DiscGolfPark is World Championship Quality
Commonly called simply “Worlds,” the Professional Disc Golf World Championships sanctioned by the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) has been the most important tournament in disc golf since it started in 1982.
But for decades, some players had been cocking an eyebrow at the name “World” Championships. Why? In over 40 iterations, the most elite competition in the game had never been held outside North America and only once outside of the United States.
That changed in 2025 when DiscGolfPark helped make history by partnering with the PDGA to bring a Pro Disc Golf World Championship to Europe for the first time. Held on two flagship DiscGolfParks in Nokia and Tampere, Finland, the event didn’t just go smoothly but smashed previous records for Pro Disc Golf Worlds in terms of in-person spectators and eyes watching online and on television.
Learn why the PDGA trusted DiscGolfPark as a key partner for this milestone edition of their marquis tournament and how the exceptional results we delivered are the same as what anyone who works with us can expect.
World(s) class course design
Like any project it takes on, DiscGolfPark drew on years and years of experience to help make 2025 Worlds the success it was. Much of that came from long being a core part of disc golf’s European Open.
DiscGolfPark founder Jussi Meresmaa was the tournament director of the first professional PDGA Major ever held in Europe, the 2006 European Open in Tampere, Finland. Majors are the most prestigious events in disc golf (Worlds itself falls under the Major classification). The event took place just one year after DiscGolfPark was founded.
Including the 2006 iteration, the European Open has been held a total of 12 times, 11 times as a Major. It has always been in Nokia and/or Tampere, Finland, and DiscGolfPark course design expertise has been essential to its ever-growing success.
One of the biggest triumphs of DiscGolfPark’s involvement with the European Open is The Beast layout at Nokia DiscGolfPark. First unveiled in 2011, The Beast has become a legendary layout, beloved by competitors and pro disc golf fans alike for its hole variety and fair but challenging design.
It is also a masterwork of hole sequencing. In particular, its final four-hole stretch is a place where players can make or break rounds and championships, creating dramatic finishes year after year for the thousands of spectators who line the fairways.
2025 was no exception, with The Beast’s final holes generating the first ever playoff for the Open Women division championship at Worlds and a nailbiter in Open.
Lessons learned from refining The Beast over nearly 15 years were applied to creating The Monster layout at Tampere DiscGolfPark, which debuted at the 2024 European Open in anticipation of its inclusion in Worlds in 2025.
Premium is our standard
Along with course design, DiscGolfPark equipment was a cornerstone of 2025 Worlds. Every player started all holes throughout the World Championship throwing from a DiscGolfPark TeePad. They ended them by getting their discs in DiscGolfPark Pro Targets, which received design enhancements in the winter of 2024-2025.
“We added two chain links to outer chains to slow down discs better and attached the outer chains and inner chains to separate rings, which improved the movement of the chains while catching discs,” explained sales manager and DiscGolfPark course designer Pasi Koivu. “These additions increased our target’s ability to catch the more forceful putting styles with stiffer plastics popular with modern players without downgrading their fresh appearance.”
Koivu added, too, that welding and galvanization quality had gone up, making the targets more durable than ever.
And sometimes at Worlds these new targets truly had their work cut out for them:
Something that may surprise you to learn is that the TeePads and Targets used at Worlds 2025 are the exact same as the inventory currently shipping to all DiscGolfPark customers. We don’t ask you to pay more to upgrade to world-class equipment – premium quality is simply our standard.
“The best World Championships I’ve ever seen”
With essentials like course design and infrastructure in the trusted and capable hands of DiscGolfPark, other entities involved with Worlds 2025 could focus on making the event the biggest and best-run in the game’s history.
In the end, those efforts paid off.
The event was spectated in-person by almost 26,000 people over its five-day run, with 11,500 on site in Nokia to witness the final day of competition. All those visitors – along with the competitors, organizers, media, volunteers, and others – contributed an estimated €3.99 million/U.S. $4.65 million to the local economy. Between the streaming Disc Golf Network and Finland’s public broadcasting network Yle, the first Worlds in Europe racked up over 1.3 million views on championship Sunday.
Those numbers broke all previous records in these areas for disc golf’s top event, and DiscGolfPark couldn’t be happier that it played a significant part in making them – and what many believe are the best World Championships to date – possible.
“I’ve been part of every Worlds since 1991, and this was the best World Championships I’ve ever seen,” said DiscGolfPark designer, 2009 World Champion, and recent Disc Golf Hall of Fame inductee Avery Jenkins. “It’s going to set the standard for a lot of World Championships to come.”
All photos by Marika Salmi.
