2021's Hardest & Easiest FPO Holes

Stats for this piece assembled by UDisc data scientist Ethan Creagar. Text by Alex Williamson.

Images from four different disc golf courses with course names beneath

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:

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

A woman putts at an elevated basket with palm trees nearby — Paige Pierce putting on the top FPO score separator in 2021.

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

All the holes on this list come from one course at one tournament. That could seem strange unless you know that the Las Vegas Challenge is well-known for having baskets very close to OB and hazards – as you can see in the video previews linked to the hole numbers. When a matter of just a few feet in an area all players are aiming for can mean a stroke difference in scores, separation is bound to happen.

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.