2017 State of Disc Golf Survey

[EROPPER]

strange questions about the "10 mile course radius" why not more options in mileage? 10-20 miles and farther?

but overall a good survey, rock on!

 

[sisyphus]

Good survey. I agree about needing to reconsider the radius to a nearby course. I might even consider wording it in terms of travel time to courses instead of miles. I've got five, maybe six, courses within ten miles, but one of those is about a 35 minute drive because I have to get way in to the nearest bridge across the Ohio River, and way back out through heavy traffic to that course.
ps: we are blessed with about 45 courses within an hour's drive!
pps: I play 15 to 20 of them at least once a year. Add in new courses bagged, and my # of course 'played' in 2016 looked really high!

 

[Mocheez]

I was surprised to find that I have 7 courses within 10 miles of me.

 

[MarkDSM]

How long this survey take to do?

 

[DavidSauls]

Any distance radius for courses could be something else. I do agree that it might be better if defined by time, rather than pure distance.

One factor in favor of a small radius is that those are courses you can run to on a moment's notice.

It could also be rephrased as "courses within xx miles (or minutes) of home or work." A lot of people play in afternoons, and a course close to where they get off work is more valuable than being close to where they get home.

 

[SD86]

Wished they would have asked which companies you disliked or dropped from your bag.

This.

 

[BuzzzChief]

This made me realize that I only played 4 courses all year. Having a new baby makes disc golf difficult, especially with no good courses closer than 30-45 minutes from home.

 

[gstenger]

Done. Nicely done survey!

 

[scarpfish]

Good survey except for the 10 mile question. 25 would have been better IMO.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Good survey except for the 10 mile question. 25 would have been better IMO.

I think courses normally within 30 minutes however you travel might be a better known metric than 'crow flies' distance.

 

[Fab Man]

Thanks for posting the link to the survey here, I would have never found it other wise.

 

[Todd@InfiniteDiscs]

When will the survey results be available to view?

The survey will be closed at the end of January (so, Feb. 1) and then the results will be published on the Infinite Discs Blog in segments, broken down in themes. For example, there will be an article on personal disc inventory, another on numbers of courses people play (and how close) or how much people are willing to pay to play, and another on popular throwing styles, brand awareness, etc. It's easier to digest the data when broken into pieces. You can subscribe to the blog to see those posts in the near future.

Thanks again everybody for participating! The survey has been up for less than 24 hours and already has nearly 4,000 participants! Feel free to share the link with your disc golf buddies.

We also appreciate the question feedback. The ideas you are presenting here are very good ones (distance to nearby courses, etc.).

 

[Steve West]

I took the survey so I could have fun criticizing it, too.

This is the function I use for calculating Service Levels. According to this, 10 miles is kind of a short radius to use. Asking 10, 20, and 30 would be better. Or, if just one cutoff is needed 15 miles would be best. Which is consistent with asking about within 30 minutes.

I prefer miles because people can look that up here.

Also,

Might want to adjust the age ranges by a year to match PDGA divisions.

For driving style, ask percentages. I'm 50/50 BH/FH, so I don't have a primary style. (Unless "Is your back injured?" is a style.) Someone else may be 90% BH, 9% forehand, 1% thumber.

For spending, you might get better answers breaking down the costs. It's hard to add up the few dollars I spent on new discs with the thousands I spent on travel, and hundreds on entry fees.

 

[JOwens]

There should be a question regarding how many discs did you lose to local water hazards/heavy brush? Just for fun. I know I personally lost 7-8 just since May or June when I first started chucking plastic.

 

[CabMakio]

Survey completed, thanks for trying to compile some meaningful stats.
Answered the questions as honestly and accurately as I could (perhaps too accurately??).

That said, I thought the question regarding courses "10 miles from my house" seemed odd in that 10 miles seem pretty close.
Strictly speaking there are NO courses within a 10 mile drive of where I live.
The two closest are about 12 & 14 miles away, but I regularly drive 30-40 miles (one way) to avoid playing the same courses all the time. :|

Played 35 different courses in 2016:
- 19 of those were local courses I play regularly (but more than 10 miles from home).
- 16 were not local (i.e planned road or day trips... slow year for course bagging )

Agree with this, 10 miles seems too small of an area

I live near an intersection of 3 major freeways so a 10 mile drive typically only takes me 10 minutes. I do have one course within 10 miles of me but there are 5 other courses about 20 miles away which might sound far on paper, but it only takes me ~20 minutes to reach them which I still consider local for the most part

Of course, someone living in downtown Los Angeles might consider 10 miles far because it could take them an hour to get there with traffic, I guess it depends

 

[DG_Before_Breakfast]

Overall, an excellent survey and fun to fill out.

Agree 10 miles is kind of a small radius. Maybe some lucky people in North Carolina, Austin, Dallas/FW, etc. have that, but I think most of us don't. People in Northern California consider it a Mecca for Disc Golf, but the courses are far, far wider apart.

I thought for why you like a specific player, an option should be "Local Pro" or "I've met/played with them". That is a big factor to me. For example, in the Master's division I'll always support Jonathan Baldwin because he is local to Santa Cruz area (not to mention a nice guy who gave me and my buddy a lesson once).

I also agree having a question about Disc golf companies, or even players, you don't like might be good information. Although maybe you wouldn't want to publish the results of something like that, so understandable.

 

[Todd@InfiniteDiscs]

There should be a question regarding how many discs did you lose to local water hazards/heavy brush? Just for fun. I know I personally lost 7-8 just since May or June when I first started chucking plastic.

We had that question on last year's State of Disc Golf Survey. But we removed it from this year, since we're trying to change it up just a bit from year to year. Here is a post on the results on lost and found discs last year, if you're interested:

Personal Disc Inventory Results

 

[zendragon]

Overall, an excellent survey and fun to fill out.

Agree 10 miles is kind of a small radius. Maybe some lucky people in North Carolina, Austin, Dallas/FW, etc. have that, but I think most of us don't. People in Northern California consider it a Mecca for Disc Golf, but the courses are far, far wider apart.

I live in DFW and there are only about 5-7 courses within 10 miles from my home. (too lazy to look up right now) But there are about 75 courses in a 50 mile radius. DFW has a big footprint, and we're used to travelling quite a ways to cover it. I will travel to play any of the great courses around, passing up the 2 closest to my home every time.

 

[BenBVDiscGolf]

Spouse/partner/family

A good addition would be how often do you play solo, with your spouse/partner and family rounds.

Sidenote to that question if you play more solo then family how does it effect those relationships.

 

[CaptainAnhyzer]

Done. What did I win?