Northwest Arkansas — in fact, the entire state — has a lot of athletic offerings. Of course, Fayetteville is home to the Razorbacks with their pursuits in football, basketball, track, gymnastics, golf, tennis — you name it. Then you roll up to Bentonville, and you can't shake a stick without hitting a mountain bike. Travel all over the state, and you'll find people climbing, paddling and hiking their way toward the next adventure.
But one — maybe unlikely — sport has quietly boomed to have a substantial presence in Arkansas and across the country. Ozarks at Large's Jack Travis has more about disc golf's unexpected rise in popularity.
I'm sitting on the 17th hole of the Walker Park Disc Golf Course, and I have a statistic to share that some might find promising. Would you believe that right now there are more disc golf courses in the U.S. than Taco Bells, Dunkin' Donuts or Pizza Huts? Well, it's true. Right now, more than 11,600 disc golf courses dot the country — and of course there's an app that catalogs every one for you.
"Yeah, I work for a company called UDisc. We are a recreational outdoor company focused on growing disc golf in the world."
That's Theresa Garcia. We met up earlier this month to talk about disc golf at Arkansas's most popular course, Lowell's Kathleen Johnson Memorial Park. Garcia is a growth marketer for UDisc. She says the sport is growing rapidly just about everywhere.
"The Natural State is doing wonderful. Disc golf is probably in more places than you expect it to. In Northwest Arkansas alone, within a 50-mile radius of Fayetteville, there are actually 56 courses, which is hard to believe."
But what is disc golf anyway? Well, it's almost all in the name. It's essentially golf that you play with frisbees. Although they aren't just frisbees — they're thoughtfully designed discs that have different shapes and weights for specific use cases. They have drivers, mid-range discs and putters. And like traditional golf, a round begins at an area to tee off from. Only this time you're shooting from a concrete pad.
"And you are trying to make it to a target, which in disc golf's case is oftentimes a metal basket with chains that makes a very pleasing sound when you enter it. But yeah, you're just trying to get into the basket in as few throws as possible. If you're keeping score, then that's how you decide who wins. But if you're coming out for a fun time, score is not necessary — just throw as much as you can."
Garcia says disc golf courses can be placed flexibly because they don't require much infrastructure.
"They're oftentimes tucked in spaces you might not see them as frequently, because it's not something like golf that has to be in a perfectly manicured, perfect piece of property. So oftentimes you can find them in drainage properties or places that were otherwise harmed in ecological disasters. Disc golf can exist in a variety of locations, and so they kind of are placed a little bit randomly. I played a course recently in Little Rock that is sandwiched between a handful of neighborhoods. And so to get to the course, you have to basically walk through people's backyards to get there, and it was just in basically a drainage area that would otherwise be completely unused because it's gonna flood. Well, disc golf baskets are resilient. If it's flooded, you just don't play it. But if it isn't flooded for 98% of the year, then you can play it."
To put this into perspective, Garcia says that it costs about $9,000 to build a nine-hole disc golf course, double that to $18,000 for an 18-hole course, and compare that to the $28,000 it costs for a single pickleball court. No shade on pickleball, but that difference is real. And it's not just the courses that are multiplying — it's the player base, too. The app UDisc compiles a growth report each year to track player data, and they just released the 2025 version.
"Disc golf participation has actually grown 86% since 2020, which is when the world thinks of the disc golf boom."
Naturally, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But Garcia says that disc golf's popularity has proved resilient, unlike other activities that people sought out during the early days of quarantine.
"Obviously people went outside. Disc golf grew a lot, and it was way more than 86% from pre-pandemic to pandemic. But it hasn't stopped. People going back to their regularly scheduled activities did not kill disc golf. We're seeing more disc golfers now than ever before. We're seeing more courses put in than before. It's basically continued to have that domino effect. So definitely new players, definitely tons of rounds. In 2025, there were 21 million rounds recorded worldwide, which is crazy, and that's also not every round that is played. There are plenty of casual disc golfers that don't keep score, don't use our app, and so that is a low-end approximation of how many people are playing."
People realized disc golf's low barrier to entry and health benefits. With that knowledge, communities started to form.
"It's people playing disc golf and seeing that this is a very impactful activity. It's something that gets you active. It's something that gets you off technology. It gets you outside. It's accessible, it's almost completely free. 89% of disc golf courses are completely free to play. Free recreation is so hard to come by these days. All you need is one disc, and a disc can cost $10, and then you're unlocked forever to play as much disc golf as you want. And so communities and parks and rec departments and cities are seeing the value of disc golf. But really it comes down to that disc golfers believe in it so passionately that they're the ones driving it forward in their own communities."
Garcia is one of those passionate players. In fact, she says her marriage has a somewhat disc golf-related origin.
"On our third date, he took me disc golfing and I was immediately hooked. I started working for a disc golf company like six months later because I did it and then was just in love immediately."
Travis: What drew you to it?
"I would say the free recreational outdoor aspect was great. I personally get very annoyed when I have to pay a subscription to do something or I have to continuously reinvest. Disc golf is something that really it stays exactly the same everywhere you go. We also travel a lot, and disc golf is really unique in that you can experience it completely differently in one area versus another — the topography is completely different. And through UDisc you can find courses anywhere you go. And so it kind of became our side quest of how many courses can we play."
And the side quests took them pretty far.
"My company, we went to Iceland this year because Iceland has the most disc golf per square capita of anywhere in the world. A third of people in Iceland disc golf regularly, and that is during the seasons when they have zero sun. They put up glow things on their baskets. They have glow frisbees. It is like negative degrees and they're all out playing. So it is crazy."
But as Garcia said, you don't have to go to Iceland or travel far out at all to find a disc golf course near you. Her company UDisc is hosting some local clinics to get the ball rolling — or rather, the disc flying — for interested parties.
"I'm hosting a series of try disc golf events in Pea Ridge. Pea Ridge just got a brand new course. We're working on the final installation. Currently there is a temporary layout open so that the community can go ahead and play, but to get the community excited for it — the first Monday of each month in Pea Ridge at City Park, I'm doing a try disc golf event. And what that entails is people can come out if they've never played, they don't need to buy a disc, they don't need equipment. They can just come out. I have discs on hand. We're going to play some fun disc golf mini games, and you can just have a chance to have a really low-stakes way to try disc golf. And if you like it, cool, and we can send you to the right course."
You can visit here for more information on the Pea Ridge clinics and find the full version of UDisc's 2025 Growth Report here.
Garcia says that she encourages anyone to try out disc golf — 8 to 80, professionals to weekend warriors. Everyone has a place in this pastime.
"I have seen kids barely able to walk throwing the disc. I've seen grandparents out with their little kids throwing alongside them. As far as who's pushing it forward, it's very community dependent. I would not say there's a one-size-fits-all for who's pushing it forward. I think that if you are passionate, then it's really just whoever shows up."
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
