David Feldberg in cooperation with Infinite Discs now releases a new signature stamp on the Pharaoh. Behold Dave’s new stamp on this excellent distance driver:
Add this to your disc golf collection, whether it is on your wall for good lookin’ discs, or in your bag to make long distance drives out on your local disc golf course. You can pick this uniquely designed disc online now by clicking here. Also, it glows in the dark! What is not to love about this newly stamped distance driver Pharaoh from David Feldberg and Infinite Discs?
Nobody saw the surprises, challenges, and often bizarre events of 2020 coming. It has been a very unexpected year. On top of the obvious heartbreak of sickness, death, job losses, and disrupted lives, even small sports like disc golf and pickleball have had its disappointments with the cancellation of major events. But let’s really dive into the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on disc golf in terms of growth and the marketplace.
“Skip the Course. Stay Home”
A lot of people, especially tournament directors and touring professionals, felt an acute sting when the PDGA (Professional Disc Golf Association) suspended all sanctioned events starting March 14th. It felt like much of the year was ruined for competitive disc golf. And yet, many players still felt like they could enjoy recreational play to some extent, especially since many jobs were sending people home, schools were switched to online courses, and other public events were all cancelled. People had time on their hands and parks seems a safe place to socially separate while doing something fun.
Then on March 23rd, the PDGA sent out a letter to registered members to please “skip the course and stay home.” They encouraging leagues not to gather and basically requested that all players avoid their local courses. It wasn’t long before many courses in the most populated cities started pulling their baskets out, just to make sure nobody would gather to play. The request made total sense. After all, the world was in a panic, Covid-19 is very contagious, and staying away from one another is a good way to avoid the spread of disease.
But did everybody get that memo? Conditions can vary greatly in the many different parts of the country. In more rural areas, things pretty much continued as usual because cases of Covid-19 were barely present, if detected at all. More densely populated areas had to take more drastic measures. But it would be incorrect to claim that everybody everywhere was staying at home. Many disc golfers continued to play, whether in small groups, with family members, or alone. Disc golf, in many ways, it a socially distant sport when tournament and league play is removed.
With all that said, there are many people who know nothing about the PDGA. They aren’t members, or they play casually, or they discovered disc golf while looking for a way to pass the time. Those people obviously did not hear or head the call to stay home. How do we know? Because disc golf exploded.
A Great Way to Pass the Time
Maybe it was the number of people in forced quarantine from work, school, and other events that fed the interest in disc golf. Maybe the outdoors simply feels safer than staying pent-up in a building. Whatever it was that created the perfect storm, disc golf suddenly became a very popular way to pass the time during the pandemic.
Infinite Discs has a unique perspective into the disc golf growth and interest trends, being a seller of disc golf products. Here is a look at website traffic that hit the InfiniteDiscs.com website from the end of 2019 to the present (June 5th).
The candlestick in June is shorter than the others because the week was not over when the chart was made. We’re not sure if the apparent growth will settle to a new plateau or if it will continue in an upward trend. But the increase in traffic, even dwarfing 2019 holiday sales, shows an obvious increase in interest. The dark blue represents “organic searches,” meaning that those are people who found and visited the website through their own searches and exploration. That is where most of the increase was generated– new people looking for discs.
Disruption in the Supply Chain
While the growth and interest in disc golf and the coinciding desire to purchase discs increased, the ability to supply those discs dropped. With the declaration of a worldwide pandemic, many states in the USA mandated the complete shutdown of “non-essential” businesses and manufacturing. Disc golf apparently is non-essential, but that did not stop people from wanting discs. More people were spending more time either on the course or playing in the backyard. Most of the major manufacturers and distributors of discs and targets (baskets) were forced to shut down or operate on a skeleton crew. Suddenly, manufacturers like Innova, Discraft, MVP, Prodigy, and others were unable to feed the growing demand. Not only could they not keep up, but they were falling behind on previously scheduled manufacturing runs, meaning that the supply would take a long time to catch up, even when allowed to turn the machinery back on again.
For an visually stunning look at the conundrum of disc golf supply vs demand during the pandemic, take a look at the following graph. It shows the sales trend at Infinite Discs from October 2019 through May 2020. The red shaded area roughly designates the time period that several major manufacturers were forced to close and had very limited ability to ship restock.
So, during the steepest time of growth, the disc manufacturers were unable to continue functioning. The obvious effect of that pattern is a drastic drop in inventory levels at disc golf retailers. When new supply is unavailable, old supply drops precipitously.
Infinite Discs took up a mantra of “More the 50,000 discs in stock” in 2017 when we were able to move into a larger facility and increase our inventory levels. It was our goal to stay well above that level for the long term. We printed thousands of promo cards stating that mantra. But the supply chain challenges of 2020 made it impossible. Here is a graph showing Infinite Discs disc inventory levels starting in November of 2019 (the peak of inventory before Black Friday sales kicked in) to the present.
When we combine the sales levels with the decrease in inventory levels, you can easily see the correlation. Again, when interest and sales increase, but the ability to restock is removed, the balance of supply vs demand is broken.
Sorry, We’re Out of Stock
One easy product to discuss when pointing out the effect of the pandemic on disc golf purchases is baskets (or “targets”). With many people taking up backyard putting to pass the time, the demand for disc golf baskets sky-rocketed, quickly clearing retailers out of inventory. Much of the time, large items like baskets are drop-shipped from the manufacturers when they are ordered through online vendors. That is a logical way to avoid the issues of storage and the high shipping costs of moving heavy items around the country. A customer buys a basket, then the online retailer sends an order to the manufacturer to ship directly to the customer.
But if the manufacturers are closed…then drop-ship orders are no longer available. So even if the baskets are technically in a warehouse, they aren’t accessible. Infinite Discs tried to battle that problem as things started to shut down and immediately ordered large shipments of baskets that in some cases took weeks to arrive. Suppliers were basically piling baskets on pallets and shipping them out before having to lock up and go home for an indefinite period of time.
So in many cases, the choices were few when it came to obtaining portable baskets at a time when people most wanted portable baskets. That lack of supply existed with other products as well.
Where Are the Popular Discs?
For many years, Innova has been the highest-selling brand at Infinite Discs. Without making detailed comparisons through the years, it is safe to say that they represent a large portion of the disc golf market. Innova’s manufacturing facilities are located in California, and that was one of the first states to shut down businesses because of the pandemic. If the discs in highest demand were not being manufactured for a couple of months, then how do you think things are looking for Innova now that they are back in business and trying to catch up?
Once again, here at Infinite Discs, we can share a little bit of insight into that problem. We have an algorithm which calculates the number of discs we need for each disc model and in each plastic type based on 30-day vs 90-day sales vs discs in stock. That way we can restock based on the sales trends in an attempt to keep the right quantities in stock for every disc. We recently placed a restock order with Innova for nearly 16,000 discs based on that algorithm because the demand was so high and the inventory levels so low after the shutdown. At the time of this blog post, our current inventory level for all Innova discs in stock is 3,975 discs. That means that the shipment that we’re still awaiting should have four times our current inventory, just in restock! But Innova is struggling to meet those quantities as they have spent days putting the shipment together, because they have many more retailers making similar demands, and they too are at very low inventory levels after having a couple of months without manufacturing.
Take a look at popular Discraft disc models. In the case of Discraft, where signature Paul McBeth discs are a huge boon to the brand, keeping certain discs in stock at all is a challenge for the same reasons. Last week, Infinite Discs had these totals available for certain models:
Luna = 0
Malta = 0
Anax = 0
Zeus = 0
Zone = 0
Those are some of the hottest discs in the current Discraft line-up, aside from the Buzzz. None of them were in stock. Not a single disc in any kind of plastic. After a small restock, we’re back to zero again this week.
In May the new Paul McBeth Hades was announces as soon as Discraft was able to open up their operations again, along with a slew of other signature discs. With nearly 1,000 Hades in stock at midnight of the release day, Infinite Discs was sold out by morning. One of the most hotly anticipated signature releases, the Paul McBeth Tour Z Swirly Luna, was one that we’d asked for 1,200, but received just short of 100. To this day, we’ve still received no more than 300 total of the disc after two small, follow-up shipments. Why? It is Discraft’s fault? Nope. They also cannot keep up with the new demand and the depletion of inventory when they too are trying to make up for lost time.
When Will Things Turn Around?
Basically, the Pandemic caused a huge increase in interest, when it comes to Disc Golf. The cancellation of tournaments and the plea not to assemble in groups didn’t stop new players from picking up the game. The new increase in demand has drained the market of discs and other supplies. How long will it take for the market to catch up to the new demand and eventually normalize? We don’t know. We’re struggling to keep discs in stock, but people won’t stop buying them. Will there be an eventual shortage? Will it take months or years for disc makers to meet a new surge that was never anticipated or expected?
What are your thoughts on the pandemic and it’s effects on disc golf? Did you see an increase in interest in the game? Are more people on your local courses now? Share your experiences in the comments below.
With the new year and tournament season under way, we thought it would be good to look at some of the new disc golf discs for 2020. There are many discs that have been PDGA approved, release date announced, and we are just awaiting the release date. With other molds, manufacturers keep details close to the vest until their announcement. Every year manufacturers introduce new discs to the sport. Some molds make a splash and instantly becoming popular, like last year’s Kong/Zeus. Others don’t have as much impact.
The PDGA approved 74 new molds in 2019. Most of them went to production. Some won’t arrive until later this year. Only time will tell how they fare with the DG community.
Let’s take a look at some the the upcoming releases for 2020. We will continue to check out discs throughout the year, as manufacturers approve or announce them.
We will start with Infinite Discs and the much anticipated Ruin putter. Do you love your Harp? Do you rely on your Zone? Is an overstable putter one of your go-to discs? You should give the Ruin a try! This beadless beauty will fight any headwind you will experience. When you throw the Ruin, you KNOW it gives reliable, hard fades for perfect placements. The Ruin is available in our durable C-Line plastic, our grippy I-Blend and now in amazingly colorful C-Blend dyed! Infinite Discs released the Ruin on January 17th with our awesome Alien stamp.
Discmania announced it will be expanding its Active line to include an Active Premium plastic. Three molds will be made in the new plastic, the Sensei, a low-profile putter, the Maestro, a small-diameter midrange, and the Mentor, a control driver. Although the Sensei has been sold in Discmania Mystery Boxes for a while, it hasn’t been released on it’s own. The Sensei, Maestro, and Mentor will also be available in the base Active plastic. The discs’ profiles and flights are not new. They are renamed versions of Discmania’s Tiger Warrior, Spring Ox, and Sea Serpent discs. The new names are retired. Also retiring are the Fox Spirit, which will become the Magician, and the Sun Bird, which is changing to the Genius. The Magician and Genius will only be available in base plastic.
The New Zealand disc golf company release its new, overstable driver Kotare (Pronounced Ko-Tar-Ray). The high-speed driver has a turn of 0 and fade of 3, making the disc excellent for straight or headwind shots. And that strong fade makes for great turnover shots. The flight rating is 12, 5, 0, 3
With Paige Pierce’s move to Discraft, it’s no surprise that the company would release a new mold to support the World Champion. Paige’s new prototype disc is a beadless, understable putt and approach disc, and Discraft released the disc on January 17th. Discraft announced the name of the new disc, the Fierce. Pierce is Fierce on the course!
Mint discs had the first release of 2020 with their popular understable control driver, the Freetail. They released the disc on January 6th.. Mint discs has a very loyal following and we went through the first order rather quickly. Fortunately, the Freetail is now back in stock.
Kastaplast, out of Sweden, saw their disc the Lots approved this year. It is a straight flying, utility fairway driver. It boasts a flight rating of 9, 5, -1, 2. They are available in K1 Plastic. Lots means “pilot” in Swedish and refers to one who navigates the harbor or coast. Just like navigating the course with a Lots
Latitude 64 added to its beginner-friendly line of discs with the release of the Sapphire. Initially available in the popular Chameleon plastic, the first run of the speed 10 driver quickly sold out. The mold is now available in Opto and Gold Line plastics. The driver has a flight rating of 10, 6, -2, 1.5. It is a 150-class disc.
Innova Invictus
Invictus means “unconquered” in Latin and for long range throws into a headwind, there’s no equal. Some pros refer to the Star Invictus as a “faster Firebird.” Innova Star Team’s Garrett Gurthie says, “If you think you have the power, you need this disc.” Keep an eye out for the Invictus at the end of March. The new mold features a flight rating of 10, 4, 0, 3.
Several other major manufacturers have had discs approved, and we await news about their release dates.
Innova is releasing the Avatar this year. The putter adds another overmold disc to their large library of discs.
Dynamic Discsgot two approved at the end of last year: the Sergeant, described as a hybrid driver,
between a fairway and a high-speed driver, and the Bounty, a straight-flying midrange. They Bounty will be part of the Trilogy Challenge players pack. Dynamic Discs will release the Sergeant in April 2020.
Discmania recently got their Tactic approved. They are describing it as a disc that fills the gap between putters and mid-range discs. The the flight numbers are 4, 2, 0, 3.
International Brands
Several smaller brands have had discs approved in the last couple months. Many of these companies are located in countries around the world:
XCOM has several discs approved by the PDGA:
XPT1 (Advanced Putt)
XPT2 (Advanced Mid-Range)
XPT3 (Beginner Mid-Range)
XPTe (Beginner Fairway Driver)
XPT5 (Advanced Distance Driver)
Crosslap Discgolf Park, a German company, got approved for their driver, the Vigil (Called the Pipeline as a prototype). It sports a flight of 8, 6, -2, 1.5, and will be available in Advanced, Maximum, and Platinum Plastic.
Disctroyer, the disc golf manufacturer in Estonia, was approved for their putter, the Sparrow (Varblane in Estonian). Discstroyer’s web site shows the flight numbers as 3, 3, 0, 2. The Sparrow joins the mid range Skylark (5, 4, 0, 2) and the high-speed Starling (13, 5, -2, 2) in the Disctroyer lineup.
It is time once again for STAMP WARS where we accept stamp designs from aspiring artists and then let the public decide which ones will appear on special runs of discs. Here is a quick look at how it will work.
STAGE ONE – December 2019 – SUBMIT YOUR DESIGN
In order to submit your stamp design for voting, you must read and agree to the rules and submit THIS FORM along with your stamp design file.
It is important to understand the rules, so be sure to read them. Basically, you will be promising that your work is original, not taken from anybody else, and not including any copyrighted material or characters. We’ve had to disqualify some stamps in past years for being traced or flat-out copied from other people’s work. That included some clip art submissions and monochrome versions of existing photos. We will also disqualify any stamp that we consider tasteless, pornographic, or offensive. Please stick with your own, original designs and in good taste.
Get your creative juices flowing and get your ideas submitted. THE SUBMISSION DEADLINES IS JANUARY 15th, 2020!
STAGE TWO – The VOTING
Once the submission process is over we’ll begin the process of elimination through a voting process. The Voting will be open to all Infinite Discs customers. We will announce the voting each week through our social media. The field will be narrowed each week until there are only four remaining finalists.
You are welcome to encourage your friends to vote and to campaign as much as you’d like for your design. On our end, we’ll simply move the stamps with the most votes during each round of voting onward to the next level. Voters will not be able to vote more than once on each round. IF WE DISCOVER CHEATING then we can remove the contestant.
STAGE THREE – THE FINAL FOUR
The final four stamp designs remaining after the voting process will be stamped onto discs to be released in the Infinite Discs store. We will stamp the same quantities on the same molds of the same brands in order to make sure that there is no unfair advantage for any of the four designs. Then the grand prize winner will be decided by which design sells the most or the fastest. We will either wait until for a period of one month if there is a close race, or we will declare the winner if the disc quantity for one of the stamps gets low enough that it becomes the obvious winner.
PRIZES
The prize for reaching the final four is a $100 gift card to the Infinite Discs online store, plus 5 discs with your design. The prize for winning 1st place after the sell-off is an additional $250 gift card to the Infinite Discs store. Plus, we’ll continue to use that winning design on additional runs of the stamp across several popular brands.
We’re excited to see your designs, so let the 2020 Stamp Wars begin!
DESIGN HINTS:
To be usable as a disc stamp, please make your designs monochrome (black “ink”).
Do not submit full color or multi-colored artwork.
Do not make thick, filled patches in the artwork– those thick areas would trap bubbles under the foil which causes drop-out when stamped.
Any shading should be line-shading or half-tone shading, since a foil can’t “fade out”.
Stamp designs which fit nicely into a circle will typically look better on discs, rather than very wide or very tall images which “shrink” the circular space in which they are presented.
Incorporating an Infinite Discs logo in some way is always a plus.
We’re excited to continue our Focus Friday blog where we take a quick look at specific discs. We may not get a focus put together every week, but we’ll try to keep some fresh discs in the spotlight on a somewhat regular basis.
The Emac Truth was a retooled version of the Dynamic Discs Truth mid-range, designed to fly with a little more stability according to the specifications of professional disc golfer and 2010 world champion, Eric McCabe (thus the “EMac” nickname). It is a wide-diameter mid-range at 21.7 centimeters width and has good glide and control. These are the flight numbers:
SPEED: 5 GLIDE: 5 TURN: 0 FADE: 2
Here is a look at pro player, Kesler Martin, giving the EMac Truth a good rip so you can see how it flies.
This week (until Saturday the 16th of November) you can get your hands on the EMAC TRUTH with a great discount of 20% OFF! Simply add the EMAC TRUTH in any plastic types to your cart, then before clicking to “Checkout,” look below your shopping cart for the Discount Code box and enter this code:
FOCUS-TRUTH
Then click “Checkout” to proceed to the payment screen with the 20% discount applied. The discount will apply to all the EMac Truth discs in your shopping cart.
NOTE: We still have a few of the full-colored “autumn leaves” EMac Truth discs if you want a funny White Elephant gift to give a friend for the holidays!
We’ve started taking the opportunity to focus on specific discs in specific plastic types on Fridays and call them “FOCUS FRIDAY” blogs. We may not make it on every week, but we’ll try to keep some fresh discs in the spotlight on a somewhat regular basis.
Our New Focus Friday Features the Yikun LU (or LUAN)
The LU by Yikun Discs (also called the “Luan”) was originally introduced in Phoenix Line plastic which is a durable, translucent plastic similar to popular blends like Innova Champion or Discraft Z Line. But more recently, Yikun experimented with a new version of the plastic which is now called PHOENIX STAR. This new plastic blend is gummy and flexible, like the discontinued Frost Line plastic by Latitude 64, or the sometimes seen Gummy Champion by Innova. It’s a great plastic blend for cold weather when discs tend to stiffen-up. It feels truly unique.
The disc itself came out VERY flat in the Phoenix Star plastic. It almost has the profile of a dinner plate! It is a wide rim driver at maximum “speed 14” and an overstable finish. This is a great utility disc when you want a hard fade at the end of flight, or if you love to crank sidearm (forehand) or overhand (tomahawk style). Power throwers will love cranking on the LU, and more intermediate players will find it to be a very useful overstable disc when a lot of side-to-side movement is needed on the course. The disc can also be used for a huge spike-hyzer.
Here is a little clip of an amateur throwing the overstable LU after showing how flexible it is. You can see how dramatically it fades once it loses speed.
Three Words: FLAT, FLEXIBLE, and FAST!
This week (until Saturday the 2nd of November) you can get your hands on the LU with a great discount of 20% OFF! Simply add the LU discs to your cart that you desire, then before clicking to “Checkout,” look below your shopping cart for the Discount Code box and enter this code:
FOCUS-LU
Then click “Checkout” to proceed to the payment screen with the 20% discount applied. The discount will apply to all the LU discs in your shopping cart.
We’re going to start taking the opportunity to focus on specific discs in specific plastic types on Fridays and call them “FOCUS FRIDAY” blogs. We may not get every week, but we’ll try to keep some fresh discs in the spotlight on a somewhat regular basis.
Our New Focus Friday Features the Discraft PREDATOR
A lot of attention gets thrown on the newest entries into the disc golf market, and there’s always a new overstable fairway driver that players want to try. But this week we’re taking a look at a disc that has been around for a while, the PREDATOR. This is a very predictable overstable fairway that has a dependable fade, but without being so ridiculously extreme that it becomes a “utility disc.” The Predator is manageable enough that even newer players or intermediate players can use it when they need a disc that can shape lines around obstacles or fight into headwinds. The Predator has just enough beef to get the job done.
Paul McBeth started off the 2019 competitive season with the Predator as his overstable fairway driver until later switching to the Anax which is part of his signature line. Interestingly, the Predator and the Anax have very similar flight characteristics, so it doesn’t seem that much was changed-up for Paul’s overstable fairway needs.
Infinite Discs has a nice stock of Predators, including a custom run of ESP FLX PREDATOR discs for those who like a slightly more gummy feel with their premium plastic discs.
This week (until Saturday the 26th of October) you can get your hands on the PREDATOR with a great discount of 20% OFF! Simply add the Predators to your cart that you desire, then before clicking to “Checkout,” look below your shopping cart for the Discount Code box and enter this code:
FOCUS-PREDATOR
Then click “Checkout” to proceed to the payment screen with the 20% discount applied. The discount will apply to all the Predators in your shopping cart.
We thought it would be fun to put some of the long-term, top-selling discs on sale for this week, in case you need to restock after a busy disc golf summer season. The prices are automatically discounted on these disc models (no discount code is necessary).
The DESTROYER had some competition this year as the top-selling distance driver as it pushed to keep up with sales of the new Discraft ZEUS and other new releases like the Discmania DD3 and the Dynamic Discs RAIDER.
There are some fun Destroyers in stock, aside from just stock stamps. There are a lot of custom stamp designs, plus some cool black Star Destroyers and Star Dyed Destroyers.
There are also a few signature series Destroyers in special plastics, Shimmer Star and Swirly Star, plus the new Halloween Destroyers.
You should be able to find plenty of different plastic types and plenty of different weights. Remember, when you click to SELECT YOUR DISC then you can sort by weight, from high to low, or low to high. You can also narrow your search to a specific plastic type by using the drop-down at the top left to pick the plastic you want to see.
There are also a few of the Paul McBeth 4x stamped editions in stock and a nice supply of the newer run of Ricky Wysocki stock editions.
We also though it would be fun to offer a fairway driver companion to go along with your distance drivers, so we’ve also discounted the Infinite Discs EXODUS. This was the first disc released in the Infinite Discs line which is manufactured by Innova Champion Discs. It is a great “power fairway” that can be thrown for shorter, precision shots as well as longer drives off the tee. It is very similar to the classic “Eagle L” by Innova and has become a favorite of many players from intermediate to pro.
It’s available in S-Blend (comparable to Star), C-Blend (comparable to Champion), and I-Blend (a long-lasting, inexpensive, Infinite Blend of Pro plastic).
The BUZZZ has always been among the top-selling mid-range discs on the market, if not the very top. It found new life with a Paul McBeth signature edition this year and has reached all-new heights of popularity. We currently have a great supply of the most popular edition in ESP Plastic, along with a lot of other choices, ranging from Jawbreaker to Full Foil. Again, simply click to SELECT YOUR DISC and you can pick your favorites.
To top it all off, we figured you’d need a discounted putter as well, so why not go with one of the top-selling putters on the market, the P2 by Discmania. We currently have a supply in many different plastics, from the softer, base plastic D-Line to premium blends like C-Line Glow. Check out the selection and remember, these prices are only good through Saturday, October 12th.
Paul McBeth started off the 2019 competitive season with the Predator as his overstable fairway driver until later switching to the Anax which is part of his signature line. Interestingly, the Predator and the Anax have very similar flight characteristics, so it doesn’t seem that much was changed-up for Paul’s overstable fairway needs.
We also though it would be fun to offer a fairway driver companion to go along with your distance drivers, so we’ve also discounted the