The Growing Sport of Disc Golf

Disc Golf has always been a very niche sport, and was mostly only know in smaller pockets throughout various parts of the United States. But this sport has seen a rapid change in popularity over the past 10-15 years, as many more high school aged kids are finding out about the sport and pushing it's popularity. Granted most of these high school kids will only play casually, as more of a hang out type of thing than an actual competition, as there are only about 20,000 registered pro players worldwide but over 2 million participants who play casually! Even though most of these recently acquired players won't ever play professionally, it still does wonders for the growth of the sport as their exposure alone is invaluable.

But disc golf is also growing at the international level as well, the game has been thriving in the UK recently and is expanding all over Europe with courses in most of western Europe including Germany, France and Italy. The game has also seen huge leaps in other nontraditional locations such as South Korea and Japan, both of whom have just started up pro competitions and actual governing bodies as well. Then just recently, another big break through happened in the sport of disc golf as it was announced that Perth, Australia would hold the first ever pro disc golf tournament in the Southern Hemisphere, signaling a massive growth worldwide of the game in recent years, with no signs of slowing down whatsoever. The number of disc golf courses doubled worldwide in the past decade, and now over 40 countries in the world have at least 1 disc golf course. Over 150 participants from around the world will compete in this tournament in Perth, including top players from the USA and Europe.

This is truly a huge achievement for the sport of disc golf, who for the better part of 40 years struggled to get any mainstream attention even within the United States let alone the rest of the world and it is a testament to the determination of the grass routes efforts and playability of this great sport over time.