That's what they say... I've spent time in many European countries and I have to say that disc golf is barely even in its infancy over there (except perhaps Finno-Scandia, I've not been there yet...going next year!). I know they'd like to grow the sport there, but it is only really growing fast in 2 countries (Sweden and Finland), and not diffusing to the south any faster than a snail would slither around the Baltic Sea.
Check out France, a country slightly bigger than Texas (and 3X the population) with...3-ish barely passable courses in all? Sheesh, they have such an incredibly long climb to go! Switzerland is maybe the most dense in southern Europe, but again only a couple passable courses in public park space. In Austria the disc golf association there told me they only have a few object courses that were open for 2-3 hours per week, and some of these were being eliminated! A buddy of mine played in Britain and said that they were amazed when he threw over 250' in their boggy courses...he had fun, but reported they were also just in the infancy of disc golf.
So most Europe is about where the US was with disc golf development about 40 years ago. Almost nobody has heard of it (even among alternative sport enthusiasts), 99.99999% of people would have to travel a minimum of 4-5 hours by train to get anywhere close to a passable quality course, and the pace of growth is maddeningly slow.
Compare with the US, where the number of courses has skyrocketed over the past decade, almost a 10X increase in the density of courses in a decade, which is amazing! Few people anywhere in the US need to travel more than 1 hour to gain access to a passable course, and most people live in urban centers where there are many fine courses and large communities of disc golfers. Some have even argued that the sport is out-growing the PDGA, which might be true in some ways.
And Innova/PDGA claims Europe is ready to go "big time" and alternate with an event like the USDGC? I don't buy it. I think those of them who have traveled over there to experience disc golf were going to big events in Finno-Scandia and all the players and interested public in the entire continent came out of the woodwork, giving a false impression that disc golf is going "big time" in Europe. They can't have traveled around randomly in Europe, looking for disc golf opportunities and having their hopes dashed over and over and over again at every turn (even when a course is listed, it isn't necessarily in existence, or upkept, or even open longer than a couple hours a week).
