Alan Barker - Owner/Author at Infinite Discs

PDGA Worlds Week – What to Look For

August 30, 2022 Alan Leave a comment

This is arguably the biggest week of the year for the disc golf world. It is THE week when a World Champion will be crowned.

Now, the reality is that the PDGA Disc Golf World Championship is basically just another disc golf tournament. It’s a little bit longer than most pro events, but the only thing that matters is how an individual player plays this week. It doesn’t matter how well they’ve played the rest of the season, what matters is how they perform right now. The different between Worlds and any other tournament is the history of the event and the Title associated with the winning it.

If you don’t think there is anything different between this and other tournaments, ask Paul McBeth or Paige Pierce what they think. Even better, watch the documentaries on the Disc Golf Network.

To help you prepare for the drama of Worlds, Jace (used to be our main blog writer, now the editor at Disc Golf Reviewer) has broken down the narratives of who and what to watch among the MPO field.

MPO Players and Narratives to Watch For

Today the 2022 PDGA Disc Golf World Championship kicks off in Emporia, Kansas. Worlds is the biggest event in our sport, and after last year’s “Holy Shot” and phenomenal playoff finish, there is a tangible buzz in the air leading up to this year’s MPO event. The drama of last year’s
event and the pandemic have drawn a lot of new eyes to professional disc golf. So whether you are new to Worlds or you’ve been following since the Ken Climo days, here are some names and narratives to follow as you take in all 5 rounds of the high disc flying action this week.

Ricky Wysocki

Ricky Wysocki enters Worlds as one of if not the presumptive favorite to win the event and make himself a 3x World Champion. He has had an excellent 2022 season on tour with wins at Texas States, Ledgestone, and DDO, the latter was of course played on the same courses he will be navigating this week in Emporia.

There are lots of narratives to keep tabs on when watching Ricky this year. Emporia, Kansas hosted Worlds just six years ago in 2016, which is the year Ricky broke through the glass ceiling to finally win his first World Championship after finishing as runner-up in 3 of the previous 4 years. And let’s not forget whose plastic he was throwing and will be throwing now—For the 2016 season, Ricky left his long time sponsor Prodigy Disc to join Team Latitude 64 and switch his bag over to Trilogy (Latitude 64, Westside Discs, and Dynamic Discs). Dynamic Discs is headquartered in Emporia, Kansas.

After winning another World Championship with Latitude 64 in 2017, in 2019 Ricky Wysocki switched disc sponsors again and joined Team Innova, only to switch sponsors again at the beginning of this 2022 season. What team does Ricky represent now?

Dynamic Discs, meaning Ricky is back to throwing the same plastic he was throwing when he won his two previous Worlds. Oh, and perhaps you’ve heard of his rival…

Paul McBeth

You can’t spell Disc Golf World Championship without Paul McBeth. While McBeth hasn’t
been as dominant in recent years (BTW, I’d take 2015 McBeth over peak Jordan or Woods any
day of the week, but especially on Sundays), he is still the biggest name in the sport, and it would
be a tragic mistake to overlook him. In every Worlds since 2012, Paul has finished as either the champion or the runner-up. He is a 5x World Champion for a reason, and I guarantee McBeast is one of if not the biggest concern for anyone who has hopes for taking home the crown this week.

Some folks might try to make a big deal about Paul’s poor performance in Emporia earlier this year at DDO where he missed the cut for the first time ever in his career, but this feels negligible to me for a player of Paul’s caliber. He also finished runner-up at Worlds in Emporia just six years ago.

Rather, the biggest narrative I’m following this week with Paul is the revenge narrative. He knows as well as the rest of the world that he was one miraculous “Holy Shot” away from taking home his sixth world title last year. The James Conrad throw in has overall been framed as a positive for the world of disc golf—it brought eyes and attention to disc golf and has been a resource to “grow the sport” as we say. But all of this growth and positivity has been at Paul’s expense, and not a day goes by that he isn’t reminded of it.

The comment he made off the cuff about losing worlds to an only backhand player when he was asked at the European Open about Eagle McMahon only throwing backhand shots due to injury shows me just how present last year’s Worlds are in McBeth’s psyche.

Will he be able to reign that emotion and energy in and perform when it’s go time? Looking at how Worlds has gone for the past decade, I think the odds are in his favor.

Read full article here.

Live Coverage begins at on the Disc Golf Network at 2:30 PM Central Time. Post production coverage (hopefully next day) will be provided on the YouTube channels of JomezPro, GK Pro, Gatekeeper Media and Ace Run Productions.

Photos courtesy of Disc Golf Pro Tour.

Drew Gibson’s Finish Line Era Available for Pre-Order

February 3, 2022 Alan Leave a comment

The very first disc in Drew Gibson’s new Finish Line is under production. Everyone who has thrown Era prototypes is very excited about this new disc and its potential.

This fast, far flying fairway driver has an ability to stay straight longer than just about any driver on the market. It is easy to control, works for players of all skill level, and works well both backhand and forehand. The initial run of Era’s is in Finish Lines Forged plastic blend.

The Era will be released for retail sale by major disc golf retailers in March, but a limited number of pre-release discs are available for pre-order now. These discs will feature a special “Launch Edition” stamp and there will be no more than 500 of each color. This rare first disc in the new Gibson line will likely become collectible in the future.

Pre-Order Era’s will ship out in mid February.

Pre-Order Launch Edition Era Now

*Note, if you order the Era along with other products, the entire shipment will be sent together. If you need other products now, please make the Era as a separate order.

Eric Oakley Joins Team Infinite

November 18, 2021 Alan 2 comments

We are very excited to announce that Infinite Discs is partnering with Eric Oakley!

We are proud to sponsor him as he competes in the upcoming professional touring season, and we’re also excited about all of the ways in which we’ll be able to work together for the growth of the sport.

You can expect a lot of helpful disc and product reviews, some fun signature releases, and tournament events in many parts of the country as Eric tours in 2022. We look forward to a great year with Eric!

Shop All ERIC OAKLEY Stamped Discs Here

Eric’s disc golf career really began when he was living in Utah. The first tournament where he ever cashed was the Infinite Discs Cache Valley Classic, located at the Logan fairgrounds — just blocks away from Infinite Discs headquarters. Eric was a member of the first ever Team Infinite discs for a short time before he signed with Discmania.

Eric will be a valuable asset to Infinite Discs by utilizing his online reach to grow disc golf and share product insight and reviews from dozens of different disc golf brands. Be sure to follow Eric on social media for valuable information and giveaways here:

Black Friday Sale 2021

November 14, 2021 Alan Leave a comment

If you are experiencing a lagging website or crash during the sale, it is because of the huge number of shoppers on the site. We strongly recommend trying again in a few hours when the website server has had a chance to reset. More special discs will be added at later times, so you won’t miss out. Sorry for the inconvenience.

BLACK FRIDAY 2021

For 2021 our Black Friday weekend sale had to be adapted to account for the supply chain struggles in the disc golf market. Because we are unable to get many of the popular disc models from top manufacturers it has become even more difficult to get anything “special” or “unique” to offer our loyal customers and holiday shoppers. But we still managed to pull together some fun stamps and special runs which also highlight some of the smaller brands with great products. Plus, we’ll be putting a lot of those smaller brands on sale so that you can try them out at a discounted price.

DATES AND DISC DROPS

Our sale will kick off on Thanksgiving night, launching in full force on Black Friday (November 26th) and continuing through Cyber Monday (November 29th). Everything that is going to be discounted WILL BE DISCOUNTED ON ALL OF THOSE DAYS. Our Black Friday Ad will be a little bit different this year. Also, all of our special edition disc drops will be released in waves, with SOME OF EACH DISC DROPPING AT FOUR DIFFERENT TIMES during the weekend. That way, you will not need to feel pressure to be awake in the middle of the night or to watch for special dates and times for particular releases. You can pick a time to shop that works best for you. If you miss something on a morning drop, then try again on the next scheduled drop. We want it to be easy for you.

HERE IS WHAT WE HAVE LINED UP

Buy these Black Friday Discraft Special Releases here:

This year for our Black Friday drop we have four limited edition discs from Discraft. These are all special run Discraft discs with a variety of unique stamps as well as the popular generic Discraft bar stamp.

Watch for additional special discs from Discraft throughout the weekend, plus select models will be on sale at the lowest prices of the year.

Special Black Friday Releases from Lonestar and MVP

Our special black Friday drops this year include a limited run of crossword puzzle MVP Paradox. How many different disc golf words can you find?

Enjoy this beautiful three foil dragon stamp while saving money on the Lone Star discs Mad Cat.

Innova Stamps on Classic Best Sellers

Our popular “bread” stamps are back on some of the top selling Innova Champion Discs. While birds are popular, sometimes you just want some bread. Shop the bread series stamps from Black Friday through Cyber Monday using these links:

Infinite Discs Savings & Special Releases

Your best way to save money, and get great exclusive stamps this year is within the Infinite Discs line. Every disc in the Infinite Line will be ON SALE!

Not only do we have some incredible limited release triple foil stamps including the Red Sea Exodus, Lady Scepter, and Alien Ruin, but we have a huge selection of misprints and X-Outs. Factory seconds are always a great way to save money on disc golf discs, but for this week they will also be on sale. These misprints and X-outs are some of the best deals available in 2021. If you’re looking for cheap discs, this is where you’re going to want to start your Black Friday disc golf shopping.

For Infinite Discs Misprints and X-outs

Special Plastic and Stamp Dino Discs!

If you’re doing Christmas shopping for a young child, there is no better disc golf present than this edition of Dino Discs. The Eggshell Ultraviolet glow plastic both glows in the dark, and changes color in the sun! Even if your kid doesn’t like disc golf, they will like playing with these discs.

Remember… Dino Discs are Special, Ultra-Lightweight Discs for young players!

Super Sweet Discs and Super Cheap Prices:

Thought Space Athletics is one of the hottest new disc golf brands of 2021. Their brand new disc and first putting putter is being released for Black Friday. Be one of the first owners of this great putter.

If you’re looking for inexpensive discs that just look great, the Divergent Discs Basilisk, X-Com Griffon, and RPM Tribal bird are perfect gift choices for your disc golfer. The Basilisk is a unique distance driver designed specifically for beginners. The Griffon is an amazing straight flying midrange that players of all skill level can use. RPM Discs manufactures some of the best looking and best feeling plastic in all of disc golf.

Ridiculously Cheap Disc Golf Products

Are you looking for ridiculously cheap disc golf products? You need to check out our doorbuster deals!

Whether you’re looking for a gift for the disc golfer who has everything or just need an inexpensive bag to hold your ever growing collection of golf discs, our doorbusters are sure to prove exceptional value for you. Links to these closeout prices are listed below. Products at these prices are only available during Black Friday week while supplies last.

Stocking Stuffers and Premium Gifts

What do you get the serious disc golfer? Consider one of these on sale products from Apex Disc Golf. Play disc golf all winter long with a glow disc charger for those dark evenings and a hand warmer for those cold winter days.

Black Friday Deals to Get Ready for Tournament Season

Do you or your disc golfer plan to play in disc golf tournaments next year? Help get prepared for the 2022 disc golf tournament season with these great products at Black Friday prices. Disc Golf Bags and 3 Leg Stools at closeout prices.

More Black Friday Doorbuster Deals:

What would disc golf black friday be like without storage bags, mini markers, and disc golf baskets. These items will also be available at the lowest prices of the year during Black Friday Deals week only.

General Savings All Around

All Brands listed below will have discs automatically on sale all week long. Save especially big Black Friday Week by shopping from these brands, CLICK HERE AND BROWSE

Or Jump to the Brands:

Disc Golf Black Friday

Black Friday is our busiest week of the year at Infinite Discs. Before the actual sales week, we spend months planning and working with different disc golf artists and manufacturers to provide you with savings, unique items, limited runs and a fun disc golf shopping experience.

Discount Prices on Major Disc Golf Brands

With the unique disc golf supply chain situation, discount prices on many of the major brands is not possible this year. If you are a regular disc golf shopper, you’ve probably noticed that most disc molds in brands like Innova, Discraft, Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, Westside and MVP have not been regularly in stock. We cannot keep these these discs in stock during regular times and sales prices on these items would further strain the problem. We have done our best to provide some special releases from these brands and for Black Friday week and have the most inventory we’ve had on hand since the pandemic began.

With major inflation in plastic prices and shipping costs, all of the major manufacturers have had to raise the price of their products twice during the last year. The most recent price increase from Dynamic Discs was just announced yesterday. The MSRP of some plastic types raised by as much as $3. We wish this wasn’t the case, but expect higher disc prices to be the norm for the foreseeable future. For Black Friday week, all Trilogy discs will remain at their pre price hike rate.

While we have severe supply shortage from the major brands, we have been able to work out deals with many of the small brands where we are able to work out ultra low sale prices for the entire sales week.

Shipping During Black Friday Week

Our sales volume during Black Friday week is more than the rest of November combined. This is a big strain on our shipping capacity and work force. Be assured that we are doing all we can to get your package shipped out as fast as possible. For this weekend only we have crews working night shifts around the clock.

Not only is the Black Friday – Cyber Monday weekend our busiest shipping week of the year, but it is also the biggest shipping time for UPS, FedEx and the US Postal Service. These companies are doing the best they can, but some packages are slower than normal due to the sheer volume increase. We have additional Saturday pickups arranged with the major shipping couriers and when our receiving dock gets too full we will take extra loads to UPS ourselves.

Please be patient if your order does not arrive as fast as it normally does. You can always view your shipment status by logging into your Infinite account and clicking my orders to track your order.

Please Be Patient with our Website and Server

Our website was developed nearly a decade ago and expanded piece by piece as we’ve added new elements and made improvements. It’s current capacity was not designed for our current traffic, especially the demand we see during shopping on Black Friday sales week. We currently have more than 70,000 individually photographed discs available for you to shop. The unique combination of so many individual products can easily strain the database and server.

When too much traffic hits the website at once our website often gets very slow and occasionally crashes completely. If this happens while you are shopping, please be patient and come back to the website and try again at a later time.

We have a new website in the works that will perform better and have many new and exciting features. Unfortunately, it is not yet ready so we will have to continue to use the old one for Black Friday 2021.

Sales and Promotions

Shipping to the EU Currently Unavailable

July 2, 2021 Alan 3 comments

To our customers living in the EU, we are sad to announce that we will temporarily disable shipping.

We currently do not have software that will allow us to be compliant with the new VAT requirements effective July 1st. Until we can get an adequate software service, we will be unable to ship any products to countries that belong to the EU.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Newsroom

2021 State of Disc Golf Survey

January 8, 2021 Alan 34 comments

The Covid 19 pandemic caused havoc for disc golf during 2020. Its effects strained the supply chain, disrupted tournaments, and even closed many courses. But the effects of the pandemic also caused unprecedented growth for the sport.

With disc golf growing at an unprecedented pace, your input matters more than ever. The results this survey provides are beneficial for sponsors, tournament directors, disc golf companies, and parks departments considering adding disc golf.

This survey takes about 15-30 minutes to complete and will close on January 31st.

To review topics covered in past State of Disc Golf surveys, click the “State of Disc Golf” category in the sidebar for any appropriate year, or just click this link here.

Prizes

Disc golf related prizes of all types will be given to random winners who fill out the survey. Past years prizes have included discs, bags, and portable disc golf baskets.

Please share the survey with your disc golf friends and disc golf social media groups. The results to this survey are valuable to disc golfers everywhere, and everyone’s input matters.

If you have trouble scrolling through the format of the survey within this blog post, click this link https://forms.gle/FxYv3w5zDfL9pC9R8 to open the survey in a new tab.

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State of Disc Golf

Trying To Find The Discs You Want in 2021

January 4, 2021 Alan 3 comments

My time playing disc golf has been defined by things that have changed. Course basket locations change, my form as a player has gone through many changes, and even the discs themselves have physically changed when I slam them into trees off the tee-box.

Although some of the changes we have seen during 2020 have been awful, there have been many positives for disc golf. PDGA memberships, discs sold, and interest in the sport are at an all-time high. The PDGA reports that memberships are up above 15% from the previous year and tour events are up over 15% worldwide (with a 12.91% increase in the USA, and at least a 20% growth in Europe, Canada, Africa/Asia, and Latin America). And I’ve been told that not everyone in that 15% growth is a former Ultimate Frisbee player, despite what you may be hearing out there.

Unfortunately, some of the changes haven’t been great for disc golfers. Higher interest in the sport means courses are seeing more traffic, tournaments are seeing larger waitlists, and it has become tougher to find new discs due to production and stock issues.

On the topic of finding new discs, it feels like this could be an easier problem to solve. The PDGA has strict technical standards for all disc manufacturers, so there are only a finite number of possible combinations in making discs.

If there are only a limited number of configurations allowed, then there must be discs that I would love out there that I haven’t tried to throw yet. It also means, there should be multiple options to replace my favorite lost, out of stock, or out of production disc.

In disc golf, sometimes great results happen due to skill, and sometimes they happen due to sheer luck. I need all the luck I can out on the course, so I will defer to the data in answering this question.

Using data from the Infinite Blog, I wanted to see what brands/discs were popular, and what other discs could be considered.

Let’s first look at what disc types make the Top 20 most often from the past 3 months.

Interesting to note that Control Drivers make the list the fewest number of times. Though I don’t have much arm speed or skill in general, I noticed that I also bag more distance drivers than control drivers.

Now let’s see which brands show up the most in the Top 20 data.

The big brands make up most sales, but we see some other great, smaller brands too. Now let’s see which individual discs appear most on the Top 20 data we are examining.

So, given today’s out of stock issues and the rise of some great new brands, I wanted to identify which discs are just as worth throwing as the most popular discs using disc dimensions provided by the PDGA, flight numbers provided by manufacturers, and all other data I could find.

It was eye opening to see how many similar options were out there from both big and small brands. The below table shows some of my findings.

	Disc	Similar Alternative 1	Similar Alternative 2	Similar Alternative 3
Distance Driver	Destroyer	Discraft Surge	Axiom Discs Defy	MVP Photon
Control Driver	Sphinx	Discraft Heat	Westside Discs Underworld	Legacy Mongoose
Control Driver	FD	Latitude 64 River	Gateway Assassin	Kastaplast Falk
Mid Range	Buzzz	Innova Colt	Axiom Theory	DGA Squall
Putt & Approach	Zone	Dynamic Discs Suspect	MVP Entropy	Infinite Discs Ruin
Putt & Approach	Aviar	Discmania Link	Yikun Discs Claws	Infinite Discs Alpaca

If you’re interested in seeing alternatives for other discs, I’ve compiled this research into a web tool. This is a great tool to help you find discs golf discs similar to your favorites when they are sold out. Check it out here: www.TryDiscs.com

The quest to find my perfect disc is still ongoing. I may never get there but the journey of throwing and trying new discs is most of the fun.

This is a guest post submitted by Hasan Iqbal

Author Bio:

Hasan grew up in Georgia and has become obsessed with disc golf since he started playing in 2018. Hasan attended Georgia State University and the University of Delaware and is now working as a data scientist. In his spare time, Hasan has been working on Try Discs to help disc golfers find their next favorite disc. He can regularly be found on the wonderful courses around metro Atlanta with his dog, Scooby.

Best Disc Golf Discs for Ultimate Frisbee Players

November 11, 2020 Alan 50 comments

With the global pandemic shutting down much of organized Ultimate in 2020, many Ultimate Frisbee players have picked up disc golf as a new hobby.

While these are both flying disc sports, the flight of Ultimate discs is substantially different than that of most disc golf discs. Ultimate Frisbee players are able to adapt to and excel at disc golf faster than many without frisbee backgrounds, but learning to throw disc golf discs can be a frustrating experience.

In this article we are going to discuss the best golf discs for ultimate frisbee players. We’re going to go over some of the different golf discs that fly and feel more like Ultimate Frisbees, and provide tips for helping Ultimate players transition to disc golf.

We’ve asked hundreds of Ultimate players for their feedback and have assembled our own local panel of players to help us determine the absolute best frisbee golf discs for the Ultimate player.

Best Discs Overall

The overwhelming feedback from Ultimate to Disc Golf converts is to start out with putters and midrange discs. From our online voting, these are the top 15 golf discs recommended for the Ultimate Frisbee player. Note that not a single driver made the top 15.

Rank	Disc Name	Disc Type
1	Innova Mako3	Midrange
2	Innova Sonic	Putter
3	Discraft Buzzz	Midrange
4	Discraft Comet	Midrange
5	Infinite Discs Anubis	Midrange
8	Innova Zephyr	Specialty Disc
6	Discraft Buzzz SS	Midrange
7	Discraft Meteor	Midrange
9	Innova Aviar	Putter
10	Innova Condor	Specialty Disc
11	Discraft Zone	Approach Disc
12	Innova Nova	Putter
13	Innova Polecat	Putter
14	Innova Fuse	Midrange
15	Dynamic Discs Truth	Midrange

It’s also interesting to note that almost all of the most highly recommended discs are made by the top two brands Innova and Discraft. It’s no surprise that a high number of Ultimate players choose Discraft as this brand is by far the #1 choice for Ultimate Frisbees. When it comes to organized Ultimate teams and leagues a few teams use Aria, but basically everyone else in the US throws Discraft.

Best Putters for Ultimate Players

According to our online feedback, the following are the best putters for Ultimate Players. In general, the more understable flying putters — like the Innova Sonic, and the deep dish putters were recommended.

1	Sonic
2	Aviar
3	Zone
4	Dart
5	Nova
5	Polecat
5	Rattler
7	Luna
8	Fierce
9	Myth
9	Sol
10	Banger GT
11	Birdie
12	Challenger
13	Cohort
14	Deputy
15	Ruru
15	Tui

Best Midrange Discs For Ultimate Players

When it comes to Midranges, neutral flying wide diameter mids were the most highly recommended.

1	Innova Mako3
2	Discraft Buzzz
3	Discraft Comet
4	Infinite Discs Anubis
5	Discraft Buzzz SS
6	Discraft Meteor
7	Latitude 64 Fuse
8	Dynamic Discs Truth
9	Innova Roc
10	Innova Shark
11	Innova Cobra
12	Prodigy M4
13	Innova Tomahawk
14	DD Emac Truth
15	Discraft Archer

Best Drivers for Ultimate Frisbee Players

While drivers are the most difficult for Ultimate Players to get used to, once they do they absolutely love getting the incredible distance that only a bevel edge golf disc can provide. While many like to recommend the low speed drivers that are best for normal beginners, many Ultimate players can handle understable high speed drivers after just a few throws. Listed below are the most recommended drivers for the Ultimate convert.

1	Infinite Discs Maya
2	Discraft Avenger SS
3	Innova Leopard
4	Innova Roadrunner
5	Latitude 64 Diamond
6	Innova Shryke
7	Innova Teebird
8	Innova Sidewinder
9	Discmania FD
10	Discraft Hades
11	Axiom Insanity
12	TSA Mantra
13	Latitude 64 River
14	Infinite Discs Sphinx
15	DGA Sail

What are the best golf discs for Ultimate players?

Are you an Ultimate player who has picked up disc golf? Let us know what discs did it for you and helped in your transition. Our goal is to help make disc golf as enjoyable as possible for everyone, and having the right discs makes a big difference.

General

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Author: Alan