Ernie the First Tee Tree – Episode 6
Do you want a FREE Infinite Discs T-Shirt?
We’ve updated the reviews section of our website to now include user flight ratings and recommendations for beginners. To give our customers what they want, we need your help!
We will be giving away 100 Free T-Shirts to disc golfers who create/update their Infinite Discs review profile (must include biography, years playing, skill level, driving distance, driving hand). If you haven’t registered on InfiniteDiscs.com you can do so here.
And write (or update existing) quality reviews. The more quality reviews you write/update, the more chances you have to win!
To be eligible, the following must apply to all reviews:
1. Update the plastic type (if the disc you are reviewing has more than one plastic type).
2. Have an updated star rating according to this criteria:
5-Stars – Must Have
4-Stars – Great Disc
3-Stars – Average Disc
2-Stars – Below Average Disc
1-Star – Waste of Plastic
3. Update the recommendation for beginners.
4. Have a minimum of 75 words (or a video).
5. Update your flight ratings (do you think the disc flies exactly as the manufacturer said, or something different?).
To get a free t-shirt, your profile and reviews must be updated by July 15th, 2015. Eligible participants will be emailed promo codes where they can order the shirt of their size on our website for Free.
Automatic T-Shirt Recipients
Any reviewer with an updated Infinite profile and at least 12 quality reviews “Review Enthusiast” (with updated flight ratings/beginner recommendations) will be automatically eligible by simply completing this form.
The fine print that you probably won’t actually read…
Each reviewer will only be eligible for one free T shirt. After eligibility is automatically received (12 updated reviews) or your review is randomly selected, a promo code for 99.99% off of a white Infinite Discs cotton T-Shirt will be emailed to you, where you can then make the order and select your size. Offer is good until 100 shirts are redeemed, or July 15th, 2015. If 100 people automatically qualify before July 15th, there will be no random drawing.This offer does not include free shipping on the shirt, unless you combine your t-shirt with an order that qualifies for free shipping. If you redeem only the free shirt, the shipping cost is $2.56 within the United States. International shipping costs are more expensive and vary by country.
Ernie The First Tee Tree – Episode 5
What is in OUR bags?
In the past few blog posts concerning the State of Disc Golf Survey, we have established that Innova is the most popular manufacturer in the disc golf world. It was chosen as the favorite brand in every demographic. However, even though Innova led all other manufacturers in popularity, according to our survey, less than 4% of us throw exclusively Innova. As we all know from interacting with other disc golfers, even though we may favor one brand, most of use throw discs from a variety of manufacturers. This blog will explore the variety of brands we throw and give us a good snapshot of what is in our bags.
First let’s look at the popularity of the brands that are in our bags. The survey didn’t ask how many discs we had of each brand — that would have been too time consuming. It simply asked which brands could be found in our bags. Not surprisingly, the brand that most of us throw is Innova, with 87% of us keeping at least one of their discs in our bag. The next most popular brand is Discraft at 69%. Latitude 64 has 42% of respondents throwing their brand. Dynamic Discs is the fourth most popular disc in our bags at 35%. Rounding out the top five was Prodigy at 28%. Westside, Gateway, and MVP were just a couple of percentage points behind Prodigy, sitting at 26%, 24%, and 23% respectively.
Although we can say that Innova was the clear winner with this survey question, it is important to point out the significance of the Trilogy brands (Westside, Latitude 64, and Dynamic Discs) taken as a single entity. Although these three companies are separate, they work together to avoid duplicating efforts, such as manufacturing, distribution, and sometimes disc design.
In our survey we asked about the “Trilogy” brands (Latitude 64, Dynamic Discs, and Westside) individually. These are three separate companies, from three different countries, who work together to share some of the manufacturing and distribution workload. Although separate, they market themselves as members of Trilogy. Taken as a single entity, 58% of us have at least one of the brands in our bags. A significant number of us, 15%, have all three Trilogy brands in our bags. If disc golf sales are any indication of Trilogy’s popularity, we have seen their disc orders increase in the last two years so much that they rival Innova’s. Yes, that is counting the three companies as one. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues in the coming years.
It is certainly important to consider everyone’s favorite brand as we explore the current state of disc golf. If we favor one brand over another we are more likely to buy and follow that brand to the exclusion of other brands. However, taking a peek inside the bags of thousands of disc golfers can tell a slightly different story than just asking which manufacturer we prefer. Yes, Innova is still the king of the bag. But, with the knowledge that few of us are dogmatic about brands, other disc manufacturers can take solace (pardon the pun) in the knowledge that many of their discs are nestled comfortably alongside the undisputed champ. The question of how much competition in such a relatively small sport is too much may be a subject for another blog. For now, it appears that the competition is good for us as disc golfers. Let the manufacturers develop new molds or materials as they fight for their share in the disc golf market. Meanwhile, let’s go huck!
Ernie the First Tee Tree – Episode 4
State of Disc Golf 2015: Do Our Demographics Affect Our Choice of Brands?
In a previous blog discussing the results of the 2015 State of Disc Golf survey, we focused on which disc golf brands we like the most and how that has changed from last year. (If you missed it, click HERE) This blog will look at who we are and whether that affects what brands we throw.
Who are we?
According to the survey, we are male (94%), live in California (7%), are 30-35 years old (23%), consider ourselves Intermediate disc golfers (45%), have been playing for 5-9 years (25%), played 10-15 different courses in 2014 (29%) and have a Bachelor’s Degree (35%). Half of us are currently married, while 43% have never been married.
We also belong to disc golf clubs (57%), own either 21-30 discs or 41-60 discs (tied at 14%), bought 10-14 new discs last year (18%), lost 1-3 discs (48%), chose disc golf as a favorite sport to play (85%), and football as a favorite sport to follow (35%. Disc golf was second at 27%).
After examining all the demographic statistics, we wanted to see if there were trends based on certain aspects of the demographics. For example, does the age of the respondent affect which brand they consider their favorite? Or the skill level? Or the education?
We considered most the attributes of the average survey respondent, listed above, and compared them to the overall list of favorite discs. And, spoiler alert, the results were kind of boring. Regardless of the demographic, nearly all of the results were within a point or two of the overall favorites. There were only a few exceptions, and even those were not extremely far from the overall numbers. They are worth mentioning, though, because of possible long-term ramifications.
Just to recap the previous blog, the top six favorite brands were: Innova (48%), Discraft (12%), Latitude 64 (10%), Dynamic Discs (6%), and MVP and Prodigy tied at 5%.
Disc golf experience
The first question we looked at was “When did you start playing disc golf?” We wanted to see if the length of time we have been playing had any effect on which brands we preferred. The biggest variation from the average results occurred among players who have only been playing a year or less. This was not a large sample size, representing only about 1.5% of the total respondents, so the overall significance of the results carry less weight. Still, this will be an interesting group to watch over the next couple of years. Players from this experience group still chose Innova as their favorite brand, but by a much smaller margin. Only 31% of respondents in this group picked Innova as their favorite, compared to 48% overall. Discraft and Latitude 64 results stayed close to the same as the total results. MVP, Dynamic Discs, Axiom, and Discmania all bumped up several percentage points (see chart for numbers).
Near the other end of the experience spectrum were those who have been playing between 35-44 years. This group made up 3.2% of the respondents. Among them, 42% listed Innova as their favorite, while 15% of them chose Discraft, 3% more than overall. MVP, Dynamic Discs, and Prodigy all held 8% of the vote in this group, which represented an increase for all three brands. Westside was consistent with their overall score.
Skill level
The survey asked respondents to list what division best represented their skill level. The four choices were: Beginner/Recreational, Intermediate, Advanced, and Professional. For the most part, this category also followed the Favorite Brand category nearly exactly. The Pro’s, representing 8% of the total respondents, had the biggest differences. For them, Innova sat at 46%, Discraft and Latitude were 10%, and Dynamic Discs, MVP, and Prodigy held 7% of the Pro vote.
Gender
Since men represented 94% of the respondents, it’s pretty obvious their statistics would duplicate that of the overall results. For women, there were a few slight differences. Innova was the first choice with 46%, which was 2% lower than overall, Discraft took second with 11%, and Dynamic Discs rounded out the top three, finishing 9%, up from the overall 6%. Latitude 64 and Westside traded a couple percentage points, with Latitude 64 2% below the overall results and Westside 2% above.
Age
The final demographic we’ll look at in this blog is the choice of Favorite Brand by age group. While all of the age groups between 18-40 years were close to the overall percentage, there were other groups with a few different numbers. Again, the differences were never huge, but enough to mention.
We will start with the youngest age group, 12-17 years old, which represented 2% of the total respondents. Like the newer players that we mentioned at the beginning, it will be interesting to see how or if the numbers in this demographic changes over time. The youngest players chose Innova as their favorite by 5% more than the overall respondents. The increase came at the expense of Discraft and Latitude 64, which were both down a little. Westside was chosen 3% more frequently, while Dynamic Discs was the same percentage as overall, 6%.
The next group to look at is disc golfers 41-50 years old, representing 14% of respondents. This group chose Innova at a slightly lower 43%, compared to 48% of average. Discraft was up to 14%, Latitude 64 was up a tick at 11% and Prodigy was 7%, which was 2% higher than overall.
The 51-60 year olds were a little more favorable for Innova, with 53% of the group choosing the brand leader. Discraft and Latitude 64 were a little less popular, while Dynamic Discs and MVP matched their overall numbers.
The most senior group we will look at is the 61-70 year old disc golfers. They make up 2% of the total and only 39% of them favored Innova. The extra percentage points went to Discraft (16%), MVP and Westside (9% each), and Dynamic Discs (8%). The fact that Discraft is higher is not surprising. But, if we were going to bet on a demographic that would have the highest loyalty to Innova, we would have gone with this one. Innova and Discraft have been around longer than the other brands and people in this age group grew up throwing those discs.
Conclusion
When we were looking through all of the data, we were hoping to find a few statistical anomalies that could be analyzed and discussed. Although this particular set of data did not have the extremes we were hoping for, just knowing that we as disc golfers are consistent throughout a variety of demographics is good information to have. We will certainly keep an eye on those groups that did vary from the norm to see what changes take place in future surveys.
In an upcoming post, we will look specifically at which brands people are throwing. Remember from the first survey result blog that only 6% of us throw a single brand. The rest of us have two or more brands in our arsenal. We will look at which brands people throw and which new discs people know the most.
Some of the Most Important People in Disc Golf
Volunteers do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart.
~Elizabeth Andrew
Recently, I was reflecting on all of the tournaments that I played in 2014. I won’t mention the total number in case my wife reads this. Let’s just say I was fortunate to be able to attend quite a few. Tournaments are an important part of my disc golf life. Beyond the competition, which I enjoy, is a wonderful social aspect. I met so many really great people throughout the year. It’s tough to beat the camaraderie, excitement, and atmosphere of a disc golf tournament.
While the size, cost, and weather may vary from one tournament to the next, they all have one thing in common: at some point, someone made a decision to organize and run the tournament, then put in a lot of work to make it a reality. I’m speaking of the wonderful Tournament Directors, or TD’s!
I really like the idea that people are so committed to this sport and their fellow disc golfers that they would dedicate their time and effort to run a tournament. I appreciate and respect that. More importantly, I want them to keep doing it! If you like to attend tournaments, I think you’ll agree that we should encourage our TD’s to keep up the great work. Here are a few things we can do for them:
- Preregister (if available). Preregistration is the ‘RSVP’ of disc golf. It lets the TD know how many people will attend and gives them time to prepare in advance. That helps them run things in a timely manner. It really benefits us, too, because when things will run smother, we get done sooner.
- Do your part by showing up on time, listening to the TD at the player’s meeting, and keeping a good pace as you play. These are more things that also benefit us as participants. Tournaments take up a big chunk of time, but we can help the TD and ourselves by getting there on time and not contributing to delays.
- DON’T COMPLAIN TO THE TD! We may have issues with how a tournament was run, but complaining is not the best approach, particularly on the day of the event. If we’re angry or dissatisfied with certain aspects of a tournament (players pack, payouts, cost, pin placement, etc.), taking a day or two to think about it or talking to our friends about it might help us realize our issues aren’t as big as we thought. Maybe what we were concerned about wasn’t even the TD’s fault. If we still think it’s something the TD should hear about, we should send them a respectful email discussing our concerns. Most TD’s I know would like to hear ideas for improving their tournaments. By offering calm, constructive suggestions, TD’s are more likely to listen. And, more likely to continue running tournaments.
- Thank the TD! At the very least, tell them “thank you” at the end of the tournament. It feels good, for us and them. At a few tournaments I’ve been to, some of the participants circulated a tournament disc for everyone to sign as a surprise ‘thank you’ gift for the TD. I like that simple way of showing them that we appreciate them and their efforts. They will remember the gesture and be more inclined to do it again.
Disc golf tournaments are a fun part of our sport. Let’s make sure they continue by making life a little better for the people willing to run them. I would love to hear your thoughts about TD’s, their hard work, and ways we can make their lives a little better.
Ernie the First Tee Tree – Episode 3
