Stats for this piece assembled by UDisc data scientist Ethan Creagar. Text by Alex Williamson.
In 2021, UDisc Live shared disc golf scores and stats with the world in real time at over 40 events, and many of those competitions featured the world's most elite players.
Now that it's the offseason, we've gathered important and intriguing stats from the year's top tournaments in a group of related posts. Here you can find out which holes gave the best FPO players on Earth the most trouble, which were the easiest pickings, and which separated scores more than any others.
If you're interested in more superlatives, check these out:
- "2021 Pro Superlatives: Best Putters, Highest Birdie Rates, & More"
- "2021's Hardest & Easiest Holes In Pro Disc Golf: MPO"
A Note About the Stats
Many tournaments featured small FPO fields, making it difficult to rely on the stats from those events. In this post, you'll only find events where the FPO field consisted of 20 or more players.
Hardest FPO Hole
The hardest hole for any 2021 FPO field was 12 at the European Disc Golf Championships, which took place on a course many pro disc golf fans will remember from Czechia's Konopiště Open. The 659-foot/201-meter par 4 called for a tee shot to finish hard to the right into a blind landing zone off the tee. Given that all went well (and that's giving quite a lot), players then had to decide whether to go over a pond to reach the very small green or lay up just before the near bank to give themselves a shorter shot over the water hazard.
FPO played this hole from the same tee as MPO, and MPO played it +0.7 over par. For FPO, that went up to almost exactly +2.0.
You can take a look at the hole in coverage from More Disc Golf:
There was only one birdie on the hole from the FPO field the entire tournament. Finn phenom Eveliina Salonen got it in the first round.
And if you'd like even more proof that this hole was indeed hard, there's this: Through the first three rounds (before a cut that left just the top 20 in the fourth round), triple bogey or worse was a more common score than par or bogey.
Top 4 Hardest FPO Holes
The recipe for making an extremely difficult FPO hole in 2021 is easy to spot when you look at the at the year's top four hardest holes relative to par. First, you need a par 4 requiring (for most players) two high precision shots over 300 feet/91 meters. Then, you add in thick rough or OB penalizing errant throws. And...voila! A hole that scores well above par.
You can see what we mean if you take a look at the video previews we've linked to each hole number in the table below. Note that EDGC hole 12 isn't linked because the preview is in the previous section.
Mobile users: Swipe left to see full table.
Average Relative to Par | Hole Number | Course |
Tournament | Length |
Par |
+2.0 | 12 | Konopiste | European Disc Golf Championships | 659 feet/201 meters | 4 |
+1.7 | 5 | Airborn Disc Golf Preserve | The Preserve Championship | 695 feet/212 meters | 4 |
+1.5 | 11 | Virpiniemi DiscGolfPark | Finnish Championships | 636 feet/194meters | 4 |
+1.4 | 18 | Fox Run Meadows | Green Mountain Championship | 700 feet/243 meters | 4 |
Easiest FPO Hole
Like for MPO, a pretty short par 5 played the most under par for the FPO field in 2021. Over three rounds, competitors averaged 4.38 on hole 16 at The Goat Hill Challenge.In some ways, 16 resembles the top four hardest holes in the previous section. It's 639 feet/195 meters, meaning much of the FPO field could reach it in two shots of just over 300 feet/91 meters. However, instead of two throws securing birdie looks and almost assured pars, they earned players eagle chances and routine birdies. Unsurprisingly, you'll see Goat Hill's 16 again later on as the hole with the highest eagle rate in 2021.
Here's a hole preview from GK Pro:
Top 4 Easiest FPO Holes
The list of easiest holes is made up entirely of par 4s and 5s that aren't very demanding distance-wise. Again, all hole numbers (except Goat Hill 16, which you can see above) link to a hole preview.
Mobile users: Swipe left to see full table.
Average Relative to Par | Hole Number | Course |
Tournament | Length |
Par |
-0.62 | 16 | Goat Hill Park Disc Golf Course | The Challenge at Goat Hill | 639 feet/195 meters | 5 |
-0.59 | 11 | Infinite Discs Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 430 feet/131 meters | 4 |
-0.56 | 6 | Sunset Hills Disc Golf Course | Discraft Ledgestone Insurance Open | 712 feet/217 meters | 5 |
-0.52 | 3 | Emporia Country Club | Dynamic Discs Open | 489 feet/149 meters | 4 |
Top 3 Biggest FPO Score Separators
You often hear the phrase, "Par doesn't matter." Though par probably does affect how players attack a hole, the adage is perfectly true mathematically. That's one reason it's valuable to know not only what the easiest and hardest holes relative to par for the year were but which ones created the most separation between competitors.
We found this out by looking at each hole's scoring average and calculating what the standard deviation from that average was. The holes with the highest standard deviations created the most scoring separation between players.
Mobile users: Swipe left to see full tables.
Standard Deviation | Scoring Average | Hole Number | Course |
Tournament | Length |
Par |
0.76 | 5.4 | 18 | Innova Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 720 feet/220 meters | 5 |
0.70 | 4.6 | 16 | Innova Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 888 feet/271 meters | 5 |
0.67 | 3.6 | 13 | Innova Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 387 feet/118 meters | 4 |
Highest Birdie & Eagle Rates
The last stats we'll give you are mostly just fun to know: Which holes did competitors birdie and eagle at the highest frequency in 2021?If there's no preview linked to a hole number, it's because that hole appeared in this post previously.
Mobile users: Swipe left to see full tables.
Birdie Rate |
Times Tracked |
Birdie Total |
Hole Number |
Course |
Tournament | Length |
Par |
84.2% | 38 | 32 | 11 | Infinite Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 430 feet/131 meters | 4 |
65% | 20 | 13 | 6 | Mulligans Disc Golf Course | Utah Open | 261 feet/80 meters | 3 |
60.5% | 38 | 23 | 6 | Infinite Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 294 feet/89.6 meters | 4 |
Eagle Rate |
Times Tracked |
Eagle Total |
Hole Number |
Course |
Tournament | Length |
Par |
7.9% | 76 | 6 | 16 | Goat Hill Disc Golf Course | The Challenge at Goat Hill | 639 feet/195 meters | 5 |
7.0% | 43 | 3 | 18 | Factory Course at Wildhorse Country Club | Las Vegas Challenge | 632 feet/193 meters | 5 |
6.5% | 77 | 5 | 6 | Sunset Hills Disc Golf Course | Discraft Ledgestone Insurance Open | 712 feet/217 meters | 5 |
Thank You!
None of these stats or the tournaments they were recorded at would have been possible without a huge number of people: tour and tournament organizers, the players, pro disc golf fans, our partners, and those who volunteered to be UDisc scorekeepers. We want to extend a heartfelt "Thank You!" to everyone who made it possible, and we can't wait to do it again and even better in 2022.