I was doing some research tonight for a park district about Illinois disc golf. Obviously there are a ton more non pdga member players but no one knows a concrete number. Look how Illinois stacked up against the rest of the states.
# of current 2010 PDGA Members
1. TX 1,324
2. CA 1,285
3. MI 852
T4. IL 590
T4. NC 590
# of courses
1. 199 TX
2. 158 CA
3. 152 IA
4. 151 MN
5. 146 WI
6. 139 IL
# of PDGA Events
1. TX 78
2. MI 67
T3. CA 56
T3. OH 56
5. NC 40
6. IL 38
Illinois doesn't get much respect but the numbers don't lie. Illinois is going to continue to grow. The biggest potential is central and southern, il. Springfield has picked it up with 3 different sanctioned events. Bloomington/Normal is running 2 PDGA events. Hopefully Pontiac is added to the mix next year. It's great to see Effingham is running a sanctioned event. It would be awesome to see Decatur and Centralia added to the mix. We need more southern events to make it worthwhile to join the PDGA. I've always thought about a Central/Southern IL series.
Peoria is the mecca of Illinois. It has by far the best and most quality coures in 1 area. It's disappointing to see only 1 day and 1 course sanctioned in 2011. I played Eureka, Washington, ICC, Bradley, Pekin, & Morton all in one day earlier this summer. There are a lot of TD's not only in Illinois but around the country that would die to have these courses to run and play events. I'm so jealous of that area. I would be interested in running an Am Worlds if I lived in that area. In 2007 I really considered submitting a bid but logistically it just wouldn't work being so far away.
Very interesting numbers Brett. I am curious, did you look at how many of each state's courses were 9 holers vs 18+ holers? I would venture to guess that Illinois' numbers for 18+ holers wouldn't be quite as high as all courses.
pdga course directory page for IL 1994
oak lawn
we played with frisbees
Mike-- That page is pretty awesome (Senior year in high school).
Sayer-- I took the stats from the PDGA demographics page. I don't think they had the 18 or more separated from 17 or less. I'll check.
I could use some help on the PDGA course directory. Disc Golf Course Review is showing 162 Illinois Courses. The PDGA is showing 143. It's tough because the PDGA website sucks and the course directory is so inferior to DGCR.
Quote from: CEValkyrie on July 24, 2011, 10:39:45 AM
I could use some help on the PDGA course directory. Disc Golf Course Review is showing 162 Illinois Courses. The PDGA is showing 143. It's tough because the PDGA website sucks and the course directory is so inferior to DGCR.
I looked on DGCR and it says IL has 162 courses and 60 of them are only are 18 holes or more.
When it's all said in done Illinois is going to have over 40+ sanctioned events this year-2011. I just checked the Year End Demographics for 2006 (5 years ago). Illinois had 18 PDGA events that year. I'm guessing we'll have over 600 active PDGA members this year. 5 years ago there were 419 active members.
Quote from: CEValkyrie on September 12, 2011, 08:57:23 AM
When it's all said in done Illinois is going to have over 40+ sanctioned events this year-2011. I just checked the Year End Demographics for 2006 (5 years ago). Illinois had 18 PDGA events that year. I'm guessing we'll have over 600 active PDGA members this year. 5 years ago there were 419 active members.
Nice job Brett, and to all the hard working td's too.