitement of a hole in one! So it seems the disc golf ace might not be all-elusive after all. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ll get an ace this year!
As expected, this is quite different than the traditional golf scene. According to the National Hole-In-One Registry, only 1-2% of ball golfers will capture an ace in a given year. With an estimated 20+ million golfers playing 450 million rounds a year, we see that aces are far more rare.
In contrast, we turn to disc golf and see people reporting 8, 9, and 10+ aces in 2018. But it’s no big surprise aces in disc golf are far more common. Even in disc golf’s top events, several aces are captured on camera each year.
Who Takes the Ace?
Let’s do some cross comparison and see made all of these aces in 2018. Maybe it’ll give us clues on how to snag one ourselves…
Aces by Division
This likely also won’t come as a surprise, but the data backs it up: the higher division you play, the more likely you are to have an ace. About 81% of beginners did not ace in 2018, while only 16% of professionals didn’t. There’s something to be said for skill level and hitting the basket on your first throw.
Aces by Amount Played
No big surprises here either! The more rounds you play in a year, the more likely you are to have an ace. If you only play once a week or less, your chances of an ace are only 21% (still 10 times higher than that of ball golf). If you play every day, there’s only an 18% chance you won’tget an ace. At about 10-14 rounds a month is where you’ll hit the 50/50 chance of getting an ace.
Of course, this all depends on where you play as well.
Aces by Region
Aces by State
The number of reported aces from each state on the State of Disc Golf survey.
This map shows us the raw data of where the most aces occurred based on survey results. Michigan took first, Texas second, then California and Colorado. Pennsylvania had more survey takers than Colorado, but the rate of aces reported was much higher in Colorado, causing it to take fourth place in aces reported. This map coincides almost perfectly with survey data on # of course and players in each state.
Aces Per Capita of Survey Respondents
The number of aces reported per state, divided by the number of respondents per state.
This map is a little fun, and likely not the best way to pick where to hunt your next ace. This map takes the number of aces reported in each state and divides it by the number of survey takers in that state. North Dakota took the number one spot with a reported 17 aces, yet only 9 survey takers, yielding nearly 2 aces per person. Now does this extend to all disc golfers in North Dakota? Probably not. Alaska had a similar story with 27 aces and 16 respondents.
The top dogs in the previous map (Texas, Michigan, California) were taken right back down to normal levels in this map, having less aces than survey respondents.
Thanks for taking time to join us on this ace adventure, and thank you for taking the State of Disc Golf survey and helping us with the data to process. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m packing my bags for North Dakota to get some aces.
During the 2019 State of Disc Golf Survey, we asked players about their average throwing distance on drives. When looking at the overall field of players that responded to the survey, here are the percentages that claimed specific distance abilities:
You’ll notice that the largest percentage of overall players claimed a distance between 301 and 350 feet maximum. That distance represents almost 31% of players. The next largest percentage claims a distance between 251 and 300 feet, at almost 27% of those surveyed. Close behind that is the 351 to 400 foot range at 22%.
That means that if you add together those three categories with a distance from 251 – 400 feet, that covers the vast majority of players while much smaller groups claim 400+ feet. Only 2.1% of those surveyed claimed to be able to through 451 to 500 feet and a minor sliver of .5% claimed a distance of over 500 feet.
DISTANCE VS AGE
We thought it would be fun to take a look at the results broken down by age groups. So here is a very chart-heavy report, but we hope that you enjoy seeing how age influences distance. As you scroll through the age breakdowns, you’ll notice that the middle ages have a much higher number of survey participants, but the averages stay pretty close…
AGE 12 – 17
AGE 18 – 21
AGE 22 – 25
AGE 26 – 29
AGE 30 – 35
AGE 36 – 40
AGE 41 – 50
AGE 51 – 60
AGE 61 – 70
AGE 71 +
Only when you start to hit the charts for 61-70 and the 71+ age groups do the distance abilities begin a dramatic drop-off, landing more of those older players in a range under 300 feet.
DISTANCE VS ELEVATION
Now, for a little something you’ve never considered, we have a breakdown of the claimed distances from survey participants versus the elevation of the states in the USA where those players are from. Did you ever wonder how much elevation figures into distance? While higher elevations often make disc flight paths more overstable (and the reverse for lower elevations), the abilities to throw further seems to favor those who live at higher elevations.
This chart, provided by Lucid Software’s analysis team, can be a little bit hard to decipher, but it basically takes the average elevation of all the survey participants that answered for each distance. You can see that the further the distance (shown at the bottom of each bar) the darker the bar becomes, with the darker bars representing higher elevations. The average elevation is shown above each bar.
The black box feature’s Lucid Software’s bullet points (or take-aways) stating that distance data seems consistent with other sports, like baseball, and that disc golf course designers in higher elevations might consider longer hole distances. Of course, we can take or leave that advice, but the data seems clear regarding distance versus elevation of where players live.
However, here is a thought– it could be that the courses are very different at lower elevations where wooded courses are more predominant. In those lower elevation, wooded courses, players need to play with precision as their focus, rather than distance. After all, if playing in the woods, there is little need for power throws due to low ceilings and obstacles. However, at higher elevations, the trees may be less predominant on courses, making distance more of a factor. You either throw far across open fairways, or bomb high throws over the tops of the few trees on the course.
What do you think is the cause for this distance disparity when it comes to altitude? Leave your thoughts in the comments, and thanks again to all of the thousands of players who participated in the survey.
It is Glass Blown Open weekend! GBO is considered one of the best events in disc golf every year. It is run well, and leaves players of all divisions happy and satisfied with their tournament experience.
Often times tournament directors wonder how to make their tournaments better and how to keep their participants happy and excited about their events. This year in the 2019 State of Disc Golf Survey we asked disc golfers questions about their tournament experiences, what they like or don’t like to see in tournaments, and what motivates them to participate in disc golf events.
This is especially pertinent to our sport, because disc golf fans aren’t just fans, they are players. Like we always say, part of what makes disc golf so great is it is very cheap and easy to play. Well, it is also very easy to get involved in local leagues and tournament play including PDGA sanctioned and unsanctioned events.
And for the most part, if we are serious enough about disc golf to take a lengthy survey, we play competitively. Of those who took the survey, we were split 70/30 with 70% of survey takers participating in at least one disc golf tournament or event in 2018. We then asked that 70% how many PDGA sanctioned events they participated in over the last year. The responses were interesting:
Particularly, I think it is interesting that the option that received the most selections was zero, showing that a good portion of disc golfers who are active in competitive disc golf may not be involved with the PDGA at all. Also these individuals may just participate in local specialty events like the Discraft Ace Race or Trilogy Challenge. Of course, we asked what specialty events folks participated in during 2018.
We shouldn’t be surprised to see the Trilogy Challenge as the most popular event. It has been established as a great value event that attracts both competitive and casual disc golfers. We can also see that local putting leagues have become very popular in the disc golf community. It is interesting that just 33.33% said they participated in none of these events, as it shows how popular these specialty events have become in recent years. Also, because I mentioned it previously, only 9.97% of those who said they participated in a disc golf tournament said that they didn’t participate in a PDGA sanctioned event nor in any of these specialty events. It just goes to show that there are still popular local events that do not affiliate with the PDGA.
This ties into our next question in the survey: How many tournaments did you participate in that were not PDGA sanctioned? here were your responses:
With this data, we see that slightly more people participated in tournaments that were not PDGA sanctioned than people who participated in tournaments that were PDGA sanctioned. For those of us who are involved in mainstream PDGA events, it can be easy to forget that tournaments that are not sanctioned still draw a lot of participants, and are a great resource for casual players who are wanting to work their way into the competitive disc golf world.
Motivating Factors for Playing Disc Golf Tournaments
So what motivates us to participate in disc golf tournaments? We asked, and here is how we responded:
At first I was pretty shocked to see that Payouts/Prizes and Player Packs were the lowest two motivators. Those are often the two motivators that Tournament Directors try to appeal to the most when they are promoting their events. But does this data mean that we should focus on something different in our promotions?
After a little more thought, it could be argued that these low numbers are a bit misleading. First of all, who receives a player pack? For most PDGA sanctioned tournaments, only players in amateur divisions receive a player pack. Professional players usually do not receive a player pack, so most survey takers who play in the pro divisions likely aren’t motivated by player packs. And the inverse sometimes applies to Payouts/Prizes for larger events. Sometimes in order to generate larger payouts for pro divisions, TDs will make their event “Trophy Only” for their amateur divisions. This means that there are no prizes besides maybe a trophy for amateurs. These events though will often provide a more generous player pack in an effort to try and “make up” for not offering prizes. So for amateurs who are accustomed to playing in trophy only events, they would naturally not be motivated by payouts and prizes that they don’t normally see anyway.
However, all of the other motivating factors can be found at pretty much any tournament regardless of division. I think it is also worth noting that we enjoy exploring new courses when we go to tournaments enough that almost half of us listed that as one of our motivating factors. I know some smaller local tournaments have found success in using a variety of layouts and pin positions for tournaments to try and change up their course to make it feel new and different for their local players.
But at the end of the day, what most motivates us to go to tournaments is the competition, fun, and social aspects found in tournament play. So TDs should make sure to foster a fun and social environment. Obviously the nature of tournaments themselves make them competitive, but TDs can still look for ways to improve that competitive atmosphere for all divisions. TDs can also add small mini competitions like distance or putting competitions in between or after tournament rounds. Even a ring of fire offers all competitors a chance to experience some competition. I remember as a young player winning prizes in a ring of fire that included some of the best local disc golfers. It was fun to be able to say I beat them at something, even if it was as simple as a ring of fire.
We also asked survey takers to rank by importance certain aspects of tournament play. Specifically, we asked, What aspects do you consider when selecting tournaments? Here is how we responded:
I think this might be the most interesting bit of data so far today. It shouldn’t be a surprise that a well run event is what we consider to be the most important thing when we are selecting tournaments. I think this is especially important for TDs who are running events on new courses or temporary courses. It is insanely frustrating to play in an event when you aren’t 100% sure of the rules or if all OB areas are not clearly marked.
But I am kind of shocked to see that the three options that received the most “Not Important” votes were Awards/Trophies, Good Payouts, and Player Pack value. If you are an amateur who hates that the big event in your area is a trophy only event, then don’t show the TD this info. Over a quarter of tournament goers consider the Awards/Trophies in your tournament not important, and only 4% less consider good payouts not important.
From this data, what people want the most are well run and organized events that stick to the schedule and give them an opportunity to compete and enjoy each others company. So instead of trying to appeal to players by giving them the biggest player pack or payout, spend some of that time/money and turn your event into a social and competitive gem in your area.
Payout vs. Player Packs
Part of why I was surprised that payouts and player packs were the most unimportant factors is because they are part of a pretty common debate in disc golf circles–where should tournament money go? Should TD’s provide a generous player pack, or instead focus on bigger payouts across all divisions? We asked for your opinion, and here is how you responded:
We shouldn’t be surprised that the top answer here, with almost half selecting it, is a mix of both, because everyone wants more of everything right? But when we look at those who answered just one or the other, people who favor a big player pack doubled the amount of people who prefer a big payout. This doesn’t surprise me, I think that all players benefit from a large player pack regardless of skill level. So if you are in a good position as a TD, try to create a high value for both the player packs and the payouts. But if you need to choose one or the other, most disc golfers would prefer that money going toward a generous player pack.
Another common debate within disc golf culture is how to divide tournament payouts. In other words, how deep should a tournament payout? If a tournament has a big purse that is paid out to a high percentage of the field, that means the top finishers aren’t paid as much as they would be if they paid out a smaller percentage of the field. The inverse, of course, is a shallow payout that makes for higher payouts for the top of the field. So, we asked disc golfers which they preferred, and here are the responses:
Similar to our last chart, we see that most people prefer moderation. But then the split after that is pretty even with a slight preference toward shallow payouts or even trophy only events. But for the most part, the standard 40%-50% payout is what most people want to see.
Tournament Stamp or Stock Stamp?
Now for one last tidbit of info for our Tournament Directors–How do we feel about tournament stamps compared to stock stamps in the player packs? Specifically, we asked,”As a player pack item, would you prefer a tournament stamp on a disc you don’t throw or a stock stamp on a disc of your choice?” This also gets to players having more of a choice in their player packs. So how much do we value that choice? Here is how we responded:
This one is pretty even across the board with people saying that it depends on the tournament and stamp coming in at the top just barely. And then there is a slight favoring of tournament stamps, which I think makes sense because it is always nice to have a more unique disc in my opinion. So if you run a good enough tournament with a nice stamp design, you can win over the neutral folks and make everyone happy, which is the goal of every TD.
But for those who prefer to have more choice in their player packs, be sure to check out a Next Generation event this year. Dave Feldberg has partnered with Infinite Discs to provide multiple options for player packs, allowing participants to choose the discs and brands included in the packs.
Why Disc Golfers Don’t Play Tournaments
Now, so far we have discussed the preferences of those who said they participated in tournaments this year, but for those who didn’t participate–why not? What kept these people from involving themselves in their local competitive disc golf scene?
As you can see, far and away the top reason why people don’t participate in disc golf tournaments is because they don’t have enough time. Again, it shows that our sport draws competitive people, even if they don’t have time to participate in organized disc golf competitions.
And for the 29.57% of folks who didn’t play in a tournament this year because they don’t think they are good at disc golf, I have a couple of thoughts. First of all–welcome to the club because a good portion of us who play competitively also don’t think we are good at disc golf. But more importantly, if you want to improve your disc golf game, I think one of the best ways to do it is participate in your local leagues and tournaments. I remember being scared showing up to my first league, and I played awful. But the people on my card were very encouraging, and I learned so much as I kept showing up and watching disc golfers who were better than me and how they attacked the course. So don’t let your fear of not being good enough stop you. Once you set that aside and start showing up to leagues and other events, I know your game will improve. I saw it happen in myself, and I see it happen all the time.
And finally, our last stat nugget–for those who didn’t play in disc golf tournaments, what would help in convincing them to show up to future events?
I am surprised to see that over half of people who said that they didn’t play in a tournament said that them getting better at disc golf would convince them to show up to future events. So maybe it is an issue not people thinking they aren’t good at disc golf, but rather they just don’t think they are good enough. Again, refer to my earlier discussion of how participating in competitive disc golf will improve your game. I believe that nobody should ever feel like they aren’t good enough to participate in disc golf tournaments or leagues.
We also see that time/location changes could help almost half of those who didn’t participate in disc golf events show up in the future. Of course, this is a hard thing to get right since everyone’s schedule is different.
Let Them Play With Their Friends
Another piece of interesting information is that 45.87% of folks said that they would play more if they could play with their friends rather than strangers. While it isn’t always ideal, most tournament directors allow people to request being on the same card as their friends. Even if they don’t advertise this, any TD will tell you that there are plenty of disc golfers who have no problem asking anyway. But maybe if TDs are trying to draw more casual players to their events, they can make sure they know that they will be allowed to play with their friends.
So we covered lots of data in this one! What stood out to you that I might have missed commenting on? Do you have any advice for Tournament Directors? Please let us know in the comments!
And last but not least–thank your TDs! A Tournament Director is often a thankless volunteer position. These people donate their time and energy to create a positive event for their disc golf community. They grow the sport and are trying their best to be a positive influence in their communities. So thank you TDs!
Which brands do we prefer to use? Did our favorite brands change this year? This is an especially interesting year in disc golf to take a look at the survey responses that relate to this topic because of the many sponsor changes made by top professional disc golfers this offseason.
In fact, we tried to address the big offseason changes directly by adding a new question to this year’s survey. This survey was taken at the beginning of this calendar year during a time that was well after the news broke that Paul McBeth would be sponsored by Discraft and Ricky Wysocki would be sponsored by Innova. So we decided to ask straight up–Have you thought about purchasing Innova because of the Ricky Wysocki switch? We also asked–Have you thought about purchasing Discraft because of the Paul McBeth switch? Here is how we responded:
Well, if you didn’t know already, Paul McBeth really is the king of disc golf in so many ways. As you can see, just over a third of all survey takers have thought about purchasing Discraft product strictly because Paul McBeth is now throwing their discs during tournament play. And then, as we saw in the favorite disc golfers post, Ricky Wysocki’s change to Innova doesn’t seem to have been as well received. I’ve mentioned this before, but I really think it is because the fans Ricky Wysocki gained over the last few years while he was sponsored by Latitude 64 viewed Innova as more of a rival than the fans of Paul McBeth viewed Discraft. This is a fascinating anomaly in disc golf.
But as the data has proven in multiple ways, we as disc golf consumers care about which brand of discs sponsor our favorite pros, and it influences our buying habits.
One little tidbit of data is especially interesting in this enigma that is the relationship between favorite disc golfers and favorite brands it what I would call the Eric Oakley effect.
Eric Oakley is one of the best touring pros not just at disc golf, but at marketing himself using social media outlets. This makes him an especially valuable team member for any sponsor. His manufacturer sponsor over the last few seasons has been Dynamic Discs, one of the Trilogy brands (Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside).
In the survey we asked survey takers if their favorite brand of discs changed this year, and if they answered yes, we asked who their new favorite brand is now. So we took a look at survey takers who named Eric Oakley as one of their favorite disc golfers. Then of those participants, we looked at which ones changed favorite brands. Of these survey takers, 83% said their new favorite brand was one of the Trilogy brands. We see this trend when looking at other professionals as well, but Eric Oakley seemed to have the strongest influence this year.
However, when asked why they changed favorite brands, survey takers did not cite professional influence at so high a rate:
So if data trends show professional disc golfers making a significant influence on our brand preferences, why did so few cite them as reasons for changing their favorites? In my opinion, I think it is fair to say that perhaps these survey takers tried out discs made by their new favorite brands because of the influence of their favorite professional disc golfers, and they stuck around for reasons like the feel and flight of their discs. As was previously mentioned, nearly 33% of all survey takers said they would consider throwing Discraft discs just because of Paul McBeth–before Paul had even thrown a Discraft disc in tournament play!
Of course, this leads to the question–for those who changed their favorite brands, which manufacturer was their new favorite? Well first of all, it is important to note that only 20.76% of all survey takers said that their favorite brand changed during the last year. So for the most part, disc golfers stayed true to their previous favorites. But let’s look at which brands that 20% chose as their new favorites:
Remember that Eric Oakley effect I talked about? We can definitely see that influence carried over here. You could also argue from these results that the McBeth effect is so strong that he doesn’t even have to throw a disc to make people change their favorite manufacturer.
We also asked survey takers if they could only throw discs made by one manufacturer, which would they choose? For this question, we put together different brands made by the same manufacturer. Here are the overall results:
IF YOU COULD ONLY USE DISCS MADE BY ONE MANUFACTURER, WHICH WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
I think a lot of this comes down to selection. If you look at how many discs are available from each of these manufacturers, it pretty much coincides with these results. But it is significant that almost half of all disc golfers who took the survey would choose to only throw discs made in an Innova factory if they had to make that choice. All other manufacturers were selected by less than 1% of survey takers.
This leads us to what I believe is the ultimate indicator of our true brand preferences. We can claim certain brands as our favorites, but which brands are we actually throwing and including in our disc golf bags? Let’s look:
I don’t think that Innova being the most popular is too big of a surprise, but over 80% of survey takers having at least one Innova disc in their bag is a bit surprising to me. It just goes to show how dominant their influence has been in the disc golf world over the years. I also was a little surprised to see that Discraft was number two. I would have predicted Latitude 64 to be the number two. Which means I was also surprised to see that Dynamic Discs was higher than Latitude 64.
That being said, it is important to note that the question just asks which brand of discs are in our bag. So if a survey taker has only one disc of a certain brand (like the extremely popular Discraft Buzzz) then they would include that brand in their response.
The trilogy brands together were the third, fourth, and fifth most popular brands. For a long time Latitude 64 was the only of the three that had a “complete” lineup, so they were always the most popular. However, both Dynamic and Westside Discs have released more and more discs giving players–especially those loyal to Trilogy–more options.
Looking further down the chart it looks like things shook out as expected. I was a little surprised at how low Prodigy was considering it wasn’t that long ago that they took the disc golf world by storm and had a large team of professional disc golfers. But Prodigy has been a little more aggressive this year with newer molds being added to their lineup like the recently hyped D2 Max. It will be interesting to see if they can get these new molds into the bags of disc golfers.
So we have thrown together several charts and lists here today, but what does it mean? No, I’m really asking, what do you think it all means? Let us know in the comments what you think of this data and what it says about our current state of disc golf!
In today’s State of Disc Golf article we are taking a look at a new topic that was on our survey for the first time this year. What motivates us to play disc golf–specifically, is exercise part of what motivates us? Do we view disc golf as an exercise activity? This topic is especially interesting when we talk about disc golf transitioning from a casual “game” that friends play in a park to a “sport” played by professional athletes.
Do we view disc golf as more of a “game” or a “sport?” While we didn’t ask that last question specifically, I think how we view disc golf as exercise will shed some insight on that as well. So let’s take a look at the data!
How much is exercise a motivating factor in your disc golf play?
Biggest Motivating Factor–5.12%
Important Motivating Factor–48.53%
Slight Motivating Factor–35.66%
Not a Motivating Factor–9.63%
N/A (didn’t answer question)–1.05%
I don’t think there are too many surprises here, but it is interesting that over half of us view exercise as at least an important factor in why we play. Again, this is the first year we asked this question, so I can only assume, but I’d imagine as disc golf grows as a sport, more and more people will view exercise as an important motivating factor.
But how far would we take that view of disc golf as exercise?
There have recently been new exercise equipment hitting the market that are designed to improve your disc golf game, to strengthen you and to help prevent injury. But would we even consider using such equipment? We asked you in our survey, and here were your responses:
Would you consider exercise equipment to improve your disc golf game?
Yes–48.58%
No–18.13%
Maybe–32.85%
N/A (didn’t answer)–0.44%
Now in hindsight, maybe a better way to word that question would have been to specifically question our willingness to purchase this type of equipment. Because I know at least for myself, if you ask me if I’d be willing to try something new, I’ll probably say yes. But if you ask me if I will buy that something new…maybe not. But either way, I think it is significant that nearly half of survey takers would consider this type of equipment. We as disc golfers are always looking for ways to improve our game, so why wouldn’t we be willing to give equipment like this a try?
What disc golf exercise equipment is there? Well for a long time Gateway has made Training Wizards, which are simply heavy weighted versions of their Wizard putters. While these are unique discs, their legitimacy as a training/exercise tool for disc golf has been questioned.
But a new piece of equipment that has grown in popularity is the ProPull Disc Golf Trainer. The ProPull is basically a resistance band training set that features an attached disc that allows players to practice their disc golf form while building their strength. The ProPull is a pretty revolutionary item when it comes to disc golf training equipment, and it will be interesting to see if similar products are developed over the next few years. The ProPull Disc Golf Trainer is available at Infinite Discs.
So do you view disc golf as a form of exercise?
Do you think that influences how you view disc golf as a “game” or a “sport?” And have you used any exercise equipment like the ProPull? How has it affected the game? We’d love you hear your experiences. Let us know in the comments!
I loved writing this topic about The 2019 State of Disc Golf Growth because I myself am new to the sport of disc golf. I have heard of disc golf before, but never actually had gone out and played disc golf. I decided to see how the sport has grown from 2018 to 2019. As a newcomer to the sport, I think this article was helpful to me to know what I can do as a new disc golf player to help generate more popularity for disc golf brands and for the sport.
Most of us are familiar with the popular hashtag #GrowDiscGolf).
The shared belief behind the rallying cry began with the first disc golf pioneers and became an integral part of the sport’s very personality as it spread to the next generation of new players, and then the next. The conviction that we have a duty to share the sport is encoded in the DNA of every die-hard player and has been for decades, long before the advent of social media.
The 2019 State of Disc Golf survey asked several questions that sought to measure and identify the details of this most singular aspect of the sport – a topic which is finally attracting some well-deserved attention. Disc golf’s continuous and quick growth is obvious as we had more responses than the year before. Disc golfers across the globe are doing their part to grow the sport and with an increase of almost 10% in responses in our survey, you let us know what you’re doing to grow disc golf.
GROWTH
In just the past three years we saw that nearly 14% of respondents had heard about disc golf for the first time. Compare that to when respondents actually played disc golf for the first time and that number is up to over 53%! We did see a slight dip in growth from 2017 (19.2%) to 2018 (17.4%).
Our survey also showed that disc golfers are doing an amazing job at sharing the sport with others. 85% of our disc golfers have shared equipment, ran a disc golf league, or helped install a course physically. Last year, this number was at 88%, so again a slight dip in growth, but players are doing an amazing job at sharing the sport with their friends and family.
DISC GOLF COURSES
Disc Golfers still have trouble growing the sport because the lack of courses available made to us. In our survey 63% said there were no permanent courses added to their area, and 30% said only one course was added to their local area. The number of courses added from last year to this year in our survey dropped about 10%! There is still growth being made but with well over half our respondents not having a new course built in their area means there’s still room to grow.
Most of our disc golfers do have access to multiple courses. 63% of our respondents said they have between 3-6 courses in their local area. The lack of new courses built
could help explain why disc golf didn’t grow as much in 2018 as in 2017. What improvements do you all want to see in the growth of the sport in the year 2019? What are you going to do to continue to help Grow Disc Golf? Comment below and let us know.
What improvements do you all want to see in the growth of the sport in the year 2019? What are you going to do to continue to help Grow Disc Golf?
The 2019 disc golf season has arrived! We have already had a few exciting events and we are looking forward to watching the rest of the Waco Annual Charity Open this weekend. That means it is time to start analyzing the data we got back from our annual State of Disc Golf survey. Around this time last year I wrote an article breaking down who our favorite professional disc golfers are and why. There were a few surprises last year, and with all of the sponsorship changes that happened this offseason it will be interesting to see how we responded to the survey this year.
First of all, let’s take a look at how many of us actually follow professional disc golf. According to the state of disc golf survey, 79.4% of us said that we follow professional disc golf. That is a slight increase from the 77.6% from last year. Professional disc golf is growing, but so is disc golf in general, and I always find it encouraging for our sport that there is still a significant amount of disc golfers who care enough about the sport to fill out an online survey but still don’t take the time to follow professional disc golf.
But for those of us who do follow professional disc golf, who are our favorite disc golfers? In the survey we allowed multiple answers. We had thousands of survey takers, and not everyone has perfect spelling or like to use full names of their favorite disc golfers. But I did my best to try and make sure all of them were counted for this post. Again, we had well over 50 different disc golfers named as favorites, but here is the top 10 breakdown:
Our Favorite Disc Golfers
Paul McBeth–27.92%
Nathan Sexton–21.76%
Simon Lizotte–21.37%
Ricky Wysocki–9.97%
Paige Pierce–9.96%
Eagle McMahon–9.94%
Gregg Barsby–9.22%
James Conrad–7.76%
Paige Bjerkaas–5.35%
Jeremy Koling–4.41%
So I think there is one clear surprise here, and that is Ricky Wysocki being named as a favorite by less than 10% of disc golfers who took our survey that follow disc golf. I was shocked when my data analysis came back with this result. I double and triple checked and tried all sorts of crazy spellings for his name, but this is what it came back with every time. Last year he was the third most favorite disc golfer of survey takers with over 20% of survey takers naming him as a favorite. What could have caused such a drop? We will get to more of that in a bit.
Paul McBeth was once again the most favorite with about a 2.5% increase from last year. Gregg Barsby also saw a similar increase after winning his first world championship last year. Paige Bjerkaas is the only newcomer to the top 10 after she also won her first world championship. Paige Pierce also saw a significant decrease in her percentage from this year to last year (about 5%).
Now, why did we choose these disc golfers as our favorites? Like last year, in the survey we were given five options: Attitude, Abilities as a Disc Golfer, Personality, Personal Interaction, and The Brand They Represent. We could choose all of these that applied. Here is what we said:
Why we Chose our Favorite Disc Golfers
Abilities as a Disc Golfer—86.04%
Attitude—82.61%
Personality—84.25%
Personal Interaction—37.78%
The Brand They Represent—16.70%
When we compare the top four cited reasons to last year, they are all within a couple percentage points of each other.
In fact, the Personal Interaction ended up with the exact same percentage. But that final reason is where things change. That reason is The Brand They Represent, which might be confusing in other sports, but those who follow disc golf know this means who their disc manufacturer sponsor is. Last year just shy of a quarter of survey takers (24.49%) said that this influenced who they chose as their favorite disc golfers. But this year that dropped by just shy of 8%. What caused this decrease?
I have some opinions, but first let’s look at a couple of crucial facts. Paul McBeth is now sponsored by Discraft after years with Innova as a sponsor. Ricky Wysocki is now sponsored by Innova after years with Latitude 64. So what happens when we take those facts and mix them with the two biggest changes/facts from our survey today: A lower percentage of disc golfers named Ricky Wysocki as one of their favorite disc golfers, and a lower percentage of disc golfers said that they brand their favorite disc golfers represent influenced their choice in favorite disc golfers?
Well, first there is Paul McBeth. His popularity increased by about 2% after a pretty good season overall and then announcing a change in sponsorship to Discraft. A few years ago this kind of move may have upset the Innova fanboys because Discraft was the only other big sponsorship team, but the Trilogy brands (Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside Discs) have taken that spot as Innova’s rival. For more context, I wrote a recent article about the recent influx in disc golf sponsorship teams and how it has influenced our disc golf culture.
Now obviously we are getting into the opinion side of interpreting these facts, but when we look at just Paul McBeth, there is a simple conclusion you could draw. It would be easy enough to say that with McBeth changing sponsorships, those who had previously cited his Innova sponsorship as a reason that he was one of their favorite pros just didn’t cite that as a reason that he was a favorite this time. Because obviously, a favorite professional athlete in any sport changing the equipment they use would never influence their fan base right??? Well, this isn’t just any sport, this is disc golf, and apparently we care about that kind of stuff (again, I refer to my previous article.)
This takes us back to Ricky Wysocki and his decreased popularity. Now, to be fair, this was also the first year that Ricky didn’t win a world championship in a couple years, and he wasn’t as dominant in other events as he had previously been. So some of that decrease may have been because he didn’t play as well as the previous year. I would argue that McBeth’s increasing popularity negates that argument, but it is worth considering. But, again, what are the two biggest changes in data from last year to this year? The percentage of disc golfers who named Ricky as a favorite decreased by over 10%, and survey takers who cited the brand their favorite disc golfers represent decreased by about 8%.
I really wish we had a way to know how many of the people who said Ricky was one of their favorites didn’t name him as one of their favorites this year. But like I cited earlier, Innova and the Trilogy brands have become a bit of a rivalry while Paul McBeth and Ricky Wysocki have become rivals out on the disc golf course. So when Ricky announced Innova as his new disc manufacture sponsor, the Trilogy fanboys may have seen this as him joining the enemy. But wouldn’t such a decrease in those who cited brand representation as a reason for choosing their favorite disc golfers mean that it would be the last reason Ricky’s popularity decreased? In my opinion, it is the opposite. The question asks why you chose the disc golfers you named as your favorite, not why you didn’t choose the other disc golfers.
And I think this bit of data supports my theory. This year, of the survey takers who named Ricky as one of their favorite disc golfers, 14.67% of them cited the brand they represent as one of the reasons they chose their favorite pros. Running the numbers from last year shows that same percentage at 27.80%. So Ricky as a favorite disc golfer decreased by just over 10%, and the percentage of disc golfers who named him as a favorite and cited the brand their favorite disc golfers represent decreased by over 13%. My simple interpretation–he lost the Trilogy brand loyalists.
Our disc golf culture is fascinating isn’t it? Imagine Tiger Woods losing half of his fans because he changed the brand of clubs he played with. It just wouldn’t happen.
But let’s not forget, there was an overall significant decrease in how many people said that the brand their favorite disc golfers represent influence who their favorites are. I think that Paul and Ricky changing sponsors influenced that, and as the game grows and sponsorships change, I think we will continue to see that percentage decrease over the coming years as well.
So what do you think? Were there any other surprises that I failed to talk about? Am I taking this team culture thing too far? Let us know what you think in the comments!
Infinite Discs conducted its annual survey of disc golfers in the beginning of 2019 so that we could once again take a look at the growth and opinions held by those who play disc golf. It is always fun to see the changing trends and to weight the opinions of a large group of players. Infinite Discs has been conducting the survey since 2014 and as always, we thank those of you who contributed.
While some of the basic information that we asked, like gender, employment, location, etc. may only be marginally interesting on their own, those answers also help to analyze more interesting data from the other questions. We will continue to publish those results and analysis in the coming weeks. For now, here are the basics…
6542 Disc Golfers Participated in the Survey This Year
Of those surveyed, 93.6% were male, 5.9% were female, and the remaining .5% did not specify gender. That result is virtually identical with the 2018 results, showing no change in the balance of male vs female players who took the survey. While that may not translate exactly into the percentage of total players (these are simply survey participants), it does represent a continued disparity between males and females involved in the sport.
Married vs Single
The majority of players who took the survey this year are married or with a domestic partner while 35% are single and 5% or divorced, separated, or widowed.
Age of Survey Participants
While it appears that the bulk of disc golfers still fall in the age range from 29 to 50, we must also consider that few youth would know about or participate in a lengthy disc golf survey. It would still be nice to see the numbers grow in that younger age group below 18-years-old. There is a lot of growth potential in the junior high and high school age groups.
Employment Status
While there were some different “other” responses in the survey which specified occupations like bartender, caretaker, lawyer, frolfer, professional disc golfer, none of your business, etc., most responses fell into the basic categories indicated in the chart. We see that 76.2% of those surveyed are employed for wages, while 8.9% are self-employed, 7.4% are students, and 3% are retired with the remaining falling in other categories. I supposed it is great news that the unemployed percentage dropped from 2.5% in the 2018 survey to 1.7% in 2019’s survey. The number of retired players also increased from 2.3% last year to 3% this year.
Most Popular States
We will reiterate that these results are drawn from those who participated in the survey. While it may not represent the entire disc golf scene, it gives a pretty nice snapshot of where there are more disc golfers. Plus, we realize that our survey is not shared nearly as much outside the USA.
For those of you who like a “heat map” of where survey participants live, here is map of the USA where the darker the state is shaded, the more people participated in the 2019 State of Disc Golf Survey. The lighter shaded states had fewer participants:
We also had a very healthy number of survey participants from Canada, Europe and Scandinavia. There was one survey participant from Africa.
Watch this blog for more 2019 State of Disc Golf Survey results!
First of all, let’s take a look at how many of us actually follow professional disc golf. According to the state of disc golf survey, 79.4% of us said that we follow professional disc golf. That is a slight increase from the 77.6% from last year. Professional disc golf is growing, but so is disc golf in general, and I always find it encouraging for our sport that there is still a significant amount of disc golfers who care enough about the sport to fill out an online survey but still don’t take the time to follow professional disc golf.
