Here you can learn all about one of the world's best disc golf courses, Brewster Ridge at Smugglers' Notch Resort, Vermont. Brewster is the wooded counterpart to its more open sibling course at the same resort, Fox Run Meadows. Both courses rank near the top of the World's Best Disc Golf Courses year in and year out, making Smugglers' Notch Resort one of the best disc golf destinations on the planet.
Brewster Ridge is ranked #7 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.
Read the whole post to get a full picture of Brewster Ridge or jump to a section that interests you most in the navigation below.
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- Basics: Times in top 100, year established, designers, cost, & availability
- History
- How hard is it?
- What's it like to play?
- Three real five-star reviews
Brewster Ridge: Basic Info
- How many times has Brewster Ridge 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? - When did Brewster Ridge open?
2012 - Who designed Brewster Ridge?
Jeff Spring - Is Brewster Ridge free or pay-to-play?
Pay-to-play. See its UDisc Courses entry for pricing. - When is Brewster Ridge available to play?
Seasonally spring through fall. 8 a.m.-7 p.m. in spring and summer and 8 a.m-6 p.m. in fall. Exact opening and closing dates each year are flexible and weather-dependent.
History of Brewster Ridge Disc Golf Course
The backstories of disc golf courses come in many forms. Sometimes a small community of disc golfers puts in tireless, unpaid hours of design and manual labor to create something special in a public park. Occasionally an independent enthusiast sees potential fairways in their unused acreage, rents equipment, and goes at it. More rarely, the Vice President of Global Resort Development for an international hotel company tells a potential new partner resort that once a deal is struck, he'd like to see a good disc golf course on the property – soon.
Haven't heard that last one? Well, that's the unlikely origin of Brewster Ridge, according to course designer Jeff Spring. Spring once worked at Smuggs but is now the Director of the Disc Golf Pro Tour.
Brewster Ridge is on the property of Smugglers' Notch Resort (known familiarly as Smuggs), a year-round family vacation destination nestled in Vermont's mountains. And in 2011, Smuggs and Wyndham Hotels and Resorts were working out a deal for Wyndham to manage some of Smuggs' real estate.
"That deal brought the VP of Global Resort Development Alan Litwack to the resort several times," Spring recounted. "He became aware there was a small disc golf course on site. During his last visit, they were discussing terms out on the disc golf course because Alan wanted to see it – he turned out to be a disc golfer."
Spring classified the course Litwack would have seen then as an "extremely short and un-designed course with little to no use or maintenance."
"Alan said, 'Okay, I think we’ve got a deal,'" Spring continued, "'but one thing you should do is upgrade your disc golf course.'"
Spring had heard about Litwack's request and took a chance to bring it up with Smuggs' owner at a staff event.
"Our owner didn’t know much about the sport, and I’d heard it through the grapevine that he was interested in learning more about disc golf," Spring said. "So at a company party at the end of the winter 2012, I went over to him and started talking to him. He mentioned Alan was interested in upgrading the course, and I let him know I was on the board of the state’s disc golf club and had been part of designing courses before. He said, 'Let’s get it going.' And in the spring, we did."
But if Smuggs' owner was going to build a course, he wanted it to be the best. Spring said the goal from the outset was to create a venue that could host a world championship, and he designed the course's hardest set of tees (it boasts four for each hole) with the world's best players in mind. In a testament to how well Spring met expectations, Brewster and Fox Run Meadows – a second course Spring and former U.S. Disc Golf Champion Steve Brinster of Brinster Design designed on Smuggs' property – hosted the Professional Disc Golf World Championships just six years after Brewster opened.
You can learn more about what that design entailed later in this post, but one interesting aspect of Brewster that Spring pointed out is how carefully he had to plan it in regards to the local ecosystem.
Most development in Vermont has to meet guidelines set out in Act 250, a state law that Vermont's Natural Resources Board says is "for reviewing and managing the environmental, social and fiscal consequences of major subdivisions and developments in Vermont." It's a law that Spring said made designing more tricky but also helped make sure his work lived up to disc golf's oft-used selling point of environmental friendliness.
"You see things on courses that you think would be cool to have, like a basket on a stream bank," Spring said. "But that causes erosion, and that’s just not allowed in Vermont because of the impact it has on the stream, the watershed, and habitat in the area. That makes our courses very in tune with the environmental impacts, not just because it’s law, but because that’s the ethic of Vermont. It also fits well with the ethos of disc golf because even for courses that aren’t as rigorously audited as ours, they have way less environmental impact than traditional golf courses."
This all means that visitors to Brewster not only get to play a course that's world-class but can also feel a little better knowing it was designed so that their recreation will have as little impact on the environment as possible.
Finally, it's important to note that when Spring left Smuggs to run the Disc Golf Pro Tour, Nick Hover took over as the Operations Director for Smugglers' Notch Disc Golf Center. The fact that Brewster Ridge has remained in the top 10 of the World's Best Disc Golf Courses during his tenure is a testament to his dedication.
"It’s for the pure love and bright future for the sport that keeps the entire Smugglers' Notch Disc Golf Center team working hard," Hover told us. "I would also like to take this opportunity to say cheers to all of our members, volunteers, and visitors for their support."
How Hard Is Brewster Ridge Disc Golf Course?
Brewster Ridge offers a variety of layouts. The majority of them are suited to experienced, skilled players, but its red tees will likely appeal to newer or more casual disc golfers. Here's how it's easiest and hardest layouts stack up in terms of distance, difficulty, and more.
| Name | Distance |
Technicality | Overall Difficulty | Par Rating | Scoring Average | |
| Easiest Layout | Red Tees | Short | Technical | Moderate | 138 | -6 |
| Hardest Layout | Gold Tees | Very Long | Technical | Very Challenging | 243 | +16 |
You can find this information on all of Brewster Ridge's layouts (with the exception of par rating) by checking out Brewster Ridge 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 Disc Golf at Brewster Ridge?
Along with reasons like its setting in rambling Vermont countryside, crumbling stone walls, and top-notch upkeep, Brewster Ridge has been a top 10 course for the past six years because its design isn't full of tricks and gimmicks.
"My first priority with Brewster and subsequent courses is fairness," Spring said. "I want someone to step up and understand through playing the hole what the designer is asking them to do and to have a fair route to do that. I’m not a big fan of randomness."
However, "fairness" shouldn't be confused with "ease." Spring believes good shots should be rewarded, but he also thinks imprecise shots should have their due punishments. An example of this dynamic can be heard in Nate Sexton's analysis of the landing zone for hole 2 at Brewster from JomezPro's coverage of the 2019 Green Mountain Championship:
That clip also shows another big part of what to expect at Brewster: trees. Though there are some relatively open greens on a number of holes, Brewster is a true woods course that constantly puts players' accuracy to the test. And since demanding "a diversity of throws" is also part of Spring's design ethos, players need to be deft at a variety of shot shapes at a wide range of distances to score well.
You should also know that Brewster features four sets of tee pads on each hole so anyone from a beginner to the world's best disc golfers can play holes from distances they can enjoy.
Three Real Five Star Reviews of Brewster Ridge Disc Golf Course
Three five star reviews of Brewster Ridge from disc golfers on UDisc:
Note that the publication date of this post reflects the last time we made minor updates to it. Some information has not changed since its last major update in 2024.
