There’s lots of different ways to achieve a desired flight path. Let’s look at the Innova Destroyer, a disc that’s offered in DX, Star, GStar, Champion, Halo, and other plastics. It’s one of the discs that everyone compares other drivers to. You’ve probably thrown a few in your time playing disc, or at least know someone who bags them.
Destroyers all have incredible variability based on their plastic choice. DX is the least stable out of the box, then GStar, then Star, then Champion / Halo are both very overstable plastics. I’m a fan of all the plastics and they all have their own place in my heart.
I have a Champion Destroyer that’s pretty old and is now my beat in long distance disc. But if I tried out a new Champ Destroyer I would struggle for a while to flip it over.
You definitely consider plastic type when you’re getting a disc. But you’re probably also thinking about the weight.
Maybe you love the flight path of the Destroyer but you’re struggling to throw it consistently. So what should you do?
You can either try matching your arm speed to the disc, which may mean discing down to a different mold. Or you can try throwing a lighter weight disc. Both are great options for getting a more consistent flight path that you’re happy with.
Don’t settle for a disc that isn’t turning for you when you need it to. Either change the mold to something slower, the plastic to something less stable, or lower the weight. Those are the three best options for getting something to get a little more turn in the flight.
Try getting the weight down from 175g to 167g, maybe take it even lower to a 160g disc. You’ll see more turn and distance on a lower speed disc. Here’s a blog about how to increase your distance I wrote a couple years back, the first tip I give is to decrease the weight of your disc. If you watch distance competitions you’ll see that top pros throw lower weight discs for extra distance. Check out this shot from Jere Eshelman. I know it’s a super downhill, but listen to the audio at the end “150g TeeBird, that’s why it did that.”
Sometimes lightweight discs are just the answer for distance.
I had a PD2 in C-line plastic a handful of years ago. It was 175g, cherry red, and the most overstable thing I had ever tried to throw. It really soured me on the disc. Then I found a C-Line PD2 that was 150g. It had the exact line I was looking for and I could throw it almost 100 feet further! Now it sits in my bag as something that I throw with a tailwind.
People try to gatekeep the weirdest things.
There’s helpful tips for your game. Like telling a true beginner player that they should really stick to putter / mids until you’ve gotten throwing level down. That’s just a tip that I think 99% of the community could get behind.
Then there’s weird things that I’ve heard in the pro shop.
“Boys can’t throw pink discs.”
“Guys can’t throw lightweight discs.”
Pink is the easiest color for me to find when I shank a drive in the woods.
There’s no bonus multiplier at the end of the round for throwing a 175g disc.
Quit gatekeeping people who want to use lighter discs.
At Sabattus we try to offer a wide variety of weights because we know that people need different weights. If you come into our pro shop we carry the heaviest weighted discs in the front left of each rack and the lightest in the back right. That orange Sockibot Destroyer is 173-175g and that pink one all the way in the third row in the back is the lightest. We do this on every single rack here at SDG.
If you’re on our website you can scroll by weight of disc and then color. Because we know that weight is important when picking out what you’re looking for. That drop down shows you all the weights we currently have in the shop.
People need lighter discs for all sorts of different reasons, and attempting to shame someone for throwing a lighter weight disc is super weird.
Find what you love to throw. Throw it. Don’t care about what other people say about your disc weight choices.
May your discs miss all the trees,
Andrew Streeter #70397
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