Analyzing Other Metrics for Disc Golf Growth
How other metrics correlate with the growth in the number of disc golf participants
In Trends in US Searches for Disc Golf and Trends in Worldwide Searches for Disc Golf, I presented charts showing the trends in Google search volume for terms used for disc golf during 2010 to 2024, both for searches in the US and worldwide. Before analyzing how those trends relate to trends in the growth of disc golf (which, as I mentioned in Part 1, I am interpreting as the number of disc golf participants - i.e., people who have played disc golf in the past year), I want to take a look how other existing metrics might correlate with it.
Three metrics commonly cited as reflective of the growth of disc golf are the number of disc golf courses, the number active PDGA memberships, and the number of rounds recorded on UDisc.
Number of Disc Golf Courses. An increasing number of disc golf courses is, of course, a good thing for disc golf players, but there are a number of reasons for believing that the number of disc golf courses is not highly correlated, particularly in the short-term, with changes in the number of disc golf participants. First, I think most disc golf courses are created due to the passion of a handful of disc golf participants in an area where there is available land for a course, rather than simply due to an increase in the number of active disc golf participants in the area. Second, even if the creation of new disc golf courses was driven by increases in the number of disc golf participants, the amount of time between an increase in the number of participants and the opening of the course would probably be at least several years. Third, because most disc golf courses are public and are playable even if not actively maintained, they are in some ways more like hiking trails than ball golf courses - once created they can exist for a long time even if not actively maintained and are little used. Therefore, a drop-off in the number of disc golf participants would not necessarily result in much of a decline in the number of disc golf courses, at least not years.
Set forth below is a chart showing the number of disc golf courses worldwide from 2010 to 2023, as provided by the PDGA.1
The linear trendline is a good fit for the growth in the number of course worldwide during the time period and shows that about 645 courses were added each year. As expected based on the premise that disc golf creation is not highly responsive to short-term trends in the number of disc golf participants, there was no material change in the rate of disc golf course creation during or immediately after the COVID epidemic despite the widely acknowledged substantial increase in participants during that period.
PDGA Active Memberships. Unlike the number of disc golf courses, the number of PDGA active memberships seems likely to be fairly highly correlated with the number of disc golf participants. Although the PDGA is constantly trying to increase the percentage of disc golf players who are members, it is likely that the percentage of participants who are paying members is fairly stable over time. It is possible, however, that the percentage of active participants who are PDGA members could increase as the number of active participants increases, as an increasing number of active disc golf participants may result in more conveniently located PDGA-sanctioned leagues and tournaments, which may in turn make PDGA membership move attractive. It is also possibly, if not likely, that there is bit of a lag between changes in the number of disc golf participants and the number of PDGA active memberships, since even if a new disc golf participant ultimately joins the PDGA, most would probably not do so until that had been involved in the sport for a while, and if a PDGA member’s participation in a sport declines, it may well take them a while to decide to drop their membership.
Set forth below is a chart showing the number of PDGA active members from 2010 to 2023, the last date for which the number has been published by the PDGA.
The abbreviated linear trendline is a reasonably good fit for the growth in the numbe of PDGA active members from 2010 to 2019, and shows that, during that period, the number of active members grew by about 4,300 per year. Growth then dramatically sped up, with an increase of 18,000 active members from 2019 to 2020, sped up faster still with an increase of 39,000 active members from 2020 to 2021, before slowing down to an increase of 11,000 active members from 2021 to 2022, and slowing down further still to an increase of 6,000 from 2023 to 2023. The number of PDGA active members is likely to have been highly reflective of an increase in disc golf participation as a result of the COVID pandemic.
Rounds Recorded on UDisc. Every February, UDisc publishes its Disc Golf Growth Report, which includes the number of rounds recorded on UDisc in the prior year. Since UDisc is by far the dominant app for recording disc golf rounds, any trends in number of rounds recorded on UDisc might be thought to be representative of trends in the amount of disc golf being played. However, the numbers for the number of rounds recorded on UDisc are highly affected by the percentage of rounds played that are recorded on UDisc. Although UDisc did a statistical analysis in 2020 that estimated that about 20% of all rounds played were recorded on UDisc,2 there is no information on what that percentage was in prior years or later years. However, since obviously the percentage grew from 0% when UDisc was first released in 2011, a very large portion of the increase in the number of rounds recorded on UDisc since 2011 reflects increased usage of UDisc rather than an increase in the number of rounds actually played. In addition, even if the percentage of rounds recorded on UDisc was no longer increasing, in could be affected by other UDisc-specific changes such as a change in subscription pricing. Furthermore, there is probably a lag between an increase in the number of disc golf participants and an increase in rounds recorded on UDisc, since it probably takes most new disc golf participants awhile to start using UDisc after they start playing.
Set forth below is a chart showing the number of rounds record on UDisc from active PDGA members from 2016 to 2023.
The graph shows that the number of rounds recorded went from 1,100,00 rounds in 2016 to 21,900,000 rounds in 2023. That’s about 20x growth. (For comparison, during the period, the number of PDGA active members experienced about 4x growth.) It is highly likely that most of the increase in the number of rounds recorded on UDisc from 2016 to 2023 represented an increase in the percentage of rounds played that were recorded on UDisc rather than an increase in the amount of disc golf being played or an increase in the number of disc golf participants.
Having evaluated the mostly cited metrics for disc golf growth, in the next post, I analyze whether and how trends in the volume of Google searches that included terms for disc golf relate to trends in the growth of disc golf.
The number of courses in any year are from the 2016 PDGA and Disc Golf Demographics Report and the 2023 Year End Demographics Report. I did not use UDisc’s numbers for the number of courses, which are published in February in their annual Growth Report, because UDisc’s numbers are based on the number of courses listed on UDisc and, thus, to some extent, reflect increases in adoption of UDisc rather than an increase in the number of courses. Jared Borislow, “Just How Many Disc Golf Courses Are There in the World?”, udisc.com, Jan 10, 2024.