Category: General

2019 Infinite Discs Signature Series Discs

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As we’re enjoying the summer disc golf months, we thought that we’d introduce you to this year’s signature disc collection on the Infinite Discs brand. These are discs that we release in cooperation with professional players so that we can help to financially support their travels during the tournament season. By purchasing these great discs, you also help to contribute to their touring. If you enjoy watching these players, you want to help to grow the sport, and you want to try some new discs, we encourage you to spend the couple of dollars extra to get a signature series disc, no matter what the brand.

DAVID FELDBERG – SPLATTER S-BLEND EMPEROR

The Splatter S-Blend run of Emperor discs is technically “Run 2” and is a very solid distance driver that came out more overstable than the Run 1 I-Blend edition. The entire run is dedicated to Team Infinite player, DAVID FELDBERG, who wanted to show that quality players can use a mixed bag of different brands and still play at a high level. Yes, he does use the Emperor by Infinite Discs as a primary driver, but it fits in his bag along with discs from many great brands, and we’re happy to have him on the team.

We thought it would be fun to present two different stamps for David’s signature disc– one that focuses more on him and that has a play on the classic, Greek Olympian pose, and another that has more of a stock stamp flavor with a touch of ancient Rome.

GARRETT GURTHIE – METAL FLAKE GLOW C-BLEND PHARAOH

Infinite Discs was happy to sponsor Garrett Gurthie starting in 2018 when he was making his touring comeback. He had a 2018 signature Pharaoh and a signature Slab, but for 2019 he wanted to have a signature edition Metal Flake Glow C-Blend Emperor so that he could add it to his distance driver arsenal. Garrett is best known for his ability to throw amazing distances and he has already started to stack up some big wins in the 2019 season. Garrett is also a member of Innova’s Champion team.

This is the first edition of the Garrett Gurthie signature stamp and there will be another later in the year, so keep your eyes open!

JESSICA WEESE – SWIRLY S-BLEND PHARAOH

We’ve been happy to work with Jessica Weese since 2018 as well. She is a member of Innova’s Star team and one of the best FPO players in the game. Last year Jessica had a signature Chariot mid-range with Infinite Discs, and for 2019 she has a signature Swirly S-Blend Pharaoh which was part of a very flat-topped run with extra stability for distance throwers.

NICOLE “PICKLE” DIONISIO – C-BLEND SCEPTER

Nicole Dionisio is an FPO player from Maine who works closely with her local disc golf scene and who is loved by other professional players wherever she plays. Known affectionately as Pickle, she’s a great ambassador for the sport and is proudly sponsored by Infinite Discs. For 2018 she had a signature S-Blend Exodus, and for 2019 she fell in love with the new Scepter, which is a very overstable, flat-topped fairway driver in the Infinite Discs line.  Pickle throws a lot of forehand drives and her signature C-Blend Scepter works into her style perfectly with its beefy fade and wind-fighting power.

JOEL FREEMAN – X-BLEND SCARAB

Joel Freeman is another great player on Innova’s Champion team and who started working with Infintie Discs in 2019 for a special signature edition disc. He wanted to take his putting game to the next level for the 2019 touring season and requested a run of putters now known as the Scarab. Joel prefers the X-Blend for its good grip in all weather conditions, including rain or cold. Check out Joe’s signature X-Blend Scarab for a great, beaded putter with nice glide for both long and short putts.

COMING SOON…

Infinite Discs is also excited to announce another fun signature edition disc for 2019 which we hope to release in the end of July.

JEREMY KOLING “BIG JERM” – CONCRETE SLAB

Big Jerm got his hands on a Slab early in the 2019 season and pulled it out of his bag during a tournament to give it a try. He ended up loving its flat profile and overstable, high-speed flight. While doing commentary for a professional disc golf round on Youtube, he jokingly called the plastic type “concrete” so that he could say he was throwing a “Concrete Slab,” so Infinite Discs decided to run with that name. The signature Slab for Big Jerm is a mix of metal flake and luster C-Blend plastic which we’ll obligingly call “Concrete.”

Other partnerships with other great players are in the works. Infinite Discs is excited to help support these great players with fun discs that they enjoy throwing. 

Getting Ready for Masters Worlds – Sandy Creek Sling — Dave Feldberg Blog Post #3

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One last event to practice for Masters World’s in Vermont. The Sandy Creek sling is a one day C-tier which I won in 2018. Being that it is in Athens and on a course I really like, I headed there to defend my title. It looked like a gloomy day kinda of misting but was playable and not steaming hot. I was placed in a somewhat featured group that included the top other two rated players in the event Jason Light and Austin Lytle. We played two holes and they called it for lightening. I went birdie, eagle with a 75 foot putt right before they blew the horn. We waited around for 4 hours and I though they were just going to call it.

But they sent us out there to finish the 16 holes and make it an official event. The lightning was gone but the rain was still in full force. Luckily I had my new pro Pull sponsored super umbrella and Ryan my buddy on the bag. I came out and played pretty well taking a commanding 5 stroke lead headed on to hole 11. Austin pushes a little as the rain and my grip had reached it saturated point, but I held on to win by 3. So now I have an A, B, and a C- tier win in the open division this year. I really mixed it up throwing many different discs. After birding 4 out of 5 holes all with different brands J-Light looked at me and said “you really do throw everything, huh”. I went Latitude, Prodigy, Innova, and Kastaplast all birdies.

Getting ready for Masters Worlds as my next event. I am excited to defend the title and look forward to what I am told will be fair fun courses. Patrick Brown and I will defend our doubles title to start the week and then I will be on my quest for a second title. I have found that it is hard to repeat in any event, but I have noticed with my new mixed bag that when I am playing well, my level is higher than last year. Plus my jump putt is much better now that I have old blackie back .

On a business level I see NG getting smoother every day. It has its hick ups, but overall we are on the rise. The funny thing is people ask me why should I play NG? Besides all the prizes and such, I ask them, why did you play your local C-tier? I didn’t know we had to give players a reason to play tournament golf. Our goal was just to make that experience better.

On a personal level I just celebrated my first Father’s Day and Synthya is so sweet. From gifts to homemade steak and potatoes she made me feel special. Leomax is growing fast and he is so smart!! I just rented my first pressure washer and waved my house . Those things are pretty fun. I have also been working on getting a few courses put in so we have something decent to play. Looking good to put in a championship course here in Georgia!!

Going to Vermont now, wish me luck!!!

NEW Ledgestone 2019 Releases!

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New Ledgestone Insurance Open Releases!

It’s time for the next wave of Ledgestone discs to take to the skies! We’ve just listed an entire new batch of Discraft discs in new plastics and blends! Let’s take a look at the new discs coming out today (June 4, 2019)! Click the title or picture in each section to see all of the discs available to purchase!

If you’d like to browse, filter, and sort through all of the 2019 Ledgestone releases, click here! (Otherwise, look below for the breakdown of new releases.)

If you’d like to check out some of the previous years Ledgestone releases, click here!

Swirl ESP GLO Banger-GT

The Banger-GT is released for the first time in Swirl ESP GLO plastic! Discraft has hit it out of the park with their new ESP swirls. These Banger-GTs feature those great swirls, plus a little added GLO effect!

Rubber Blend Buzzz

The Buzzz, for the first time ever, releases in Discraft’s Rubber Blend. This is a blend of plastic and rubber together that gives the disc a rubbery feel while not being too sticky. The grip is unique, yet perfect for this best selling mid-range!

Swirl ESP Cyclone

The Cyclone has recently only been available in Pro-D, but now it’s available in Swirl ESP plastic! For all of the Cyclone lovers out there, this is the perfect chance to get some premium plastic Cyclones!

GLO Sparkle Thrasher & Crank

The Thrasher and Crank both get a new plastic type as well! Each of these GLO Sparkle discs are chock full of sparkly metal flakes and a dash of GLO plastic to make them perfect for playing in the sun or under the stars.

Swirly ESP GLO Undertaker

The Undertaker brings on an awesome new stamp with an awesome new plastic blend. These Swirly ESP GLO Undertakers came out looking amazing, with new interesting swirls that we haven’t yet seen! Be sure to look through all of them!

New Full Foil Buzzzs

There are five new full foil Buzzzs with the different Discraft Bees on them, and we think the artwork is some of the best yet! These new designs feature the Techno Bee, Mining Bee, Orchid Bee, Arctic Bee, and Wallace’s Giant Bee.

That’s all of the new releases this time around!

2019 State of Disc Golf–Par for the Course…Literally

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Disc Golf Par Controversy

Today we are tackling a subject in disc golf that some consider controversial while others consider it just silly. Today we are talking about par. How should we determine par? Should we adopt par 2s in disc golf? Lots of disc golfers have their opinions on this subject, but in the end, does any of it even matter? In doing some research for this post, I found a well written article from our friend Steve Dodge that I will likely refer to a few times today. So what is par exactly?

Par in Ball Golf vs Par in Disc Golf

A quick google search for the definition of the word “par” in golf will yield this definition: “the number of strokes a first-class player should normally require for a particular hole or course.” Another explanation I found said that par is how many strokes an expert golfer should take to complete a hole.

The idea of par and using par as a way to define our scores in disc golf (1 under par, 2 over par, etc.) can be directly traced back to our ball golf roots. But something we might be forgetting is that par in ball golf should reflect what first-class or expert golfers are scoring, not the field at large.

This is why on the PGA tour we see scores close to par or maybe even as low as around 10-under par winning four day, four round tournaments. So why is it that for tournaments with the same number of holes on the PDGA National Tour and the DGPT we are seeing disc golfers needing to score close to 40-under par in order to win the event?

One line of thinking that I tend to agree with is that it’s all about putting. Steve Dodge explains, “In golf, the average number of putts is theoretically two…In golf, par is the number of shots to reach the green + putts (2).” So how does this translate to disc golf? “In disc golf, the average number of putts is theoretically one…In disc golf, par would be the number of shots to reach the green + putts (1). This would make about half of our holes into par 2s.”

Par 2 in Disc Golf?

While some of us may average 2 putts from inside the circle, our first-class and expert disc golfers for whom par should be determined (if we follow ball golf’s model) are nearly automatic from inside the circle. But in ball golf, even the best putters in the game will miss putts from inside 10 feet from time to time. That is just the difference between our two games.

So ball golf and disc golf are different in scoring. Another way to phrase that is ball golf is harder than disc golf, which is something we all like about disc golf. But since disc golf is easier shouldn’t par then be adjusted to account for this? The quickest way to account for this is the adoption of par 2s in disc golf.

This brings us to our first bit of data from the State of Disc Golf Survey. We asked survey takers if they would like to see very short or easy holes be considered par 2? The answers were pretty telling:

75% of Those Surveyed Believe there should be no Par 2's in Disc Golf

 

For the most part, we disc golfers don’t want to see par 2s out on the course. But some, especially those who are new to disc golf or unfamiliar with our culture, may be confused or surprised by this. Why would those within the sport not want to see more accurate par ratings on their courses?

Steve Dodge shed some light here again: “Setting a par 2 makes the scoring expectation much harder and, oddly enough, decreases our enjoyment of playing the game. Disc golf has a tremendous advantage in that it is more fun to play because our par score is easier to attain.” That last statement is interesting, claiming that disc golf is more fun because the par score is easier. But as we discussed earlier, a 10 ft putt in disc golf is easier than a 10 ft putt in golf, regardless of the hole’s par.

This makes me think that we have a bit of a blind spot here because we have come to expect extremely low par scores in our sport. How would you feel if you shot 10-under par at your local course and then someone came along and told you that your score was actually 1-over par if your course par was rated more accurately? But if that round had always been considered a 1-over par round, you wouldn’t care as much right?

Like when I go out and play ball golf, I know that par is pretty well out of reach. So I am pretty pleased if I score a few strokes over par.

It is all about expectation, and we in disc golf have come to expect very low scores relative to par, and as we can see in the above chart, most of us don’t care that some of our par 3 holes should be rated as par 2 if we adopted more accurate par ratings.

More Par 4 and 5 in Disc Golf?

Now what about the other end of the spectrum? What about longer and more challenging holes? We asked survey takers if they would like to see more courses with par 4 and par 5 holes. Here are the results:

More Par 4s

So once again, we see a clear answer–we want more par 4 and par 5 holes. But as we could see from our first question about par 2s, we don’t seem to care about the accuracy of our par ratings. So do we want more par 4 and par 5 holes just because we view them as an opportunity for more birdies?

When discussing a long disc golf hole and whether it should be considered a par 3 or 4, more than once I have heard someone arguing that it should be a par 4 say something like, “Well, if it were a par 3, then it would be almost impossible to birdie.” In disc golf, we expect to get our birdies, and sometimes we expect every hole to be birdie-able. And we expect birdies not just for the first-class and expert golfers, but for your average casual players as well.

2 A-Tiers — Another Win – Dave Feldberg Blog #3

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First Place

Huk Central, South Carolina

Some days you feel great and other days you don’t. Being that this event is only 3 hours away from our house I decided to drive back and forth each day. I also decided to just show up on the day of the event since I had played the course before. Both of these decisions were poor choices to play my best. So when I arrived after a 3 hour drive leaving my house at 4:40 am, I am also told that it will be a record hot day both days of the event. So I decided to take it easy and play in the masters division. Another poor decision.

I came out of the gates playing well but I somehow forgot how to make short putts? Which was the one thing coming in I had been the most consistent with this year. So I was spun and managed a 1020 rated round where I threw about a 1070. Then the second round I was trailing Barry by 2 and I cut the lead, but again I couldn’t make routine 18 footers and then the heat broke me. I had not played in heat like that (97 degrees) in a long time and I just ran out of gas. My leg was cramping and my energy was gone allowing Barry to go ahead by 6 while shooting a lousy 983 rated round.

On day two I still had hope, and I started to make some putts, cutting the lead to 3 on the front nine. But then I managed to somehow miss a few more very short putts and ended the round with a bogey from 15 feet and gave him all the strokes back to be down by 6 again. The heat would not let up and the final round was a test to say the least. I played well shooting a 1052, but again I ended my round and event by missing a 15 foot putt for low round of the day.

I did finish in second, but I would have tied for 4th in Open and I probably would have made less of those silly focus mistakes if I was playing in the open division. I also would have made a little more money. Just a weekend of bad decisions and poor play. I want to thank Brian and the Huk Central staff for a well run event with plenty of water!! They always run a solid event that I will continue to play for years to come!! I want to thank my caddy Ryan Schollkopf  for helping me get through the heat!!

Trailblazer – Clermont, FL

I had no idea what to expect as I had never played in that part of Florida before. I did know that the heat wave had not gone away and I would be in for record hot temps again. I felt lucky that I had played the week before in South Carolina as I had learned how to deal with heat better. One thing was that Synthya bought me one of the chilly pad cool towels. Man those things are a life saver and only 8 bucks at Walmart. Also for this event I showed up two days early so I could learn the courses and be prepared.

They would have us play two really long courses twice a day, this was more of the Florida Iron man contest. Both courses were designed by Gregg Hosfield and one was brand new. The first course, Hiawatha Preserve a par 65 over 9000 feet, was a very fair mature tree course. It had challenging shots and fair ob’s. I came out the first round on fire breaking the course record and I would have gone lower but I was stung multiple times by some yellow jackets while trying to stand out of the way of my fellow competitors shot. It shook me up for a few holes. I carded a bogey on the hole I was stung and missed a 16 foot birdie putt in the next hole as I was still a bit worked up from the incident. The good news was that the night before the event I had gone to the course and practiced putted in the dark and figured out what had gone wrong with my circle one putting. It was pure laziness. I noticed I was leaning back in my set up instead of leaning forward. I think the habit started because I was so tired the week before. Once I started leaning forward I started making all my putts again.

After the first day I had a 7 stroke lead headed to Palmetto point park, a new course that will be great but still needs some breaking in. The holes were long, par 67, and they were tight, many a car couldn’t fit through. The rough was on another level (poisonous snakes) and you had to pitch sideways when you missed the fairway. I knew this type of golf would play to my advantage since I learned on wooded courses and my best skill nowadays is accuracy. I came out in the morning and set the new record of -12 with two bogeys. I was throwing well hitting most fairways and making all my circle one putts as well as making a few long putts. My competitors struggled as this course tightness is not easy to explain on paper. I extended my lead to 20 strokes.

Then in the fourth round I came out firing again shooting the exact same -6 on the front nine, but then with the lack of push and the heat reaching its peak of the day and it being the fourth round in two days I lost focus and shot only -1 on the back. It was still the low score of the round at -7. So I won by 21 strokes to win my first A-tier in Open this year. The course was hard period. Fox Hills video crew was there and so you can see when the video comes out what I am talking about.

I want to thank my caddy on Saturday Dan Lewis and my Caddy on Sunday Anthony Rising. Without them it would have been rough. Also, great to see a lot of Florida guys I have not seen in years. I also won the putting contest claiming some cash and a mini basket!!

The trophy was a sick sword!! Looks kind of like the Huk Lab blade. I want to thank the staff of the event for a great event and I look forward to this club and event growing over the years.

NG Update

On a business level NG is doing well and we are working out all the computer kinks that come with a new system. Everything should be working great in the next couple of weeks!! We have really been focused on building a quality staff this year so we can accomplish more and do it smoothly. If you’ve played an event, be sure to check out he current standings.

On a personnel level. Synthya and Leomax are doing great. He is smiling, and really becoming curious, we think he is also starting teething. Everyday the reward of a family is stronger and reminds me how small my life really is. My brother came to visit and loved Leomax. We took him on the lake and he caught his first freshwater fish. Synthya’s Grandparents also came to visit while I was gone but I did get to see them for a few minutes before they left. They are always a treat. We are now getting ready for this summer and of watching Leomax grow !!

I am really starting to dial in my mixed bag, and i am looking forward to defending at the Masters World Championships in a month!!

State of Disc Golf – Disc Golf News

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Where do disc golfers get their disc golf related news?

That is the question we’ll be answering today! The data is pretty straight forward! In the 2019 State of Disc Golf Survey we asked people “Where do you get disc golf news/updates?” They then could pick from a list of choices, checking as many as applied to them. So, we took those answers and compiled the data! We took the top 11 answers, as anything left hardly made a blip on the graph.

First we’ll break it down by all respondents, then we’ll take a look by age. Without further ado:

So- Facebook took first place as the news source for disc golf, which is understandable. Facebook serves as news and community for many disc golfers. There are many, many disc golf groups on Facebook for brands, players, and teams. News gets spread around Facebook with ease, so it’s apparent that Facebook is where we get our disc golf news.

The PDGA was the second highest. They send out a weekly newsletter that keeps everyone up to date on disc golf happenings. All PDGA members receive this newsletter, so it’s no surprise that a lot of us get our news direct from the Professional Disc Golf Association.

Instagram was next in line, followed by Infinite Discs. Then Reddit, Disc Golf Podcasts, Ultiworld, and Disc Golfer Magazine. Finally, the last three were DGCourseReview.com, Twitter, and YouTube.

Disc Golf News Source by Age

Now we’ll take a look at the same data, but broken down by age. The age ranges are general and large, but, they do still share some interesting data. Let’s take a look!

This time, we had to break it down by percentage of respondents within each age group, yielding some fun results. Facebook is still the #1 source for all age groups, but the 50+ year old category comes out on top for using Facebook as their news source the most.

At the #3 spot we have Instagram, but this one was fun to look at. 58% of the 12-25 age group used Instagram, while only 9% of the 50+ age group used Instagram. This was the biggest gap by far, but understandable if you know about social media trends. Far more young people use Instagram daily.

Reddit and Twitter also see a similar breakdown by age. Then, we see that Disc Golfer Magazine has the inverse trend– 33% of the 50+ group use Disc Golfer Magazine as their news source, and that stat trends down the younger you get.

This goes to show that the newer social media platforms are far more dominated by the younger crowd, and magazines are mainly used by the older crowd. This stat likely goes beyond Disc Golf Media, but it’s still fun to see within our sport.

Thanks for joining us today! Let us know in the comments what your favorite news source is!

State of Disc Golf 2019–Disc Buying Habits

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We are getting into our busy season here at Infinite Discs! People are playing lots of disc golf which means they are buying lots of discs. So it seems like a perfect time to take a look back at our disc golf buying habits from 2018.

How Many Discs Do We Own?

First, let’s look at how many discs we own. Are we a bunch of hoarders? Let’s find out!

Surprise, (not really) we own lots of discs! The pie chart is a bit crowded, so here is a bar graph featuring the same information:

The most popular response was 41-60 discs, and from the pie chart we can see that almost 3/4 of us own more than 30 discs, which is more than you can fit in an average disc golf bag or cart. I remember when I first started playing disc golf and I saw someone on the course with a backpack full of discs. I thought there was no way I could ever own enough discs to fill a backpack bag. Now I have boxes and boxes of discs…

But that is the literal state of disc golf and disc ownership! And it is something that is pretty unique to our sport. You don’t see many golfers who have multiple bags of clubs, or casual basketball players who have closets full of different basketball shoes. We don’t just own the discs we need to play, but we also collect disc golf equipment.

How Many New Discs Though?

So how many new discs did we add to our collections in 2018? Again, here is both the pie chart and bar graph with this data:

So from this we could say that a rough “average” for the community as a whole is around 10-14 discs since a little over half of us bought at least 10 discs in 2018. I personally would say that is a little higher than I expected. 10 discs is a lot, especially for players who have a pretty established bag. But I think there are a couple of factors that drive us to buy more and more discs.

First of all, there are new releases. I usually write our quarterly sales reports on the blog, and almost every single time one of the top selling discs in every category is a new release disc. We for some reason in disc golf love trying out and collecting new disc molds, and there are definitely more than 10 new molds released every year.

I also think there is a sweet spot in the competitiveness and experience of disc golfers in correlation with how many discs we purchase. Beginners often purchase a lot of discs because they are excited about this new thing in their life and they are jumping in full swing. These new disc golfers are figuring out how to play and what molds will work in their bag. Then after maybe a year or more, once that disc golfer has gotten the hang of things, their purchasing may slow a bit.

This is that sweet spot. Experienced disc golfers who have for the most part found their comfort zone in the game. They don’t feel as strong of a need to buy more discs. However, if that experienced disc golfer becomes more competitive and play more frequently, they become more involved in the replacement market of disc golf. Depending on the types of courses they play, they might be losing more discs than average. Also their discs get worn in quicker and may need to be replaced sooner.

But something else that always needs to be remembered when analyzing this data is that the data is from people who cared enough about disc golf to take a survey put out by a disc golf company. We get a large number of respondents every year, but they are generally more active in the online disc golf community. So it makes sense that our numbers might be higher than expected when it comes to disc golf purchases.

How Many Discs Did We Collect?

Now, back to the data! And an interesting question that gets back to my comments earlier about us being collectors: How many discs did we acquire to collect and not throw? I think just the pie chart is sufficient for this one:

Again, we are collectors! Over half of us got a disc that we had no intention of ever throwing. This also doesn’t include discs that we collect but also want to throw a few times before hanging it on the wall or storing it away in plastic totes. This is great news for disc golf manufacturers and retailers. As we can see, their special edition, signature series, and first run discs are working in getting us to spend more money on new collectible discs.

But Where Do the Discs Come From?

So where do we get our new discs from? We asked that question, and provided survey takers with a variety of options for their responses. Here is how we answered:

As it is with the rest of the retail world, online is a dominant avenue through which we acquire new disc golf discs. So some may be surprised to see that the most popular selection was local disc golf stores that are focused primarily on selling disc golf equipment. This is encouraging for small business owners who have invested in building their own small business. It is also why companies like Dynamic Discs have opened several locations across the country.

But in a world that has seen brick and mortar stores go under because of the pressure from online retailers, why would most survey takers still buy discs from local stores? Again, this gets to a quirk in disc golf–there are benefits to seeing and holding a disc before you buy it. It is always nice to try on shoes and see them in person, but a size 11 of the same basketball shoe is going to be the exact same whether you buy it from a local Foot Locker or from Amazon or Eastbay online.

However, a max weight Star Destroyer from your local shop may be different from all of the max weight Star Destroyers available right now on Infinite Discs or any other online retailer. One might be more domey or have any other idiosyncratic feature you have learned that you like or dislike in your Star Destroyers.

I know when I worked in the warehouse at Infinite Discs I always got calls asking how flat a certain Champion Firebird was that we had listed online. Well when you shop in with a local disc golf store, you can inspect the disc however you want before buying your purchase. Due to overhead, some local stores may have higher prices than online retailers, but it may be worth the extra cost knowing exactly what you are getting before you buy it.

Over the last few years, I have been able to help out at our local Infinite Discs store in Pocatello, Idaho. I have seen the above scenario play out several times, but also I think a local pro shop is more inviting to newer players who may feel overwhelmed by all of the options available. Online retailers try their best to provide new players with information, but for many people it is nice to be able to have a face to face conversation with a store associate who knows about disc golf and are qualified to answer their questions.

But another interesting aspect of local disc golf stores being the most popular way that survey takers acquired discs is simply the fact that that many people have access to a dedicated local disc golf store. It would be interesting to know how many disc golf stores have opened over the last few years, but from this survey we know that at least over 60% of survey takers have access to a local disc golf shop, which is exciting for the growth of the sport.

So there you have it! What bit of data stood out to you? Is there something I failed to discuss that should have gotten more attention? Please let us know your thoughts and feelings in the comments!

Breaking Off The Rust – Dave Feldberg Blog Post #2

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Dave Feldberg at Tournament

Jonesboro Open

So I decided to play in my first two singles events with my new mixed bag. The first event was the Jonesboro Open.

I felt ready. I showed up the day before the event to practice and the wind was blowing 30 mph. Not very good practice since it was going to not be 30 mph during the event. The fact is I know my discs, but I had not seen many of them fly in heavy wind. So when the first round rolled around and it was only a slight wind, I felt like instead of executing I was playing a guessing game of, “How much is that going to Hyzer?”

 I didn’t make many mistakes, but I also didn’t make anything worth mentioning and I found myself in 35th after the first round. But I was only a few strokes back of the top ten. I did putt 100% in Circle 1. The second round came, and the weather was looming. Everyone was getting ready for a doozy of a day. I usually play well in the conditions and I was prepared, and my caddy Steve was also highly prepared. 

At the start, I was playing better than the first round and by the time we got to hole 11 I was already in the top 20. Then after a great drive, they blew the stop horn. I still had seven holes to go and now we were to play at 7:30 am. I have never been much of a morning person. 

When I woke up on Sunday at 6 am it was literally freezing and raining. I barely had enough clothes to feel comfortable outside. I headed out and I took a par on all seven holes dropping me to around 25th. That I could handle, but now I had a 5 hour wait in the rain and cold before I had to play 18 more holes. I tried to distract myself, rest, and stay warm, but this was a task. I headed out for the third round and played the front nine well. But then I just ran out of gas and focus. I took a bogey on three of my last four holes, finishing with a sloppy par on the last hole. I dropped back down to 35th.

All in all, it was good weekend. It’s just the older you get, even though you have the experience to play in the conditions, it is less enjoyable playing in the bad weather. But it was a good warm up and let me know what I need to work on for the rest the season.

Linton Park Open

I played in one more event, the Linton Park Open which was a B-tier in Sandersville, Georgia. I was able to pull out the win by two strokes over Matt Dollar. It paid $1100 for first!! I started off a little slow and gradually increased my play throughout the weekend. Jamie Brindell and his crew ran a fabulous tournament with all kinds of food, awesome trophies, and tons of added cash. It’s nice be able to win over thousand dollars less than an hour from my house.

Over the next few weeks I have two more events planned. I will be playing in the Huk Central A -tier in South Carolina, followed up by the Trailblazer A-tier in Clermont, Florida. I’m hoping to be able to start playing my rating at those two events.

I got my first action with the Infinite Discs Emperor at these events and I must say I really like the disc. It is giving me a really fast over stable distance driver for my bag. My new tour Emperor in Splatter Star should be coming out very soon. If you like Destroyers, you’ll love the Emperor.

Next Gen Tour

On a business level next generation tour is doing well. We just announced that we will have a $100,000 final event in Austin Texas. Synthya and I decided after lots of thought that the one thing that amateurs need to take that next step is cash. 

On a personal level, Synthya, Leomax, and I have been doing great. He is growing so fast, and Synthya has turned into a wonderful mother already. This week my brother is coming to town from Maryland to visit us and meet the baby. I think we’ll all go up to the Atlanta aquarium and check it out.

Well that’s my update for now hopefully I can start playing better Disc Golf, make sure people understand what NextGen is now, and enjoy being a father to this wonderful family that I have helped create. Until next time, see you in the fairways.


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