We’ve all missed putts in Disc Golf… some of us more than others. We got together with Zoe Andyke to learn how to line up our putt properly, and we thought you’d like to get in on the knowledge. Here’s a clinic that shows how to improve your disc golf putting form:
Let us know if you learned anything new!
Have you ever watched professional disc golf footage and wondered how they make the line that shows the disc’s flight path? Now is your chance to learn! If you have Adobe Premiere and Adobe After Effects, you can even do it yourself. Here’s our tutorial on our method of making Flight Trackers that are featured on our YouTube channel.
Make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel if you found this helpful!
It’s time for our look at how we carry our discs in 2020! We’ve asked this question in several surveys past, so we’ll have some good data to compare. For this data, we’ve broken down the results into five main categories: Backpack Bags, Disc Golf Carts, Small Bag, Large Tournament Style Bag, and Miscellaneous Bags (usually homemade or not made for disc golf).
Backpack Bags take the cake with over 51.03% of people saying they use one. Disc Golf Carts took a close second place, at 18.62%, with Small bags being surprisingly high, at 18.4%. Large Tournament Style Bags only represent 8.3% of the results, with the last 3.65% being miscellaneous bags.
Let’s break it down! Backpack Bags being so heavily used is not a huge surprise. Most people at the disc golf course are using backpack bags these days. They are widely available and come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges. Even a beginner can afford a cheaper backpack bag, so many people are skipping over the Tournament Style Bag, which used to be a hot commodity.
Small Bags take a surprising 3rd place. But maybe it’s not so surprising with how many new players are taking up the sport. Most people are starting with a $15 – $20 starter bag and then upgrading once they have enough discs to warrant it. We think those upgrades are going directly to backpack bags. More on bag upgrades/replacements later.
Let’s take a look at the trends over the years. We have data from 2020, 2018, 2017, and 2015 to show the trends. Let’s take a look:
Let’s look at the first takeaway- the decline of the Tournament Bag. Back in 2015, Tournament Bags were all the rage, taking up at least a third of the market. Over the years these bags have been used less and less, till now when Tournament Bags are only used by around 8% of people.
Small Bags have declined over the past few years, until this year. They made a big jump in the 2020 Survey. This is likely due to more and more new players getting into the sport. Some people, may also have opted to simplify their bag.
Disc Golf Carts have been raising in popularity ever since their introduction. ZUCA takes the majority share of Disc Golf Carts, offering them not only as ZUCA branded carts, but Dynamic Discs branded as well. More and more players are opting for carts now.
Backpack Bags steadily increased over the past years, and dipped a little bit this year. Backpack Bags seem to be the staple of Disc Golf Bags, so we don’t foresee them dropping off the charts anytime soon.
In the 2020 Survey, we asked people how many times they had replaced their bag/cart in the last 10 years. Let’s see the results:
The chart starts off with those people who have never replaced their bag. Quite a lot!
We were surprised at how many people stayed loyal to one bag over the course of 10 years. But, when you pit the people who replaced bags against the people who haven’t, it looks like the graph to the right. 32% of people did not replace their bag in the last 10 years.
Back to the upper chart- it seems like a perfect decline in people who replaced their bag multiple times. With each replacement, the number of people dropped, until 8+ times, a few bag-crazy people took it up just a notch on the chart. Where do you stand on the chart? What’s your preferred bag? Let us know in the comments!
Thanks for joining us on this State of Disc Golf 2020 article. Stay tuned for more data!
Sometimes we step up to the tee, very confident in our shot selection. But then, we noticed the wind picking up from right to left… and we started second guessing our plans. Which disc should we throw now? How do we adjust for the wind?
David Feldberg is here to help. He talks us through the basics of reading the wind and shot selection. Let us know if you learned something in the comments!
We’d like to give a huge thanks to the sponsors of this year’s State of Disc Golf Survey! These sponsors graciously donated prizes to be given to survey participants. We had over 6500 survey participants this year, and nine amazing sponsors. We’re going to announce the sponsors here, in alphabetical order:
And Presenting the Survey, as well as donating prizes:
We’d also like to announce that all survey prizes have been drawn. If your email was drawn, we have sent you an email as of now. Please check your email and get back to us to claim your prize if you’ve won! We will be shipping out Prizes as we get your replies.
Thanks to everybody who participated in the survey this year!
Click the link above to see the data for this year! New results are posted several times a month as we parse the data and make some graphs to show interesting finds!
We asked the question, “Which disc brands are found in your bag?” Participants were allowed to pick as many disc brands as were in their bag. With more than 6,000 responses, this was a giant list of brands! We decided to break it down and look at which states bag which brands the most. We’re going to start off with some maps that break down the top brands, and then we’ll list the top five bagged brands in every state. All of this data comes from the 2020 State of Disc Golf Survey.
Let’s start off with a map of the #1 bagged brand in each state. It may look exactly how you predicted:
Yep! Innova still rules most of the country. It’s important to remember that people may have selected multiple brands that they bag, so whichever brand shows up the MOST in a state, takes the win. This doesn’t mean other brands aren’t popular in these states, it means that most people bag at least one Innova disc. Dynamic discs holds down the fort in Kansas and North Dakota, and Discraft shines through in Michigan, Iowa, and Alaska.
Now we decided to take the map a step further. What if we eliminate Innova entirely? Which brands would take the chart? Have a look:
This chart may not have looked like this two years ago, but Discraft has really topped the charts over the last couple of years. With Paul McBeth and Paige Pierce joining Discraft’s ranks, it’s inspired a lot of people to try and bag Discraft molds. Dynamic Discs takes a few more states this time, though. Also note, since this is a chart by brand, Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside are each represented as their own brands. Some regard them as the same “Trilogy” brand, but technically they are separate.
Let’s take this another step further. Let’s eliminate Innova AND Discraft from the equation, and see who takes the cake:
Dynamic Discs comes in strong! This means that most people do bag Innova, Discraft, and Dynamic Discs molds in their bags. Dynamic Discs almost completely takes the chart in 3rd place for bagged molds. It also shows how strong Dynamic Discs is over it’s family brands, Latitude 64, and Westside. Some new faces appear on this chart: Discmania, MVP, Westside, and Latitude 64.
Shall we take it one last step? Let’s Eliminate Innova, Discraft, and ALL of the Trilogy brands to see if we can bring some color variety into the chart:
Did you see that coming? Discmania shows up strong and sweeps most of the country! I think we can attribute a lot of this to Discmania’s massive popularity of the P2. It’s been the #1 selling putter at www.infinitediscs.com for three years running now. Discmania also has a lot of really great discs and signature molds that people love! Prodigy takes a bit of the South region, and MVP takes a good variety of the eastern half of the country, plus Alaska and Hawaii.
This data has shown us a lot. There are very dominate brands that appear in a lot of player’s bags. Innova, Discraft, Dynamic Discs, and Discmania have shown us that. We also noticed in the survey data just how many people are throwing mixed bags.
Here’s a histogram chart that shows how many brands each survey participant bags.
We find that most people bag between 3 and 7 brands, and there’s still a big chunk of people who bag even more! Some people are bagging 10+ brands in their bag. There were even a couple of wild people who throw 20+ brands! They must have a different brand for every mold in their bag. We love it when people try out some of the lesser known brands.
Now the moment you may or may not have been waiting for! We’ll list off the Top 5 Disc Golf Bagged Brands in every state. You can see how your bag lines up with your state.
Be sure to check back weekly for more 2020 State of Disc Golf Statistics Blogs!
Welcome to another Disc Data blog! Today we’re going to take an in depth look at the Top 100 Distance Drivers. We’ll be using our sales data from the past year to determine which disc golf distance drivers are the most popular. We’ll first take a look at the Top 100 list, then we’ll break it down into smaller, bite-sized pieces.
Note: We can’t show exact sold quantities, but we can show you the sales figures when compared to each other. This still provides a great visual presentation of which discs are the most popular when compared to others.
That is a pretty long list of distance drivers, so let’s break it down by speed. That will allow us to see how similar discs compared to one another in sales.
The fastest distance drivers on the market are those which are given a speed-14 rating. That speed rating is based on the width of the rim. The wider the rim, the higher the speed. That basically means that the wider the rim, the faster (more powerful) the player must throw the disc to keep it aloft. Higher speed can equate to more distance, but only if the player has the skill and arm speed to keep it in the air. A speed-14 disc usually has a rim width of 2.5cm, the widest allowed by the PDGA.
The Corvette took the #1 spot for the highest speed discs, mostly because it was the newest distance driver from Innova in the 2019 year. The Ballista Pro came in 2nd as a very good driver from the Latitude 64 line, designed for experienced players.
Still on the faster side of the distance driver spectrum, the Speed-13 drivers are very popular. They are slightly more accessible to the general player pool than those with the widest possible rim. But they still require a lot of speed to maximize their distance performance.
The Infinite Discs Pharaoh has been a hot seller for Infinite Discs ever since it was introduced as the fastest distance driver in their disc line (manufactured by Innova). It likely takes the #1 spot because Infinite Discs was the only place to get one during the 2019 season. However, the Pharaoh will become available to other stores as 2020 progresses. The Shryke and Boss by Innova take the next two spots and then the relatively new Raider by Dynamic Discs took the #4 position.
The most popular speed rating in drivers appears to be the Speed-12 class. This rim size is more manageable for many players, including professional players who throw some of the most popular drivers in the market.
The Destroyer by Innova was once again the #1 selling distance driver of 2019 at Infinite Discs. It is thrown by a lot of professional players and amateurs alike. So, it also takes the top spot among speed-12 drivers, though the Zeus by Discraft (in the Paul McBeth line of discs) gave the Destroyer a run for its money when it was introduced in 2019.
Discs with a Speed-11 rating have been picking up in popularity among many players. While they may initially pull the trigger on a 12 or 13 because they see experienced players throwing them, those same players often discover that they can actually get more distance with a speed-11. For a lot of players, this is about as fast as they can honestly handle.
The Wraith by Innova is one of those distance drivers that has been increasing in popularity lately, taking off as the new favorite for more of the amateur players. However, you will see some professionals, including some of the best female players in the world, throwing a Wraith.
Usually a Speed-9 or Speed-10 driver is considered a good place to start for new players who want to test the distance driver category. It is fast enough, but not overly fast even for newer players. These are the best-sellers with a speed-10 rating at Infinite Discs.
The Beast by Innova took the #1 spot in this speed category. The Orc has something of a cult following, selling particularly well in the collector’s market, due to the incidental swirls and number of “pre-flight number” discs floating around. They are more rare when they are found without the flight numbers included on the stamp. The Avenger SS by Discraft has recently picked up steam as another Paul McBeth signature edition, though it is quite a bit slower and more beginner friendly than most other discs that he is seen throwing in tournaments.
The Speed-9 class of discs is actually that fuzzy line between a true “distance driver” and a “fairway driver.” Being slower, they are somewhat easier to control in precision situations and work nicely as entry-level distance drivers for newer players.
There are some speed-9 discs which are on the top-sellers chart because their manufacturer calls them “distance drivers.” However, there are other speed-9 discs that are not on this chart or included in the data because the manufacturer calls them “fairway drivers” or “control drivers.” Hot sellers that don’t appear here because of that designation would be discs like the Innova Firebird, or Innova Valkyrie, or Dynamic Discs Felon, etc.
So, when it comes to speed-9 discs, expect the numbers to be as fuzzy as the designation between being a distance or fairway driver.
Here is one more interesting chart for you. It shows the most popular speed class when the sales are separated into the speed categories. Once again, keep in mind that the Speed-9 class is fuzzy because it excludes the sales of many popular speed-9 discs that are categorized by their manufacturers as control drivers or fairway drivers.
It doesn’t take a trained eye to notice that the Speed-12 category is the most popular. That is the category that includes the top sellers like the Destroyer and the Zeus.
We hope that you have enjoyed looking at this data. Feel free to share your opinions and favorite distance drivers in the comments.
Round 3 of voting has come to a close and four stamps have come out on top. These four stamps will proceed to the final round. The four stamps will be stamped on a variety of molds across several brands. The stamp that sells the best, wins! The final round typically lasts a month, or can end early if one stamp sells so much that it leaves the others behind.
Let’s take a look at the four stamps that will proceed to the final round:
by Silas Pearson
by Aaron Waggoner
by Steve Bayes
by Justin Lago
The final round will begin when we receive and list all of the discs. This may take up to 2 weeks. Stay tuned for the final round!
