State of Disc Golf Archives

What Do We Think About Tournaments?

March 11, 2021 Ted Hegemann 4 comments

2021 State of Disc Golf

Tournaments

One of the categories that I look forward to the most when it comes to looking at the survey results is that of tournament play. I’m always interested to see what tournaments people play, why people do or do not play, and what it would take for people to sign up for a tournament. I played my first tournament after playing disc golf for about a year. I was hooked! For me, it wasn’t so much for the competition as it was a social event that happened to revolve around disc golf.

Since then, I found that there are a lot of people who like tournaments, but a large number of people who have no interest in tournaments. For some, it’s the strict rules. For others, they are completely happy just hucking with friends in a casual round. There are cost issues, time issues, and travel issues, among the other reasons people don’t play. The survey covers a lot of those things, so let’s jump into the results.

Covid19

Once again, Covid19 had a huge impact on the tournament scene last year. Thankfully, it appears that we may have a nearly normal tournament year this year. (I am so looking forward to Worlds!) But, the survey results definitely reflect the dismal year we had last year. We’ll start with the question about whether or not we played in a tournament or other event last year. Here is what we found.

The survey question read, “Did you play in at least one disc golf tournament or event in 2020?”. Over half of us indicated that we did play in at least one event. There were a few tournaments that were played before Covid19 really affected things, a few at the end of the year, and a smattering of events throughout the year. That added up to a decent year for disc golf events. Not what we hoped for, but it could have been much worse. Here is a graph of the results:

To put things in perspective, here is a graph of the previous year’s tournament/event attendance. Attendance was down from 66% last year. I was expecting it to be a bigger drop.

Sanctioned Tournaments

Along with data about how many of us are playing competitively, it is also interesting to see what kind of tournaments people do play. Since the overall percentages were down for event attendance, it will be interesting to see if sanctioned versus non-sanctioned tournaments were affected more. A ‘sanctioned’ tournament is one that approved by the PDGA. There are additional requirements for the tournament, and PDGA rules are supposed to be enforced. Nearly 40% of the people who took the survey played in a sanctioned tournament last year. That is down 13% from last year. Here are the charts:

Of the people who played in a sanctioned tournament last year, 59% played in three or fewer tournaments. That is up significantly from 45% for 2019. Again, not surprising. Even with restrictions and cancellations, a very lucky 2% of us played in twenty or more tournaments last year! That was down 5% from the previous year.

Non-Sanctioned

When I checked out the non-sanctioned tournaments for last year it was apparent that something wasn’t right with the data. According to the survey, only 4% of us played in a non-sanctioned tournament last year. In 2019, over half of us played in non-sanctioned tournaments. Even with Covid19 throwing a wrench in our season, that 4% number couldn’t be right. I checked the raw data and it turns out that some of the results were missing for that question. I’ll see if the data can be recovered and post the info later.

Why Tournaments?

Now we know how many of us play in tournaments, let’s look at why we play. For most of us, there are multiple reasons we play. Nearly 25% of us like the competition. That is the number one reason. That leaves 75% of us that play for other reasons. It’s good to see that the next most popular answer is that we like to play tournaments for fun! Along the same lines is the number three answer, for social reasons. I’m surprised that category wasn’t higher because so many tournaments that I go to are like reunions. It’s always great to see our disc golf family again at tournaments. Here is a graph of reasons why we play:

Why We Don’t Play

On the flip side of that coin are the reasons why many of us don’t play tournaments. For 2020, you can probably guess the number one reason why people didn’t play. Yep, tournaments getting cancelled due to Covid19. The second most popular reason is that we don’t feel like we’re good enough to play. Nearly 20% of us chose that as one of the reasons. If you are one of those, I would recommend giving it a try. Play in a lower division and just relax and have fun. It is always more fun if you win something, but playing in a tournament helps you meet new people and gives you the tournament experience. Then the next one won’t feel quite as intimidating. Here are the results:

Tournament Persuasion

Looking at what things would motivate people to play, we see the number one answer is that people would play if they were better. That aligns with the previous graph results. The next most popular response is that of convenience. Finding tournaments on the days we can play, and at a location that is reasonably close would make a lot of people more inclined to play. Bigger player packs would also motivate a lot of people, nearly 40%. Here are the survey results:

Check back next week for more State of Disc Golf results!

How did Covid-19 Affect Disc Golf

February 25, 2021 Ted Hegemann One comment

2021 State of Disc Golf

How did Covid-19 Affect Disc Golf

One of the the things we included in this year’s survey was the thing that affected nearly everyone in the world: Covid-19. We wanted to see how the pandemic was affecting disc golf for everyone, since we’ve know how it’s affecting people’s lives in other ways. From a broad perspective, disc golf is one of the many sports and activities that are nearly perfect for the restrictions and guidelines that we witnessed during the past 12 months. Since the pandemic didn’t affect every region the same, and since local governments were allowed to write their own rules, to a degree (at least in the USA), we saw a variety of different restrictions that affected how we play disc golf. Let’s start with how much we played, then we can look at how Covid-19 affected that.

Let’s Play Disc Golf

We asked people how many rounds per month they played on average in 2020. Over half of us played between 5-14 rounds per month. That might sound a little low, but that is the average. If winter months bump that number down to 3-5 rounds, that bumps the summer months up to 16-18 round. That’s four or so rounds per week, which seems like a good average. Here are the numbers, broken down by the number of rounds:

Covid Affecting Disc Golf Play

Now let’s throw Covid-19 into the mix and see how that affected how often we played. We asked “How did Covid-19 affect your options to play disc golf?” Since some areas closed down even outdoor facilities, many of us didn’t even have the option to play. In other areas it was business as usual. In fact, nearly a third of us played more casual rounds in 2020 than in recent years. According to survey results, about half of us played as many or more rounds than usual. There were a small number, about 14%, that indicated that they didn’t get to play some casual rounds because of Covid-19.

When it came to leagues, about 15% of us said they missed some leagues because of cancellations or closures. That was a surprising number for me because of all the leagues that were cancelled in our greater area. Even more surprising, even though a larger percentage, is the number of people who said didn’t get to play in some tournaments because of cancellations and closures. A little more than a third of us indicated that they had to miss a tournament. I would have thought that number would have been a lot higher.

Open or Closed Disc Golf Courses

One aspect affecting the number of rounds we played last year was whether or not the courses were even open. Nearly half of us weren’t able to play certain courses at times throughout the year due to closures. While others remained open all year. Here are the numbers:

Another option in the question about courses staying open or not was to indicate if you stayed home even though the courses were open. There were 767 people, or about 12% of the total respondents that indicated they chose to stay home. Some also said that courses around them were closed, but that they still stayed home. We should have phrased the question better to give a more accurate picture, but the number is still valid. I was curious about the makeup of the 767 people, so I cross referenced their age groups to see if the demographics were lopsided. The results were surprising. Here is a graph of the age groups who opted to stay home:

I would have thought the age based higher-risk groups would have had more people who would prefer to play alone, and not even on a course. But, the numbers look almost exactly like the graph of age groups from the first blog in this series. Here is the graph of the number of people who took the survey, by age groups:

That’s all for this week. Check out next week’s blog for more data, graphs, and information about the 2021 Disc Golf Survey. Check out previous posts here

Week 1 – Demographics: https://blog.infinitediscs.com/state-of-disc-golf-2021/

Week 2 – When did you start playing: https://blog.infinitediscs.com/when-did-you-start-playing/

When Did You Start Playing?

February 18, 2021 Ted Hegemann 3 comments

2021 State of Disc Golf:

How Long Have You Been Playing?

In last week’s blog we looked at the ages, gender, and where we live. This week we will look at when we started playing, and check out some other data related to when we started. We will also look at people who started recently, as in during the pandemic, and see what their motivation was to start. I wanted to explore some other questions, but I think they will fit in better with other blog subjects.

We all got introduced to the sport of disc golf at some point, and in some fashion. For me, I’m happy to say that I invented disc golf! Well, sort of. My brothers and I were tossing Frisbees around the yard in the mid 70’s and we came up with a cool game. We selected nine objects around my parent’s spacious yard, and our disc golf course was born. It wasn’t until decades later that we heard there was actually a sport similar to what we were doing, complete with formal baskets and discs. It wouldn’t be for a couple more years before we would get actual discs and play on a ‘real’ course. (The first real course we played was Creekside in Salt Lake City).

Finally Getting Real

Although it wasn’t for another many years until we considered ourselves disc golfers, the seed was planted and we were hooked. Today, when people ask how long I’ve been playing, I refer to my 2013 beginning, since that was when I got some ‘real’ discs and played a league round with our local club. In this blog post, we will check out when people say they started playing. Then we’ll focus on a couple years or year ranges that had the highest number of people start disc golf. And we’ll look at a couple other survey results.

When Did You Start Playing Disc Golf?

The question we asked in the survey was ‘When did you begin playing disc golf?’ The choices were individual years for 2011-2020, five-year blocks from 2001-2010, ten-year blocks from 1971-2000, and the final category was ‘Before 1970’. If you were lucky enough to be able to answer ‘Before 1970’, good on you! Also, congrats for playing so long, and presumably still playing! Also, what is your PDGA number?!

Here are the results for when people said they started playing:

As you can see, there are a few people among the respondents who started playing more than 50 years ago! Interestingly, the biggest group are the people who started just last year. If you look at the next biggest group, it may be surprising to see such a large number of people in the 2006-2010 range. But, that’s when the five-year span starts. Here is a chart with all of the years from 2001-2020 in five year increments. It’s more of what we should expect.

Even with the overall graph looking like what we would expect, the statistic that is the most impressive is how many people say they started last year. Factoring in the Covid19 shutdowns, leaving people with more time on their hands and fewer activities that could be done safely, the large increase is not surprising. The big increase in sales for Infinite for 2020 can be partially explained by the large number of disc golfers who already played the sport, but now wanted discs, putters, baskets, etc. for quarantine activities. Even so, the sport has been growing the last few years and while some organic growth is to be expected, such a large number of new players is partially because of Covid19. Let’s explore some of the reasons why people picked up disc golf last year.

What’s The Appeal With Disc Golf

According to the first graph above, 1205 people said they started playing last year. For that group of people, we asked a follow-up question to learn more about their motives. We asked, ‘Why Did You Start Playing In 2020?’ With nine responses to choose from, we know there would be multiple reasons why people started playing, so we gave them more than one choice. Of those 1205 people, 25% of them listed the pandemic as all or part of the reason they started playing. I was happy to see that over half of the people listed ‘Friend invited me’ as one of their reasons. I’ve seen many people get into the sport simply because someone invited them to play. Invite your friends! Here is a chart showing the percentage of reasons given by the newest members of our sport. It’s good to see ESPN, CBS, and Brodie Smith contributing to the growth!

Age/Starting Year

I wanted to see the ages of people who started playing last year, to see if there were something that might stand out in the data. To start, here is the chart from last week showing the age divisions among all of the survey participants. Below that is a graph of the ages of the 1205 people who started last year.

The new player demographic is pretty much spot on the average of all disc golfers in the survey. Out of curiosity, I checked out the ages of people who said they started in the 2006-2010, since that was the largest group of years in the survey outside of 2020. You would expect the ages to look different, since a group that started 10 years ago would statistically be older than a group that started last year. But, I would expect the graph to still have the same general highs and lows as the average. But, that is not the case. Here is a graph of the ages of people who started playing in 2006-2010:

30-Somethings

To be clear, those are the current age groups of the people who said they started in 2006-2010. The early-30’s group is still the largest, but the general shape of the graph doesn’t look like the overall graph. Most notably is the smaller ratio of the 41-50 group. Since I wasn’t playing then, I don’t have an idea why that age would look different. It might be worth breaking down all of the groups by when they started and the age group they belong to.

If you have any thoughts on these stats, be sure to comment below. Also, if you have any survey results that you would like to have explored, let me know if the comments. Check back next week for more results of the 2020 State of Disc Golf

Click here for last week’s blog.

State of Disc Golf 2021

February 11, 2021 Ted Hegemann 10 comments

2021 State of Disc Golf

Another year has rolled around and once again we are pouring over the results of our annual State of Disc Golf survey to see what disc golf looks like for the past year. What an interesting year! We are really curious to see how the pandemic affected the results of the survey. Our sport is one that can be played while maintaining social distancing, or even played/practiced solo. That caused a lot of growth for disc golf. We anticipate many of the survey results will reflect both the growth and the limitations put upon the sport because of Covid19. With that in mind, let’s get to the results!

2021 Disc Golf Demographics

We’ll start by looking at who took the survey. Where do you live? What is your gender? How old and how skilled are you? Basic demographics.

This year, 6,286 people took the survey. That is down a few hundred compared to the last couple of years. Here is a breakdown of the respondent’s genders.

Gender

Checking out the last few years of data, we see that the numbers are relatively consistent. Last year we did a last minute push to get more women to take the survey, so there was a small ‘spike’ in the numbers. But, the overall numbers for women in the sport remain a lot lower than most of us think it should be. In our local club, we only have a couple female players that will show up for leagues. There are quite a few wives/girlfriends of club members that play disc golf. They just don’t have a desire to play at leagues or competitively. Here are the last few years in a graph:

Where Do You Live?

Not surprisingly, an overwhelming number of people who took the survey live in the United States. Looking at the numbers for each state, we see Texas and California leading the country with the highest number of disc golfers that took the survey. Given their populations and their climates, it’s easy to see why they have so many. They don’t have the highest number per capita, but we’ll have to explore that information in another blog. Here are the numbers for each state.

Here are the top ten states, along with the top ten from two years ago:

Our sport is global, and so are our customers. Here is a chart that shows the numbers of respondents from each country/region outside of the USA. If without adding up all of the provinces in Canada, they lead the world in the number of people that responded to the survey.

How Old Are You?

Checking the survey results for the ages of people who took the survey, we find the largest number of people in the 30-35 age bracket are once the most popular age bracket. That has been the case in all of our survey results in the past. One thing you’ll see is the 36-40 age bracket dip down, only to shoot back up in the next age group. That is because the age brackets go from 5-year increments to 10-year increments at that point.

I checked out the 2015 survey results (here) to compare numbers and see if there are many differences in the age brackets between the two years. Here is a chart with both years’ data expressed in percentages of people who took the survey that year. I like that the older groups are trending upward for 2021, meaning people are playing later in life. I know that the younger age groups are the same or decreasing in percentage, but I don’t think that is a general trend in the sport. We’ll look at some other statistics that might help us understand those numbers better, and see why the older age groups are growing faster.

Are We Getting Better?

One of the questions we like to ask is how we rank our skills as a disc golfer. One way to come up with an answer is to look at what division we play in most of the time. That can vary, depending on how many tournaments we play. Often times playing in one division at a club league doesn’t mean we will play in the same division at a sanctioned tournament. From what I see, the level of competition is higher at a tournament, and it becomes necessary to play in a lower division. Not as a sandbagger, but as someone who couldn’t be competitive unless they play down. Once you move up to the pro ranks that is less of an issue. But for the rest of us, we might play a different division out of necessity. Even so, I feel like we have a good idea how we rank generally, and that is what we hope to find out with the survey. We asked people to rate their skills by choosing which of four divisions they consider themselves:

Beginner/Recreational, Intermediate, Advanced, or Professional

First, let’s look at this year’s results. Typical of past years, the majority of the respondents consider themselves Intermediate players. Here are the numbers:

We also took a look at a few previous years to see how we ranked ourselves. Interestingly, there is a declining number of people that thought they were Advanced and Professional players. I don’t know yet if there were more people new to the sport, people are judging themselves more accurately, or players are dropping divisions. Either way, here is a graph of survey results for 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021.

Check Back For More Survey Results

Check out our blog next week to find out more survey results. Also, let us know what you would like us to ask in next year’s blog.

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

More Injury-Related Survey Results

July 27, 2020 Ted Hegemann One comment

In my last blog post about the 2019 survey, where I talked about injuries and exercise (HERE), I was surprised to learn that people were more likely to be injured if their exercise regimen was specifically tailored to disc golf. I wanted to see if we could learn what other factors might be driving that counter intuitive (to me) statistic. That is what I will talk about today. I’ll look at a couple of other survey questions to see how they relate to the injury rate.

More Opportunities For Injury

My initial thought was that if a person is so dedicated to disc golf that they would adopt an exercise program specifically for the sport, they would also be attending leagues, tournaments, and throwing more practice rounds than the average disc golfer. Therefore, more opportunities for injury. Let’s see if we can test that hypothesis. First, let’s look again at the general injury rate among all survey participants. That rate is about 19.4%.

Round And Round We Go

Now we can look at other statistics. In the survey we asked how many rounds you threw in a month. According to the results, people who averaged 1-4 rounds per month have an injury rate of 6.5%. That percentage increases with each increase in the number of rounds played, until a slight dip occurs in the 25-30 round/month category. Then, it reaches the highest level with 31+ rounds played. If you play 31+ rounds per month, congratulations on getting so many rounds in! And, statistically speaking, you have an approximately 1 in 4 chance of getting injured. Your chances of getting injured are greater than the average if you play 10 or more rounds per month, . The results are graphed below.

Injuries And Tournament Attendance

Let’s see if tournament attendance follows the same pattern. I’ll present the data in the same format as with the injury rate in the graph above, breaking the category down into the number of tournaments we participated in, versus how many people who played that number of tournaments were injured. That doesn’t mean people were necessarily injured while playing in a tournament. Just that they played in a tournament some time in 2019, and were injured come time that year. I also broke it down into sanctioned and unsanctioned tournaments. Here are those survey results.

According to the survey, tournament attendees don’t increase their chances of getting hurt significantly as they increase the number of tournaments they play. And as an average, the injury rate is 23% for those people who play tournaments, versus 19.4% for all disc golfers. Slightly higher, but not too significant.

Exercise and Injury

Although there are many factors to show why we would get injured more often when using a fitness routine tailored for disc golf, these survey results at least partially validate the idea that playing more often gives us more opportunities for injury. Countering is the notion that if we are playing more often, we should be in better shape, thus reducing our chances for injury. Despite the survey results in the last blog, I still recommend a fitness and stretching routine that is specifically for disc golf. Since we use such a variety of muscles in our sport, getting in shape for disc golf would make someone in good condition overall.

In addition to examining these statistics about injuries and disc golf, I wanted to reach out to an expert. Seth Munsey of Disc Golf Strong works with the top disc golfers in the world. He has a few thoughts about why we would have a higher injury rate among those of us who exercise specifically for disc golf. His comments lead me to believe that the issue is that people’s definition of ‘exercising specifically for disc golf’. I think when people say that, they are really saying that they exercise with a general fitness routine. If they are in good overalls shape, that will help for disc golf. But, the overall fitness isn’t the same as preparing specifically for disc golf.

Words From a Pro

Seth Munsey said, “There is a big difference in “exercising” and “training.” Many people that exercise do so with the intent of burning calories, feeling the burn, sweating, etc. While it is always a good thing that people are moving and strengthening their bodies, it is entirely different than training for disc golf. Training is exercising with purposeful intent. Exercises are selected and programmed specifically for the demands placed on the disc golfer’s body.”

He concluded by saying, “There are likely other factors at play that we could investigate and discuss, but following a general exercise program and not exercises that are best for disc golf could definitely lead to a higher injury risk.”

One More Thing I Was Curious About

In addition to the things I’ve covered, I thought it might be interesting to see if cart and backpack bag use affecting the injury rate. Do we get injured more often when we continually have to pick up our bags? I would expect a lower injury rate for cart users, and a higher rate among backpack users.

As the charts below show, using a cart doesn’t significantly decrease your chances of getting injured. Interestingly, the survey shows that backpack type bag users are even less likely to get injured. That is not what I would have guessed. Whether or not we get injured depends on many factors. Despite the survey results mentioned in my last blog post, I still recommend a fitness and stretching routine. One specifically for disc golf as the best prevention of injury. Getting in shape for disc golf would make someone in good condition overall.

Check out some exercises for disc golf at Disc Golf Strong, HERE

Disc Golf Exercise and Injury

July 16, 2020 Ted Hegemann 3 comments

In my last blog post about disc golf practice, I alluded to the need for fitness and stretching to improve our performance in disc golf. In this blog, I will look at our health as it relates to disc golf by looking at our exercise habits and the injuries we received last year. I’ll cover the numbers and types of injuries we received, and our approach to exercise as it relates to disc golf. I have experienced, and seen firsthand the issues that arise due to injuries relating to disc golf. It’s so frustrating to miss a tournament from an injury, much less an entire season. But, in any sport or activity that requires such a heavy use of body mechanics, there will be injuries, regardless of the level of fitness of its participants. Let’s see how we did last year.

Getting Injured

To start, let’s see how many of us indicated that we sustained an injury last year. According to the survey, about one in five of us were injured in 2019. Of those people, about a third of us received more than one injury.

What Gets Injured The Most

Before adding up the numbers for each type of injury to see which ones are the most common, I reached out to Seth Munsey of Disc Golf Strong. Seth works with disc golfers at all levels, and said there are two injury types that he sees the most, shoulder and elbow. He said, “We see many different injuries in disc golf, but two that stand out prominently are injuries to the shoulder and elbow. The shoulder is the most mobile joint in the body. It’s important to build stability and strength in the shoulder to keep it safely in its socket and limit injury risk. The elbow takes a beating when throwing forehand, so building strength in the tendons and surrounding tissues is crucial for long-term elbow health.”

The data from the survey had pretty much the same result. Shoulder and elbow injuries came in first and third for specific injuries. Here is the breakdown.

How Bad Are Our Injuries

The severity of the injuries surprised me. There are a lot more serious injuries occurring while playing disc golf than I thought. In the survey we had participants list the severity of their injury on a scale from 1, which is a minor injury that didn’t affect their play more than a week, to 5, meaning they required surgery and was out for months. I considered anything rated 4 or 5 as very severe. In 2019 nearly 15% of us that had injuries, had very severe injuries. To put that in the bigger picture, about 3% of respondents had severe injuries. Not a huge percent. But, when you consider how many of us play disc golf, it is quite a few injuries.

On the other end of the spectrum, over half of our injuries (59%) kept up out of play for little to no time. That represents about 11% of all disc golfers. Here is the severity ratings.

Our sport requires extensive use of a variety of muscles. As Seth Munsey puts it, “As disc golfers, we are throwing athletes. The rotational power and force we generate when throwing a disc places a high amount of stress on our tissues.” We’ve seen how many of us are getting hurt playing disc golf. Now let’s look at what we are doing to prevent injury.

Exercise and Stretching

To improve our game and simultaneously reduce our risk of injury, we can use exercise and stretching routines to strengthen our tissue, and prepare it for use. In the survey we asked about people’s exercise and stretching habits. I’ll start with stretching.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that nearly half of us will always stretch before we play. I’m one of those who stretches before playing, and I know it makes a difference in my play. Conversely, there are about 10% of us who never stretch. An even smaller percent of us will stretch, but only before tournaments or leagues. Here is how you responded.

The other component of fitness that we covered in the survey was exercise. We asked if you regularly exercise, if you exercise specifically for disc golf, or if you exercise, but would do so even without disc golf. Half of us said we exercise regularly, but would do so even if we didn’t play disc golf. Nearly a third of us said that disc golf is basically the only exercise we get. About 18% of us exercise specifically for disc golf. These are our exercise habits.

Conclusion? Wait For It…

Normally, I like to summarize the statistics and draw a conclusion based on the numbers. In this case, I would like to encourage everyone to set up a regular exercise regiment, which includes stretches, and warm up before you play or practice, because those things reduce your chances of getting injured. However, I decided to look at a couple more survey results to make sure they fell in line with the narrative that I was encouraging. The results didn’t fall in line.

I looked at how people responded to the question, “Do you exercise specifically for disc golf?”, and compared those answers with the question about whether or not they were injured in 2019. Certainly, the people who exercise specifically for disc golf would have the fewest injuries, right?

Exercise=Injury?

Of the 6711 people who answered the question, 2142 people said they rarely exercise, other than disc golf. Of those 2142 people, 434 of them suffered an injury. That’s 20.3%.

There were 3362 people who said they do exercise, but they would even without disc golf. They had 540 injuries in their group, for a total of 16.1%. I would have thought they would have had a much lower percent compared to the non-exercisers. But, at least there were fewer, percentage-wise.

Then I looked at the group that one would assume would have the lowest injury rate of the three. There were 1193 people who indicated that they do exercises specifically for disc. Yet they had 322 injuries, for a total of 27%! That’s about one in four people who train for disc golf, yet end up with injuries.

I have a couple theories about why that would be the case. I will need to look at a few more statistics to see if they support my ideas. I’ll run the numbers and post in another blog. Until then, stay safe and happy hucking!

Other survey results:

Tournaments

Seth Munsey’s website has great information about exercises and stretches for disc golf. It can be found here:

Disc Golf Strong

Getting Better at Disc Golf Through Practicing

July 10, 2020 Ted Hegemann 2 comments

Getting Better at Disc Golf

Few people who play this sport don’t care if they improve their skills. Most of us would love to add a few more feet to our drive or increase our putting percentage. For those of us who play in leagues and tournaments, we would love to place higher and win more competitions. In fact, in a recent blog post, we learned that the number one thing that would motivate someone who doesn’t play tournaments to sign up for one, is if they were a better player. (Survey Results: Tournaments) One of the best ways to get better is with disc golf practicing. Whether we are improving enough to feel confident about playing in a tournament, or watching our PDGA rating climb high enough to step up to the next division, one of the more satisfying aspects of disc golf is to see improvement in our game.

Practice makes perfect?

To be clear, playing a round of disc golf is still practicing. The more you play, the better you will get. However, for this blog, when I say ‘disc golf practicing’ I am referring to field work and putting. From what I’ve seen and experienced, those will give your game the most rapid improvement. They take a little more discipline, because they aren’t as fun as playing a round. But, you will definitely see the most improvement with field work and putting practice.

Preparing to Practice

In this blog, I will talk about the best way to carve up your limited disc golf practice time, a couple of practice methods, and one aspect of practicing that I don’t feel is covered sufficiently, warming up. Most people, at the very least, try to get some practice throws and putts in before a league or tournament, if not some stretches. But, how many of us take the time to stretch before ripping some drives in a field or putting inside the circle? I believe that even before putting we should do some stretches. Although the risk for injury is practically nonexistent with putting, it is the consistency we are striving for.

Professional disc golfers suggest that we keep our routine consistent in practice and competition. Do the same pre-throw or pre-putt routine. Have the same mental thoughts and affirmations run through our head. Try to get the same motion in practice that we use on the course. The point of practice is to get that consistency. And if that is our goal, our muscles should be stretched and warmed up for practice the same as when we compete. That isn’t always easy. Most of us have to squeeze in some practice time in our busy schedule. Who wants to use that time stretching?

Seth Munsey of disc golf strong commented on warming up before practicing. He said, “It is very important to warm your body up properly before engaging in any athletic movement. This includes fieldwork and time spent around the practice basket. Warming up will help lower your risk of injury and allow you to tap into more of your athletic potential.”

5-10 Minutes

Seth also indicated that warm-up/stretching routines don’t need to be extensive. He said, “You can complete a warm-up in as little as 5 mins, although giving yourself up to 10 mins will help ensure you don’t feel rushed or stressed to speed it up or end up skipping exercises due to time constraints.” I will talk more about stretching and exercise in an upcoming blog.

Drive for Show?

Hopefully we can make time to properly warm up before practicing. But, then what? What is the best use of our limited practice time? I asked touring pro Dave Feldberg about the best way to split up your practice times. He recommends spending the most time practicing your drives. He says, “If you don’t get a look (at the basket), it doesn’t matter how well you putt”.

At home, he likes to work on his driving form with his ProPull trainer. Then he likes to take a bunch of drivers to a field to test their flight and prepare his bag for upcoming tournaments. He will choose his discs based on the flights he will need. For example, if he is facing a 400-foot hyzer shot, “I know that I should (use) my pink Emperor”. Throwing a variety of discs helps him keep his shaping ability honed.

To increase power and distance, Dave said he likes to, “throw 80 times, as hard as I can”. Throwing at max power repeatedly is something you would want to warm up for. And for most of us, that many repetitions is something we would need to work up to.

When I work on my driving, I really try to throw at fields I’m familiar with. Then I have landmarks such as trees or light poles to mark the distances and note my progress. It feels great when your disc finally lands beyond a tree that you’ve struggled to reach in the past!

Putt for Dough!

The next most important aspect of the game to work on, according to Dave, is putting. He said, “Driving and putting are much more important to scoring and they are something you can practice exactly what you will be facing.” In other words, with the exception of large elevation gains, the putting you do in practice translates very well to game play. You can practice straddle putts, turbo putts, and jump putts, and you will be seeing the same basic shot in a tournament.

There are many theories and techniques as to the most efficient ways to practice putting. The ones that resonate with me have a few things that I’m looking for in a practice routine. First, they need to include many, many opportunities for you to experience success. For most of us, if we picked a point 40 feet from the basket and let 10 discs fly, we would likely have more misses that hits. I think there are great psychological benefits to having a lot more hits than misses. Therefore, starting your practice closer to the basket, then slowly working your way out, will ensure that we end up with a lot more in the basket. The starting distance varies from person to person.

Starting at the 12-15 foot range and putting 3-4 discs until I can get all of them in the basket is a great place for me to start. Then I will move back a little and try again. If I miss, I move back up to the short position and start again. It can be frustrating to have to move to the closer spot, but I think that motivates me to focus more. Which brings me to the second thing I look for in a practice routine, replicating the pressure of playing in a tournament.

Practice Like You Compete

If you take a handful of putters in practice and just start putting from anywhere, you really don’t have much incentive to ‘try’ to make the shot. In a tournament, you have lots of incentive. Therefore, if you can create that feeling of pressure in your putting practice, it will feel familiar in a tournament setting. If you know that a miss in practice means having to start over, you are somewhat recreating the pressure of a tournament setting.

The third thing I like to do for disc golf putting practice is to work on the routine that you will use during an actual round of disc golf. Marking your lie. Either holding an extra disc or not, depending on what you do during a tournament. Taking the same amount of time that you would in a tournament to do your entire putting routine. You could even carry a bag around during this porting of your practice time. I don’t do that the entire putting practice time. Instead, I make a little time at the end of disc golf practice to focus on my entire routine.

For me, I like to scatter a dozen or so putters around the basket at a variety of lengths. Then, I’ll pick one at random and go through my entire putting routine. I’ll mark my lie if I am further than 6-8 feet from the basket, take my usual stance, check the grip on my putter, pick a link, and let the putter fly. Then, I’ll retrieve the disc and go to the disc that is furthest from where I started, and putt again.

Upshot Practice

For up-shot or approach practice, let’s look at the practices of Dave Feldberg. He said that the look at the basket you get in a tournament can vary greatly from hole to hole, depending on where you land. To prepare for that, he likes to choose a mold, then get a variety of flights for that mold. Dave said, “I carry multiple Sinus’s, one that goes left no matter what , one that goes somewhat left at the end, one that goes straight , and one that turns over.” Then, no matter the situation, he has a disc that has the flight he is looking for.

Dave also has four midrange discs and four fairway drivers with the same variety of flights. He said, “This way no matter what position I am in I have a disc that can make that shot. Sometimes I take a full run up and throw a Sinus, other times I stand still and softly throw a fairway driver. It depends on the condition, terrain, run up, and weather. ”

To practice, he recommends taking those discs to a field and keep throwing them until you are comfortable with how they fly. Then you have a variety of tools to cover the wide range of upshots you might face.

One other effective and productive way to practice approach shots is to play catch with someone using a putter. You get a lot of throws without having to retrieve discs. It’s a great way to get ready for leagues or tournaments.

Time to Practice Disc Golf!

Although field work and putting practice are not as fun as a round of disc golf, they are the mundane tools you need to improve your skills. So, get warmed up with some stretches, grab those discs, and hit the field/basket. Let us know about YOUR disc golf practicing routines in the comments.

Support Dave Feldberg by checking out his Stash on the Infinite Discs Site:

Dave’s Stash

Also, be sure to check out some good disc golf fitness routines and stretches from Seth Munsey’s site, Disc Golf Strong:

Disc Golf Strong

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