The best of the best.
February 10, 2025 by Douglas Tyas in Analysis
We love professional disc golf for the players, the shots, and the competition, but this article is going to address the backdrop of the sport: the courses. Sure, players are what drive us as fans to watch an event on any given weekend, but the course defines the shots required, the danger present, and the environment surrounding the event.
The course being played is the 2nd most important factor in respondents choosing to watch an event. Over half of respondents said it was in their Top 3 most important factors, with ~12% saying it was the #1 determining factor.
We asked survey respondents two course related questions:
- What are your favorite three courses on tour?
- How much do you enjoy watching professionals play on courses of the following type[s]: Wooded, Open/Golf, and Park Style (mix of open and wooded)?
In total, over 4,300 respondents answered with their favorite courses, and over 5,400 answered with their opinions on types of courses. If you would like to learn more about the survey and the demographics of the respondents, please read this accompanying article.
Graph of course favorite votes top 3
- For the second year in a row, Maple Hill takes the #1 spot, with 65% of the respondents picking it as one of their three favorite courses. 29% of respondents picked it as their #1, with three times more #1 votes than any other course.
- Amazingly, Maple Hill had more responses identifying “This is my favorite course” than any other course has “This is in my Top-3 favorite.”
- The second most popular course on tour in 2024 was Northwood Black, both in total #1 and total Top-3 votes. In 2023, Northwood was ranked third, just one vote behind WR Jackson (which was not on tour in 2024).
- The third most popular course was Krokhol, with 23% of respondents identifying the course in their Top 3, just behind Northwood Black. However, both Northwood and Krokhol tied with 410 first place votes! This is clearly a beautiful addition to the Elite Series.
- Compared to the 2023 Fandom Survey, the two largest shifts in respondent opinions were both in the negative direction; 7.7% fewer respondents included Toboggan as a favorite while Nokia dropped 7.6%. Last year, both courses were favorites of approximately 20% of respondents, but have dropped down to 11.2% (Toboggan) and 13.1% (Nokia).
- Nokia Disc Golf Park’s drop may be explained by the fact that there were more European courses identified in this iteration of the survey. In 2023, the only European courses hosting Elite or Major events were Nokia and Øverås (PCS Open). In 2024, seven European courses hosted Elite or Major events, likely splitting up the European respondent vote.
- The largest shift in the positive direction was for Northwood Black, which increased 3.5%, now being a Top-3 favorite for 27% of respondents, the second most popular course on tour. This increase is likely the result of it being featured as the sole MPO course at Champions Cup (2024), compared to previous years where it has been one of three courses featured at Ledgestone.
Graph of European vs American Favorites
- Maple Hill reigns supreme, having the most Top-3 votes from North American respondents, and even among Europeans! However, while it is in a league of its own in North America, Krokhol is in a very close second place among European respondents. When looking at just #1 favorite course votes, Krokhol led Maple Hill in Europe by 4.5%.
- In fact, Krokhol had the largest difference in favoritism between North American and European respondents; 2.7 times more Europeans chose Krokhol as one of their favorites compared to North Americans.
- Among European respondents, there were seven courses that received double digits in total respondent votes; four of these seven were European courses. Krokhol, Nokia, Tampere, and Ymergårdens are all loved across the pond.
- On the other hand, Idlewild is loved far more by North Americans; 3.3 times more Americans chose Idlewild as a favorite compared to Europeans. In fact, Idlewild is the third most popular course on tour among North American respondents!
Graph/Table of favorite course types
This year we took a different approach to analyzing course type preferences. In 2023, we inferred which types of courses were preferred based on the courses that respondents chose as their favorites. However, this year we decided to pose the question directly to the fans:
On a scale of 1-5, how much do you enjoy watching professionals play on courses of the following type[s]: Wooded, Open/Golf, Park Style (mix of open and wooded)?
- We sorted the 32 courses on tour for 2024 into 3 categories. In 2023, our categories were Wooded, Open, and Golf Courses. In this past survey iteration, we reorganized to better reflect the fact that Krokhol DGC is an active ball golf course, but has been designed more like a park style or wooded course.
- Wooded: These courses are at least moderately wooded, having eight or more definitively wooded holes (12 on tour in 2024).
- Park: These are courses that have less than eight wooded holes, but provide more obstacles than on most golf courses venues on tour (13 on tour in 2024).
- Open/Golf Courses: These are ball golf courses with few obstacles, or non-golf courses that have lots of open holes (7 on tour in 2024).
- Wooded courses are LOVED by fans; 91% of respondents enjoyed watching wooded courses (answered 4 or 5), with 63% of respondents answering a 5. Only 2% gave wooded courses a 1 or 2.
- Park Style courses took second place. A respectable 88% of respondents enjoy watching park style courses, but this style is clearly behind wooded courses with only 53% giving park courses a 5. Similarly, less than 2% of respondents gave park style courses a 1 or 2.
- As we saw in the 2023 survey, golf courses are the least enjoyed style of course for fans. Only 33% of fans identified that they enjoy watching golf courses (4 or 5), while 33% of fans said they dislike watching golf courses (1 or 2).
Graph of course favorite votes
- When we graph favorite courses against course types we see the same trend: Wooded and Park style courses are enjoyed, while only the best open/golf courses attract fans.
- Emporia Country Club and Glendoveer East both sit in the top half of favorite courses, with around 5.5% of respondents voting for each. However, it is clear that golf courses are generally failing to impress viewers.
- Despite the fact that we saw 5 more courses on tour in 2024 (32 vs 27 in 2023), there were only 8 open/golf courses on tour compared to 9 in 2023.
- Of the 10 courses to receive double digits, 6 were wooded, 4 were park style, and none were open/golf courses.
What other questions about disc golf courses are you interested in? Let us know using the feedback links below! In the next article in the series we will look into questions related to playing disc golf.
- If you are interested in learning more about the team and research goals at First Available Research, click here!
- If you want to be notified of the publication of future articles in this series and/or want to take future disc golf surveys from our group, click here!
- If you have any questions, comments or mailbag topics for future articles, submit them here!
Special thanks to Jesse Weisz and Josiah Zoodsma, who ran the survey and assisted in writing this piece. Also, thanks go out to the Fandom Survey’s editor, Karl Lamothe.
Please see the full series of 2024 articles by following these links:
- The Survey Itself & Who Took It
- Which Pros Do We Root For and Against
- What Drives Fans to Root for Certain Players?
- How Fans Feel about Disc Manufacturers
- Fan Relation to Discs
- How Fans Feel about Media and Commentators
Links for the 2023 and 2022 Fandom Series articles can be found here.
