The Disc Golf Pro Tour is coming back to Jefferson Parish. Tour organizers announced Tuesday that the Big Easy Open will return to Grand Cypress Bayou at Parc des Familles in Marrero from March 19 to 21, 2027, placing the parish back in the opening stretch of the tour's Elite Series schedule for a second straight year.
According to Jefferson Parish, professional disc golfers will tee off at Grand Cypress Bayou as part of the 2027 slate, with early bird Fairway VIP passes already on sale in limited supply. The 2027 stop follows the tour's season opener in Brooksville, Florida, according to the Disc Golf Pro Tour.
This will mark the course's second consecutive year hosting an Elite Series event. Louisiana got its first-ever Disc Golf Pro Tour Elite Series stop from March 13 to 15, 2026, when the inaugural MVP Big Easy Open presented by Flight Factory drew more than 150 top professional competitors to Marrero, a milestone that came after parish officials worked with tour organizers to bring the state its first elite disc golf event.
A Record-Setting Debut in the Bayou
The 2026 tournament wasn't just historic for Louisiana — it set a tour-wide benchmark. At 12,370 feet with a par of 69 for the Men's Professional Open layout, Grand Cypress Bayou earned the title of the longest course on the entire Disc Golf Pro Tour during its debut, immediately gaining a reputation as one of the circuit's most grueling tracks. The layout weaves four par 5s and seven par 4s through dense bayou woods, a design that tested even the field's top-ranked competitors.
Gannon Buhr won the inaugural Men's Professional Open title at the course, while Holyn Handley captured the Women's Professional Open crown with a 9-under-par performance, after setting a course-record 6-under-par round on opening day. The results underscored just how demanding — and how photogenic — the swamp-carved layout had become in its first turn hosting elite competition.
Upgrades Underway Ahead of the 2027 Return
Ahead of next year's tournament, Disc Golf Pro Tour CEO Jeff Spring is leading a collaborative push with course designer Houck Design, the New Orleans Disc Golf Club, and Jefferson Parks and Recreation to implement venue and course development upgrades at Parc des Familles. Parish funding and volunteer efforts are continuing to refine the layout for elite-level play as the tour returns.
The course's roots trace back to 2017 and 2018, when it was originally designed as a par-65 championship layout by John Houck, a designer credited with more than 130 disc golf courses worldwide, inside the 600-acre parish park in Marrero. Since then, the track has climbed to the top of the sport's rankings: UDisc lists Grand Cypress Bayou as the number one disc golf course in Louisiana, with four distinct tee-and-basket layouts ranging from a roughly 850 par rating for casual players on the Red tees up to roughly 1030 for elite touring pros on the Black tees, and the course ranks among the top 100 in the world on the platform.
Part of a Bigger Growth Story
The parish's investment lines up with broader momentum across the sport. During the first half of the 2026 season, Disc Golf Pro Tour events generated more than 60,000 onsite spectator and participant visits, while ticket sales grew by more than 30% compared to the same stretch of 2025. More than 21.2 million rounds of disc golf were played across over 17,000 courses worldwide in 2025, including more than 11,000 active courses in the United States, according to UDisc's 2026 Disc Golf Growth Report.
Grand Cypress Bayou sits inside Parc des Familles, a 600-acre recreation hub at 6101 Leo Kerner Lafitte Parkway on the Westbank that also includes a 2,000-foot elevated boardwalk through cypress swamp, two dog parks, a 5.15-mile mountain bike trail, a splash park, and a four-field baseball quadplex. Open questions remain about exactly how much direct tourism revenue the 2026 tournament brought to Jefferson Parish businesses and what specific layout or spectator-flow changes will greet competitors and fans when the pros return in March 2027.
