During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of disc golf players grew exponentially. People were naturally drawn outside toward socially distanced activities, which resulted in a whole new demographic of discers: the “pandemic disc golfer.” The Right Click also noticed and experienced this tremendous growth of disc golf on the course, but felt that the vast array of online tools available today were not being fully utilized by the disc golf community. The Right Click thought: “how could we create a simple survey that attempts to understand the local disc golf community and their relationship to the growing sport while also challenging their traditional habits of not using digital tools?”

As mentioned, the disc golf community at large currently lacks the online presence and digital toolset that you would find in other sports. So, The Right Click decided to challenge this status quo by asking local disc golfers to fill out the survey online. In addition to measuring all sorts of demographic and opinion-based questions, The Right Click would also be measuring whether disc golfers would be willing to use an online tool rather than sticking with what they were traditionally used to (pen-and-paper/brick-and-mortar).

To get started, The Right Click decided to create a simple flier (see below image) to hang up around our five local disc golf courses. These fliers advertised a chance to win a $25 disc golf gift certificate in exchange for accessing an exact URL and completing a short digital survey.

Main Hypothesis To Test

Null Hypothesis (h0): Disc golfers are hesitant to use digital tools

Alternative Hypothesis (h1): Disc golfers are not hesitant to use digital tools

The static nature of a flier format allowed us to reach disc golfers directly on the course. Once the disc golfer saw the survey, they would pull out their phones and fill out the survey. This “flier -> digital link -> survey” process allowed us make the survey accessible and convenient for the disc golfer, helped us avoid adverse weather conditions that would be a problem with paper, and enabled response data collection and analysis in a seamless way.

The Right Click distributed 30+ fliers total across five Oregon disc golf courses. The survey used a combination of multiple choice, short answer, and opinion-based questions to discover more about our local disc golf community.

Built with data analysis in mind, The Right Click’s survey hypothesized that not only would “the average disc golfer” trend toward specific characteristics and traits, but also would resist filling out the survey online. The questions, as well as the method of answering them, would validate whether or not The Right Click’s hypothesis held true.

The Right Click thought that a flier and digital survey would be the fastest way to interact with disc golfers without taking away too much time away from their fun.

However, someone in Oregon saw the survey while discing and posted it on Reddit! This surprise exposure lead to a huge influx in responses, not just from locals but from disc golf enthusiasts across the US. The survey even received responses from Europe! While this was awesome to experience, the original survey didn’t have a location question because it was supposed to only attract local disc golfers.

The Right Click wanted to identify patterns and trends by combining demographic questions with the questions surrounding experience, passion, and playing frequency of disc golfers. However, now the survey needed to take locality into consideration (it had previously assumed that all responses would be from local disc golfers) because it went viral and now included responses from people outside of the target community. 

While the short term burst in responses from the r/discgolf subreddit was awesome, The Right Click had to change their original survey focus because the survey now included responses from global disc golfers. Thus, The Right Click decided to pivot the survey to see how the survey sample (n=649) represented The Right Click’s assumptions about the global disc golf community rather than purely focusing on The Right Click’s local community. 

As a result, the primary demographic of survey respondents had changed to include disc golf fanatics because more than 50% of responses came from people who actively participated on r/discgolf.

The Right Click realized that there was great potential for analyzing the disc golf community on a national and global scale, which laid the groundwork for the next Right Click disc golf analytics project.

More importantly, this initial project revealed that disc golf data collection is a rapidly expanding digital field of work that can quickly scale from a simple community survey up a national project with global reach. From a local community to a tournament director, to national tours and beyond, there is so many different levels of data available that aren’t currently being collected. Applying any data collected is incredibly useful for anyone who actively chooses to engage with the sport e.g. players, amateurs, manufacturers, businesses, vendors, and business owners.

In summary, disc golf stakeholders should invest in applied data to help market, grow, and sustain disc golf for years to come.

Disc Golf Manufacturers By Popularity

What started as just an idea lead to a simple action, a viral moment, and then finally the recognition of applied data in a rapidly growing sport. The Right Click began by creating a digital survey to make the questions easy to answer and test a hypothesis. Then, The Right Click created 30+ fliers to could reach a local audience of disc golfers at 5 different disc golf courses. After 30 days, someone found the flier at their course and posted it online, creating viral ripple effect of likes, comments, questions, and most importantly survey responses. The Right Click was not prepared for this moment and had to regrettably turn away respondents away due to survey tool limits. 

The Right Click was proud to create “aha” moments for thousands of members of the r/discgolf community, which can be found throughout the post’s comment section. The immediate feedback suggested greater interest and broader application for future disc golf analytics projects. People in the community were also eager to share their preferences, give feedback, and participate in the community discussion. The Right Click had accidently created a wave of interest (shown by the 3600+ views) which was more powerful than the original idea could have hoped for. 

Lessons Learned

• Leveraging social proof proved to be the best way to gain traction within a digital disc golf space.

• The Right Click’s expectations around response rate, interest, and virality were shattered after the moment we put our idea into action.

• The disc golf community is actively open to change and is willing to embrace the many opportunities for growth if change is presented through digital tools using applied data.

Hypothesis Validation

Null Hypothesis (h0): Disc golfers are hesitant to use digital tools

Alternative Hypothesis (h1): Disc golfers are not hesitant to use digital tools

Because the survey went viral, The Right Click rejects the null hypothesis (h0), confirming the alternative hypothesis (h1): Disc golfers are not hesitant to use digital tools. Testing for significance is the traditional way to validate a hypothesis but with this sort of data skew, it’s safe to assume plausibility of the opposite, rejecting the null hypothesis.

The Survey Results

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