Here you can learn about one of the world's best disc golf courses, Bryant Lake Park in Minnesota. Located a short drive from Minneapolis/St. Paul with an original layout from the same designer who created the beloved Blue Ribbon Pines, Bryant Lake has been a mainstay in the World's Best Disc Golf Courses year after year thanks to its incredible upkeep and fun layouts.
Bryant Lake Park is ranked #33 in the most recent World's Best Disc Golf Courses top 100 released annually by us here at UDisc. The rankings are based on millions of player ratings of over 16,000 disc golf courses worldwide on UDisc Courses, which is the most complete and regularly updated disc golf course directory in existence.
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- Basics: Times in top 100, year established, designers, cost to play, & availability
- History of Bryant Lake Park
- How hard is it?
- What's it like to play?
- Three real five-star reviews
Bryant Lake Park: Basic Info
- When did Bryant Lake Park open?
1999 - How many times has Bryant Lake Park made the annual World's Best Disc Golf Courses top 100 since the rankings were first released in 2020?
Year 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Top 100? - Who designed Bryant Lake Park?
Timmy Gill and others - Is Bryant Lake Park free or pay-to-play?
Pay-to-play. See its UDisc Courses entry for pricing. - When is Bryant Lake Park available for public play?
Seasonally spring through fall. Exact opening dates are flexible and weather-dependent.
History of Bryant Lake Park
It was near the turn of the century, and as the world's best computer programmers were working to stave off Y2K and jeans makers were pushing pant legs ever wider, a new disc golf course was in the works near the Twin Cities – the collective name for Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota. The exact location was Eden Prairie, an aptly named suburb of the metropolis about a dozen miles/14 kilometers to its southeast.
The setting was Bryant Lake Park. Operated by Three Rivers Park district, the spot was and is a popular park sitting on 170 acres/69 hectares of lovely, hilly Minnesotan land next to one of the state's many lakes. Tom Ager, the maintenance crew chief for Bryant Lake and Hyland Hills, has been involved with groundskeeping at the disc golf course at Bryant Lake Park since its inception.
"The original installation was based on [a design by] Tim Gill and a couple other individuals who approached the park district and proposed the idea," said Ager. "The sport in the early 2000-era was not well-known in Minnesota and we did not know what to expect."
1995 PDGA Amateur Disc Golf World Championship Timmy Gill proposed an initial 12-hole disc golf course on park grounds. Gill would go on to design the renowned Blue Ribbon Pines along with Steve Beckman, and Bryant Lake was an early chance for Gill to stretch his designing muscles.
"Back then there were only two maintenance staff working at the park, so workers from Hyland Park helped with the original installation," Ager said. "It was started in June and the last of the cement work on the tee pads was completed in September."
In its earliest days, the 12-hole course was open year-round and had just one cement tee pad and one basket per hole. After it opened to the public in 1999, word-of-mouth spread, and traffic gradually increased.
"By the year 2007, it was very apparent that the course was popular enough where there needed to be some major improvements made and the erosion issues needed to be addressed," said Ager. "It was decided that the course should be closed over winter so the spring melt-thaw cycle and mud season would be over when the course opened in the spring – and once the ground was dried out enough to reduce and prevent erosion from the high volume of foot traffic."
A fun tidbit here is that Bryant Lake's seasonality actually helped inspire the creation of UDisc. Co-founder Matt Krueger, a resident of the Twin Cities area, went to the course with a friend only to find out it was closed. With no mobile-friendly disc golf course directory in existence at the time, finding somewhere else to go was a nightmare.
"I have pretty distinct memories of being super angry, trying to find an alternative, and saying something like, 'I should build an app with one button and all it does is give you directions to the nearest course,'" Krueger recalled.
Nowadays, UDisc lets disc golfers do just that and plenty more.
Getting back to the story of Bryant Lake, maintenance crews began using landscaping techniques to harden walkways. They also built stairways and upgraded teepads and greens to improve the flow and play of the course. Six holes were added, too, bringing the course to a total of 18.
"In order to help generate revenue for this large project, it was decided to make it a pay-to-play course where a daily fee was charged or a yearly pass could be purchased," said Ager. "By 2009, it was clear that the revenue being generated exceeded expectations, and the course would be a long-term investment with a bright future."
As of 2025, Bryant Lake has a robust team of groundskeepers, with four full-time and four seasonal staff maintaining the course and adding improvements each year. Many holes also have multiple permanent baskets to offer both variety and layouts appropriate for all skill levels.
How Hard Is Bryant Lake Park?
Bryant Lake Park offers multiple layouts with a variety of disc golf experiences. This is how its easiest and hardest layouts based on score relative to par stack up:
| Name | Distance |
Technicality | Overall Difficulty | Par Rating* | Scoring Average* | |
| Easiest Layout | Short Tees to Yellow Baskets | Short | Not Technical | Easy | 162 | -1 |
| Hardest Layout | Long Tees to Blue Baskets | Long | Technical | Challenging | 183 | +4 |
*Scoring average and par rating constantly adjust as more people score rounds with UDisc. These numbers reflect stats from the time of publication and may have changed slightly since then.
You can find this information on all of Bryant Lake's layouts (with the exception of par rating) by checking out Bryant Lake Park on UDisc Courses.
To learn more about what the categories for distance, technicality, overall difficulty, and par rating mean, check out these posts:
What's It Like to Play at Bryant Lake Park?
On paper (or a phone or computer screen), Bryant Lake may seem like any other park-based disc golf course. But anyone on the grounds will quickly realize it's much more.
Meticulous attention to detail gives the first hint that this is a special place, with freshly mulched greens, manicured fairways, and controlled rough. Jason Wilder, director for the 2025 Masters World Championships (Masters being players age 40 and up) being held in part at Bryant Lake, is intimately familiar with what makes the course so attractive.
" One of the biggest attributes to this course that anybody who's ever played it talks about is the amount of money and care that they have put into the landscaping on the course," Wilder said. "The Parks Department with the park, I would say over the lifespan of its existence, they've spent multiple millions of dollars on the installation, landscaping, and upkeep."
This care extends between the holes. Some paths are paved with herringbone brick, some have pea gravel flanked by wildflowers, and others feature large flagstone. The amenities are top-notch, with a throwing net, practice baskets, bathrooms, plentiful signage, trash and recycling receptacles throughout, and bag hooks at every hole. The high standard of upkeep makes it easy to recognize the site's natural beauty.
"Hole 16, right next to the basket is this huge – and I'm talking as-big-as-a-Sprinter-van-sized – rock that is right next to the pin," said Wilder. "You basically have to shoot over this rock from the tee to get to the pin. And it's not a traditional rock, it's one of those where it's layers of rock that has just existed forever."
Likely a glacial erratic – large boulders which hitchhiked within the frozen glaciers of the last ice age and were deposited as the ice receded – it provides quite an interesting centerpiece to hole 16. Smaller boulders have been used to make rock walls and backstops to several holes.
That same glacial history helped create the titular Bryant Lake that provides a lovely blue backdrop to the course's more elevated holes. It also inspires lots of local wildlife to make the course their home – wild turkeys and deer can commonly be seen roaming across the rolling hills of the park.
"Hole 17 is a standout," Wilder said. " It's a big bomber hole – you shoot from a bluff and across the road that goes through the park. There's a little pond on the left up to the tee that is on a tiered, landscaped area. If you think of Top of the World at DeLaveaga, the last hole at that course, in which you're throwing from up high to a basket down low. It's kind of got that feel, but with a little bit more picturesqueness to it."
This 558-foot/170-meter par 4 is the longest on the course's Long Tee to Blue Basket layout (its lengthiest) and is just one example of its many elevation changes. That layout covers 19 floors of elevation and is just under 6,000 feet/1,828 meters long. In regards to shot shaping and disc selection, Wilder had some advice for those taking on Bryant Lake Park's most difficult combination of tee and pin positions.
"It's a mix," said Wilder. "You definitely need every shot in your bag. You need distance, you need hyzer, you need anhyzer, you need low, low-line shots, you need angle control. There's everything."
The course has several other layouts for players of differing abilities. Its multiple baskets and multiple tee pads allow for all sorts of combinations and replayability.
" I would actually say it appeals to all skill levels because they have multiple tees on most holes and they have alternate baskets on many of the holes as well, so there are multiple layouts available," said Wilder. " I just had lunch yesterday with somebody who's working on two additional holes happening out there that are set to be opened this season. We're hoping to have them ready in time for Masters Worlds, 4th of July week."
Though Bryant Lake provides the course name, the actual lake doesn't come into play much, but there are other water hazards. A marshy wetland sits between holes 13 and 14 and a few small ponds accompany holes 17 and 18.
Something to note about Bryant Lake is that it's a seasonal course, meaning during Minnesota's unpredictable and brutal winters, it closes down for several months.
"We've seen snow as early as early October, and we've seen it as late as mid-December, so it really is weather dependent," explained Wilder. "They just want to make sure that the temps are above a certain point for at least X amount of time before they say, 'Okay, we're safe to open.'"
After the snow has melted and the course is safe, it is reopened, so its seasonal closure window changes from year to year. You can check UDisc to see if the course is open.
The last factor worth mentioning is that Bryant Lake Park is a pay-to-play destination. A day pass is $7.00 per person and an annual pass can be purchased for $50. Annual pass holders can play at all three courses in the Three Rivers park system: Bryant Lake, Elm Creek, and Hyland Hills.
Three Real Five Star Reviews of Bryant Lake Park
Three five star reviews of Bryant Lake Park from disc golfers on UDisc:
