I’m a sports management student at USM and for the most part I don’t like pay-to-play sports. I’d argue that they’re detrimental to the growth of the sport, target rich people, and ruin the fun nature of sports.
We’ve gotten to the point where we need caddies in professional disc golf.
That’s a bold statement Streeter. Why do you think that?
Well let’s start with the fact that disc golf seems to be unique at the moment. Ball golf has caddies and swing coaches at the professional level. As well as their own masseuses, and nutritionists. The swing coach works with a golfer off the course, and a caddy takes care of them while they’re on the course.
Disc golf doesn’t have a rule about which disc you can throw at any point on the course. You can putt with a driver and drive with a putter if you want. As long as it’s PDGA approved you can throw anything you want from anywhere on the course. This is one of my favorite things about the sport. Someone will throw a high speed driver, others, a putter off the tee. The variability of people’s skills is fun to watch.
The World Championships have come and gone in dramatic fashion. A huge congratulations to James Conrad and Catrina Allen who both played incredible golf all weekend. They are worthy and deserving champions. James notched his first world title to go alongside his USDGC title. Catrina became a 2x as she got only her 3rd win of the season. It’s been a week of excitement from start to finish.
Now that it’s over I’d like to look at the winners and losers from this weekend.
This week's blog is going to be about finding positive things you can do to affect your game. And how you can improve your mental approach to the course. You’re going to have to be your own hype man out on the course. When Nate Sexton was giving a demonstration at SDG he told the crowd “You are responsible for your own confidence out on the course.”
Do people want to see pros struggle to make par? I understand that everyone competing on tour is better than me, and seeing them shoot over par doesn’t make me suddenly feel better because I’m 4 under at my home course. But if the goal is to see players finish -4 to win, these are the ways it could be done.
There are 70 women currently registered in the FPO division for the 2021 World Championships in Ogden Utah this year. I’m going to refine my list to 10 players whom I think stand a chance at winning the title. I want to say first of all how awesome a field of 70 is. This will be the largest FPO contingent in disc golf world’s history! The previous record was 49 at Smugglers Notch in 2018.
There’s a lot of players in MPO who have a chance to win a world’s title. I’m going to look at the 10 players who I believe have the best chance of winning. The prestige of winning a world title is one of the highest honors in the sport of disc golf. At one point, for a single week only perhaps, you were the undisputed best player on the planet.
We throw pointy pieces of hard plastic at incredible speeds. Central Coast Disc Golf measures professional players drive speeds and they see 70 miles per hour off the tee. Simon Lizotte hit 89.5 mph once! Now let’s get to why I had to write this blog.
I got thrown on today when I was giving a lesson. As I stood in the middle of a field having a 20 second talk about whether or not we should throw a forehand upshot or jump-putt, a purple driver missed my left knee by about two feet and hit the grass with a solid thud.
No “Fore!”, no “Watch out”, “Heads up.” Just silence.
Last year I saw that dozens of ultimate players had made the temporary transition to disc golf. One of the teams formed a disc golf league, where they would go and compete on different courses each week in Maine. I love that they started their own mini tour for a season.
Ultimate players and disc golfers are different folks, but we all love throwing plastic.
Today we’re going to be talking about how to throw and land on a hill. I’ll cover what to do when you’re throwing from high to low, low to high, and side to side. Learn to respect hills and you’ll do just fine. They’re a great feature on any disc golf course that makes the game harder and more rewarding.
Skill videos are fun because they’re replicable. I can go out there with a friend and compare myself in a field to the pros above. I won’t be able to go out and play Jonesboro with the pros, but I can do this. It’s worth planning out this activity with friends just as a little change of pace from a regular round.
