Tag: bag preferences

State of Disc Golf 2020 – How Do We Carry Our Discs?

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How Do We Carry Our Discs?

It’s time for our look at how we carry our discs in 2020! We’ve asked this question in several surveys past, so we’ll have some good data to compare. For this data, we’ve broken down the results into five main categories: Backpack Bags, Disc Golf Carts, Small Bag, Large Tournament Style Bag, and Miscellaneous Bags (usually homemade or not made for disc golf).

2020 Survey Results

Backpack Bags take the cake with over 51.03% of people saying they use one. Disc Golf Carts took a close second place, at 18.62%, with Small bags being surprisingly high, at 18.4%. Large Tournament Style Bags only represent 8.3% of the results, with the last 3.65% being miscellaneous bags.

Let’s break it down! Backpack Bags being so heavily used is not a huge surprise. Most people at the disc golf course are using backpack bags these days. They are widely available and come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. Even a beginner can afford a cheaper backpack bag, so many people are skipping over the Tournament Style Bag, which used to be a hot commodity.

Small Bags take a surprising 3rd place. But maybe it’s not so surprising with how many new players are taking up the sport. Most people are starting with a $15 – $20 starter bag and then upgrading once they have enough discs to warrant it. We think those upgrades are going directly to backpack bags. More on bag upgrades/replacements later.

Bags Over the Years

Let’s take a look at the trends over the years. We have data from 2020, 2018, 2017, and 2015 to show the trends. Let’s take a look:

 

Let’s look at the first takeaway- the decline of the Tournament Bag. Back in 2015, Tournament Bags were all the rage, taking up at least a third of the market. Over the years these bags have been used less and less, till now when Tournament Bags are only used by around 8% of people.

Small Bags have declined over the past few years, until this year. They made a big jump in the 2020 Survey. This is likely due to more and more new players getting into the sport. Some people, may also have opted to simplify their bag.

Disc Golf Carts have been raising in popularity ever since their introduction. ZUCA takes the majority share of Disc Golf Carts, offering them not only as ZUCA branded carts, but Dynamic Discs branded as well. More and more players are opting for carts now.

Backpack Bags steadily increased over the past years, and dipped a little bit this year. Backpack Bags seem to be the staple of Disc Golf Bags, so we don’t foresee them dropping off the charts anytime soon.

Replacing Our Bags/Carts

In the 2020 Survey, we asked people how many times they had replaced their bag/cart in the last 10 years. Let’s see the results:

The chart starts off with those people who have never replaced their bag. Quite a lot!

We were surprised at how many people stayed loyal to one bag over the course of 10 years. But, when you pit the people who replaced bags against the people who haven’t, it looks like the graph to the right. 32% of people did not replace their bag in the last 10 years.

Back to the upper chart- it seems like a perfect decline in people who replaced their bag multiple times. With each replacement, the number of people dropped, until 8+ times, a few bag-crazy people took it up just a notch on the chart. Where do you stand on the chart? What’s your preferred bag? Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for joining us on this State of Disc Golf 2020 article. Stay tuned for more data!

 

 

State of Disc Golf 2018 – How We Carry Our Discs

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The State of Discgolf Survey has been tracking the trends in disc golf bags and the different ways that we carry our discs around the course. The trends leaned from traditional shoulder bags to a strong surge in backpacks, and has been moving steadily toward carts for the last couple of years. Here is a look at the survey results for 2018.

By far, the most popular way of transporting discs around the course is by using disc golf backpacks. Disc Golf Carts have now moved strongly into 2nd place, pushing aside the large bags (with and without shoulder straps). The small shoulder-strap bags still have the edge over large bags with shoulder straps. Here is what the results looked like in 2017:

Where disc golf carts used to be 4th place at 8.6% of survey participants, carts are now 2nd place at 15.47% of survey participants. The percentage of small bag users has dropped from 2017 to 2018 but still remains a good portion of players that prefer to travel light.

It appears the the trend is generally away from larger should-strap bags (even with added straps for backpack-style carrying) and toward either backpacks or carts, with small bags holding ground.

Going back to the 2015 survey, large disc golf shoulder bags accounted for 34.4% of those surveyed. That percentage has been cut to a third in 2018 with a total of 11.87% using large bags with or without straps. Disc Golf Carts were not included separately in the survey in 2015 and would have fallen into the “other” category which amounted to less than 3%. Carts are definitely an exploding part of the market.

To get in on the latest trends check out these links for ideas on getting the best disc golf bags or carts:

 

How We Carry Our Discs – 2017 State of Disc Golf Results

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There are many ways to carry disc golf discs around. It’s not uncommon to see recreational disc golfers simply carrying around a disc or two in their hands. Many diehards use carts or strollers where they can wheel around dozens of discs at a time. In the 2017 State of Disc Golf survey we asked, “What kind of disc golf bag/cart do you predominately use?”

The majority of surveyed disc golfers use some sort of backpack bag. The backpack has been the trendy way to carry around discs over the past half decade, and with the recent addition of the more affordable backpacks like the Prodigy BP3 and Dynamic Discs Sniper, we expect this trend to continue to rise.

For the recreational disc golfer, the single strap “starter bag” is still an adequate way to carry more than a handful of discs along with a water bottle, keys, phone and other on the course necessities. Small disc golf bags with a single shoulder strap had the second greatest share at 13.7%.

In addition to the increased popularity, the share of disc golf carts, especially among tournament players, is on the rise. 8.6% of surveyed disc golfers said that they primarily use a cart. Go to any PDGA sanctioned tournament and the percentage of cart users is substantially higher. When we ran the survey in 2015 disc golf carts were not even an option.

Over the last two years the biggest decline in disc golf carrying is the “Large Disc Golf Bag.” In the 2015 survey, 34.3% of those surveyed used a large disc golf bag with or without shoulder straps. Almost half as many (16.8%) primarily use a large disc golf bag according to the 2017 survey.