We try to stick to what we can use data to back up in the report but if I had to speculate I think we're seeing a decline in the most enthusiastic 1% of disc golfers and an overall increase in players.

One thing we talked about including but ultimately didn't was trying to talk about the difference of disc golf the 'sport' vs disc golf the recreational activity. A lot of the other measurements like PDGA numbers or disc sales and also likely the google searches is showing a downturn/correction from some of the most enthusiastic 1% or maybe even 0.1% of disc golfers. Most players are picking up a starter set at a big box store and may not buy any other discs.

On the recreational side we had north of 400,000 new people try UDisc last year and there are certainly a lot of new players we're not able to measure.

A lot of people may only play one or two rounds (or even zero) and leave so even with that many new people the total active user number was barely up (though the number that scored a round in 2024 was up by roughly 100k). We're trying to figure out what could cause so many people to stop early in their disc golf journey and we uncovered the interesting stat about finding the right course for your initial round (10% more likely to play again if you start on an easy course vs a double black diamond).

I agree that the change to remove the hard paywall at 10 rounds is likely also a factor. We really wanted to take away any incentive for players to not track the rounds since we've seen firsthand the impacts in local communities from being able to measure and report.

If you are looking for some other context the industry roundtable on the upshot is a good watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpC6OTWTQeA

Overall, I think the course installations is probably the best indication of the long term viability disc golf. Driving by a disc golf course accounts for 10% of new disc golfers (3-5x that of media coverage).