The number of disc golf player has declined, by a large number.....

[Nick Pacific]

Confirm here, too. Club membership this year is 136% of what it was in 2022, our highest year ever. Course play, according to UDisc, is on pace to be 125% of last year's total.

To comments that there's a ton of plastic on the shelves, I'm curious at the amount of plastic being produced now compared to, say, 2019.

I think many are simply overlooking the impact of inflationary forces and the economic slowdown over the last year, coupled with the sheer amount of government stimulus that was showered on Americans in 2020 that has long since run out.

People had a lot more discretionary income in 2020, and bought a lot of plastic. Today, not so much. Irrespective of that, the amount of newer players has not stopped or slowed. I'd just say they are a little bit more cash strapped than they were, say 3 or 4 years ago. Newbies are still buying starter packs, but I'd say less of them are buying Zuca carts and stacks of premium plastic as their second purchases, and probably a lot more are raiding the used bin at PIAS.

 

[txmxer]

Thanks for the judgement but, I believe you've read TOO far into my post and incorrectly assumed i was frustrated with questions. I actually typed "continually surprised" instead of frustrated. IMO there's a difference.

I've been a TD for 14 years. My 65th PDGA event is in August. I always ask around before, during and after events to see if players notice anything I've missed or they have ideas to improve events. I'm not a "develop a tolerance" guy. I'm more of a "seek out and fix it" guy.
I'm at the point where my events sellout in minutes and sometimes seconds, not hours/days/weeks. So i must be doing something right.

The questions i was referring to are ones that the rules book had answered in the past, which tells me that new players are not "digesting" the rules enough, are too lazy to look it up OR not read thru it in its entirety. I'll admit that some rules are written confusing but that discussion is for another thread.

BTW, the post you quoted(54) was a continuation of the one above it(53). Got timed out during an edit.

Apologies. Mine was a crappy response. Think I was having a bad day.

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

Apologies. Mine was a crappy response. Think I was having a bad day.

Accepted. We all have 'em once in a while

 

[Dcinmd]

PDGA board of direction published the latest membership numbers from May's meeting on Monday.

While the growth is still increasing, by huge margins prior to Covid, it definitely slowed down a bit from 21 and 22.

https://www.pdga.com/files/2023-5-9_bodmeetingminutes_final.pdf

YTD growth
2021 81.8%
2022 26.2%
2023 9.6%

YTD retention
2021 82.8%
2022 74.6%
2023 71.5%

 

[BuiltTooLong]

Pre-pandemic, the PIAS about a mile from where I work had only one skillshot basket of used discs, and even then it was rarely more than half full. These days they have two roughly 48"x36"x18" crates in addition to the skillshot, and they're all overflowing, as well as full bins of new discs and misstamps/factory seconds.

They've been running a 25% off the lowest sticker price sale on '22 Trilogy, Discraft, Prodigy, and MVP signature series/tour discs since mid-May, and they're having trouble moving them. (Albert Tamm Opto-X Ballista Pros for $17 and Vinny Halo Destroyers for $18, anyone? Anyone? Guess not.)

But, hey, I'm sure the owner will be glad to hear that not being able to move discs isn't an indicator of demand.

Titan here in Iowa, sells their Halo plastic for $28 a pop and can't keep them on the shelves.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I think I remember reading earlier this spring that Larry LaBond's K'Aces league here in town has over 400 members for the first time ever this year. There's almost no room to park at VIRA on Mondays, and it's usually packed like that the other nights at the other courses too.

As far as PDGA membership goes, I joined in the 22nd year of the organization's history and my number is in the 14,000 range. Even if it were to fall off a little due to the Covid bubble bursting recently, it's still gangbusters compared to 1998, which in my mind is like last week and was a modern year. It sure doesn't take 22 years for 14,000 people to join today. What's the problem again?

 

[Dontthrowrocs]

At least from a competition standpoint, a different model is needed to retain competitive players over 40.

Maybe have less tournaments where the fastest keyboard gets to register

Also let non members play b tiers again for the ten dollar fee.

Some of us 40+ ers have jobs and families now

 

[ChrisWoj]

My local course, based on UDisc numbers, is way beyond where it was pre-pandemic. I'm sure part of it is general adoption of UDisc but...

Well looking at years prior to the pandemic we rarely had double digit unique players in the winter months, for example... it was actually a pretty good jump to go to 11 unique players and 20 unique players in January/February 2020 immediately prior to the pandemic. Prior to 2016 we had no recorded users of UDisc in January/February (2013-2015). From 2016 to 2020 the average was 5.2 users (Jan) and 9.2 users (Feb). From 2021-2023 those numbers were 61.0 (January) and 63.3 (February).

From 2013 through the start of the pandemic the peak month for unique users of UDisc at Ottawa Park was 46 in August 2019. That was eclipsed the first month of shutdowns in March 2020 with 51 unique users. Since that point the only months with fewer unique UDisc users than the pre-pandemic peak were April 2020 (43) and January and February of 2022 (38, 29).

here are the sequential pandemic-era springtimes:

2020
April - 43
May - 67
June - 93

2021
April - 151
May - 138
June - 175

2022
April - 120
May - 146
June - 160

2023
April - 163
May - 191
June - 196

One thing is for sure - usage of UDisc is growing since the start of the pandemic, at least. lol.

An additional note - none of this was driven by the addition of a UDisc sign on the course directing players to use UDisc. The numbers are likely to be skewed as soon as I get that UDisc sign up thats been sitting in my garage for over a year...

 

[Guurn]

Despite my disagreement above, I DO agree that it would be nice if the PDGA did more to help the AM game. IMO, they could start by dumping the entire PRO side.

It was never the only course directory and never the best directory. It has always been a place for pro/am events. Normally not the only place but usually the primary place. These days it's the place for Pro events and sanctioned Am events. I'd argue it isn't even the primary place for events overall, that would probably be UDisc. It isn't the primary place for information about the sport, that would probably be this place and Youtube.

As far as declining numbers it's really just their own issue. I used to sign up occasionally just to support them. In the back of my head I knew that the over/under for value was around 4-5 events. Eventually as the price hiked up higher than other sports I did I just dropped it. If it was around $35 I'd probably sign up every year just to support them. I suspect many people would. Then the numbers would probably jump for them overall and they could make a better argument when trying to convince sponsors when vying for their dollars.

 

[glassila]

One thing is for sure - usage of UDisc is growing since the start of the pandemic, at least. lol.

An additional note - none of this was driven by the addition of a UDisc sign on the course directing players to use UDisc. The numbers are likely to be skewed as soon as I get that UDisc sign up thats been sitting in my garage for over a year...

I gotta believe that anyone playing regularly (once a week or more) knows what UDisc is. I doubt if adding the UDisc sign will result in a noticible rise in numbers.

I believe there are probably a lot of people who don't have the app because they always play with friends who do and have no reason to get it themselves.

 

[ChrisWoj]

I gotta believe that anyone playing regularly (once a week or more) knows what UDisc is. I doubt if adding the UDisc sign will result in a noticible rise in numbers.

I believe there are probably a lot of people who don't have the app because they always play with friends who do and have no reason to get it themselves.

The course is situated immediately off of off-campus college rental houses. Trust me when I say we've still got a lot of unaware three-discers out there. The boost might be seasonal, but I think it'll be present.

 

[BillFleming]

I gotta believe that anyone playing regularly (once a week or more) knows what UDisc is. I doubt if adding the UDisc sign will result in a noticible rise in numbers.

I believe there are probably a lot of people who don't have the app because they always play with friends who do and have no reason to get it themselves.

Not so. We have a couple of courses with uDisc signs (they also have that code you can scan with your phone to get the app). I've seen a few players scan the code to get the app. I've also played with a few players who were not aware of what uDisc was or its purpose in disc golf.

 

[ballgolfconvert]

All i have to add to all of this, is if you don't want to spend the money on PDGA membership then donate it to your local club. Tournaments are generally how the local clubs are funded and without the local clubs there wouldn't be much disc golf available and what would be available would be of much lesser quality.

 

[DanJon]

This thread reminds me of the WW2 Planes Survivorship Bias example.

Looking at the PDGA and UDisc for the level of disc golf players is biased and does not reflect the actual amount of disc golfers.

I go to a local friendly Friday league at a really easy course.

That league is packed and most of those guys have never heard of UDisc and will never be PDGA members.

Yet, they show up every Friday and pay $10 to play an organized round of disc golf.

I was recently at our best local course on July 4th and the place was packed.

The majority of those players were not PDGA members and have never had a subscription to UDisc.

 

[Plastic Thunder]

Stores in North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Plus what I was normally moving. The Florida store I was handling inventory issues as a favor to the owner since I had some free time and he needed the help. I keep a place down there and I was tired of fishing and hog hunting. Spent 4 days going over past and present months data.

I am retired and I travel a bit and I play everywhere I go. I visit store just to see what they have and we get around to sale numbers at some point. This is what I have seen, where you live may be different. Used discs seem to be doing well, new discs are moving slower. Why buy a new Destroyer if a used one is half the price and beat in already.

Just prior to Christmas there is a slump in most years for many retailers. Shorter days with less time to play. People are beginning to buy gifts, Thanksgiving travel, Then the Christmas bump and then winter hits and things slow down due to cold weather. Late Feb stuff picks up and thing go back to normal.

I sell 2k-3k disc a year and the rhythm of sales is fairly predictable except for 2020 and 2021. Those were crazy sales years. 2022 started nice and then things slowed a fair bit. 2023 is back to near normal.

Again this is what I see you may have a different story in your area.

In case it was overlooked, I asked where you get the specific data you referenced from?

 

[Naenae]

I hope the number of casual chuckers has declined. Not a fan of crowded courses full of people who don't know what they're doing.

Define casual chucker. Then please explain why you have more right to a (almost certainly free) course than they do.

 

[Hampstead]

Define casual chucker. Then please explain why you have more right to a (almost certainly free) course than they do.

If you are a fan of large groups throwing wildly with no idea that another fairway is OB and enjoy waiting while they throw their one disc that they can't control while listening to obnoxiously bad music as you wait, more power to you. Not my scene. I have no more right. I just enjoy people who understand the situation. I play for peaceful relaxation. Call me crazy.

 

[txmxer]

We play early on weekends. Seeing a lot more people showing up in the early hours.

 

[GMcAtee]

I believe casual and local league play will hold strong, and we will continue to see a slow decline in PDGA members. I haven't renewed in two years. I'm not playing tournaments, and can not support the current PDGA "leadership" any longer.

 

[Naenae]

I believe casual and local league play will hold strong, and we will continue to see a slow decline in PDGA members. I haven't renewed in two years. I'm not playing tournaments, and can not support the current PDGA "leadership" any longer.

Because...?