DG: Popularity by Country

[maniak]

Disc golf is probably most well known in the United States, that's the perception anyway. I decided to crunch some numbers to get an idea of how popular disc golf is given a country's population. I got the # of courses from this website and the country population figures from Wikipedia.

The results show how many people of the total population there are for each course. The less there are, the more popular disc golf is relative to the overall population. Looks like Scandinavia is further ahead than I thought. I thought the USA would top this list for sure.

Just some food for thought.

 

[mickas]

cool post interesting to see

 

[JR Stengele]

THat is interesting. Hopefully other countries continue to develop more courses. Also, it would be great to see some new countries incorporate DG. I am surprised Mexico only has one.

 

[harr0140]

I am sure not every foreign course is listed here however because it takes someone to travel there to find out unless the courses are uploaded by timg when the pdga lists one overseas??? Regardless those are some cool #'s

 

[solomon.trenton]

i would be interested so see how many 18 hole courses there are instead of like 4 and 9 holers

 

[onegabis]

I keep finding more reasons to go to Sweden.

 

[srm_520]

Even though Antarctica may be a little less crowded - I think I'll stick with the US. I do wonder when it might have a boom in another country though. I think if someone like Peter Jackson took it up, we'd have New Zealand on the map - things like that.... And speaking of that - are that any famous foreigners that play DG?

 

[ElementZ]

Jesper Lundmark!

 

[mashnut]

Cool info, I'm a stats junkie so I love stuff like this.

 

[solomon.trenton]

I keep finding more reasons to go to Sweden.

and japan, besides happy ending massages

 

[maniak]

i would be interested so see how many 18 hole courses there are instead of like 4 and 9 holers

OK, I was also curious, so I re-crunched the numbers and ran the same stat only this time using the criteria of courses with 18 holes or more. This appears to show a more true picture as Sweden and the States are leading the way. Perhaps using the criteria of courses with 18 holes or greater shows how serious people take disc golf in their respective countries.

I also ran another stat showing what percentage of total courses are 18 holes or greater. This time it's the States and Canada leading.

 

[solomon.trenton]

thanks that is quite interesting. now if only we could find out how many people actually play we could get a real idea. too bad that would be near impossible to do though...

 

[Grover]

Man, we're never going to be big in China...

 

[dreadlock86]

not to be a total negative nancy but those numbers really tell us nothing about the popularity of disc golf. it might be a bit more accurate if you factor in population density in areas around the courses but it still says nothing about how many people are actually on these courses playing.

we need a worldwide survey.

 

[srm_520]

not to be a total negative nancy but those numbers really tell us nothing about the popularity of disc golf. it might be a bit more accurate if you factor in population density in areas around the courses but it still says nothing about how many people are actually on these courses playing.

we need a worldwide survey.

Sounds like you've just given yourself a new job to do. Good luck and we look forward to your results!

 

[solomon.trenton]

Sounds like you've just given yourself a new job to do. Good luck and we look forward to your results!

i am eagerly awaiting as well!!!!

 

[grodney]

Google trends shows what people are searching for:
http://trends.google.com/trends?q="disc+golf"+,"frisbee+golf"&ctab=181788320&geo=all&date=2009

Shows US, Finland, Canada, UK for "disc golf".
Shows Finland, US, Denmark, Sweden for "frisbee golf".

Also note the top cities.

Also, if you confine to the U.S.:
http://trends.google.com/trends?q="...golf"&ctab=0&geo=us&geor=all&date=2009&sort=0

Note that Iowa doesn't have any of the top 10 cities, but is the top state.

This data may show growth instead of popularity, but you can formulate your own ideas.

 

[rikardob]

Man, we're never going to be big in China...

You would have to include a meal made out of an endangered species with every round to get big in China.