Women in Disc Golf Survey 2025

The goal of this survey started because I wanted answer to some questions I had about what motivates women to play and compete in disc golf. The ladies in my community struggle to host women only events, sometimes we get a lot of ladies to show up, sometimes we don’t. So, I set to find out why.  Also, I can’t lie, selfishly I want to know what you like to wear when you play. So, if I can get what I need and help grow the community at the same time, I consider that a win-win. That is why I am making the results of this survey public.

It is important when conducting a survey to make sure you have a representative data set to ensure statistical relevance. The estimated number of women who play disc golf is between 30,000 and 70,000 (calculated with a little help from Chat GPT).

I targeted the lower end of that estimation (30,000) so stopped the survey when we had collected responses from 377 women disc golfers. That number gives us a 95% confidence level with a margin of error of about ±5%.

That means if we asked every woman disc golfer in the U.S. — all 30,000 of them — we’re confident the results would be within 5 percentage points of what we found in this survey, 95 times out of 100.”

The map above shows the number of responses by state (darker colors means higher responses, and you can hover over each state to see the totals), only 323 of the respondents input a valid zip code. If you count up all of the responses in that map it does not match the total responses collected.

For many of the subsequent results depending on if participants skipped or answered no in previous questions, the total number of responses will vary in each of the following results.

When asked why women started playing disc golf the top 3 responses were direct introductions from people they knew (i.e. significant others, friends or family members.).

21 of the respondents answered that close proximity to a course was enough to interest them.

The good news is this data shows that our community is good at convincing women to play, but there are opportunities to expand beyond individual introductions.

We can recruit more women into playing now that we know some of the things that worked for others, let’s get creative and come up with unique ways to grow the sport!

When asked what types of disc golf events they participate in, respondents reported sanctioned tournaments as the most common, followed closely by unsanctioned events and league play. A total of 110 respondents indicated, “I don’t participate in disc golf events, I only play recreationally.”

In addition, 85 respondents said they join putting leagues, while tag matches received the lowest participation at 72 responses. Finally, 18 respondents selected “Other” and provided the following specified answers:

  • Clinics

  • For fun

  • Fun games that Stork makes up

  • I join both sanctioned and unsanctioned tournaments occasionally to get me off the couch, not in it to win it

  • I play almost daily with friends I’m retired.

  • Just for fun rounds

  • No longer play events

  • Non-sanctioned events like FRIZZEN in Colorado

  • Participate as TD

  • Play for the hell of it 

  • Random doubles

  • Rarely play tournaments now but love to play with friends

  • Senior Masters Games

  • TD, volunteer

  • Team Events, Doubles

  • Varying formats like matchplay, teams, etc 

  • Weekly/any free time 

  • Women's only events

46.4% of the respondents answered that they are a current PDGA member, while a surprising 40.6% said they are not.

13% were former PDGA members. When asked why they were no longer members 15 of the respondents said they don’t have time to compete, so the membership isn’t worth it, 13 disagreed with the PDGA policies (3 specifically calling out the Transgendered policies), and 12 responded that it was too expensive.

Other responses spoke to injury, a lack of women participation, lack of tournaments in their area and mental difficulty in competing.