Disc Golf Growth: One million+ rounds played in New Zealand in 2024
In 2019, the world’s most-used scoring app, uDisc, began publishing its Disc Golf Growth Report of national and international playing statistics, broken down by course – and I began recording the numbers for analysis. I’m sure you will find the info’ and graphs below to be quite informative, and will align with your own experience of disc golf.
My expectation was for between 900,000 and 950,000 rounds in 2024, and I am delighted to have been overly conservative in my projection. At least 1,080,000 rounds were played. Year-on-year growth reached 43% in 2024.
South Island vs. North Island The South continues to dominate disc golf in NZ, despite the south having just 1/5th of NZ’s population. When population and participation is analysed, we see 0.65 rounds per person in the south, and just 0.09 rounds per person in the north. And so, the South Island sees 7+ times as much disc golf played, on a per person per year basis.
Vortica believe the disparity is due to the North Island’s lack of Community Courses as we define them in the Course Design section of this website. Destination Courses being installed before Community Courses tend to dampen the uptake of disc golf by punishing and discouraging new players, rather than rewarding and encouraging them, which is a defining characteristic of a Community Course design. Course growth in New Zealand NZ added at least 13 new courses in 2024, while at least two courses were upgraded from 9 to 18-baskets. The prevalence of Community Courses continues to define the general nature of courses in the South Island.
Vortica’s market share With our skill at creating course designs which cause players to return again and again, it should come as no surprise Vortica dominate the market, with 33.5% of all rounds played in NZ, or over 362,000 rounds played in 2024. This represents a 49% increase from 2023, and a full mandate to continue our successful strategy. We are now working on our 24th and 25th disc golf course projects. The playing statistics for all our courses are shown on our individual course pages. Christchurch Dominates Disc Golf in New Zealand With just 7.5% of the population, over 29% of all rounds in NZ are played in Christchurch – the location with the most Community Courses.
Jellie Park was the 10th most played course in the world, in 2024
In 2015 Jellie Park was my first fully independent course design, and I spent hundreds of hours refining the design, before the baskets were installed in May. I was desperate for everyone who played disc golf in Otautahi for the first time, to have a great time, and to want to play again.
I had to eliminate all gotchas, keep players out of the pond, ensure good flow, respect other park users, and above all, create a fun course for all levels of player. It is with tremendous pride I can announce that Jellie Park is now the world’s 10th most-played disc golf course according to uDisc. I attribute this entirely to Vortica’s “Reward and Encourage” design philosophy. If we design it, players come. Simple!
International Course Growth The headlong rush to install DGCs continues at roughly the same rate as it has done for the last several years.
From uDisc: Notably, the courses contributing to this count are open to the public and regularly available for play. If you include the cottage industry of temporary event courses, private tracks, and backyard layouts that also use the UDisc app for mapping and course support tools, the number swells to almost 28,000. 3.2 disc golf courses were installed every day in 2024 Participation + Activity in 2024 1.26 million players used the UDisc app 20.1 million rounds played with UDisc 33 million hours spent on the course 81 billion steps taken while playing 86% of players introduced someone to disc golf Disc Golf Tourism & Spending 87% of players travelled 32 km+ for a round of disc golf 53% plan to take a disc golf trip in 2025 >70% spent as much or more on equipment as in 2023 Kia tika te rere – Enjoy the flight
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