@rshetts I’d love to hear your take on this video. I’ve watched dozens, and I’m currently well within parring the easier courses in my area now, but only with a stroke of brilliance do I go 300 feet, and I’m a pretty big guy. This really brought everything I’ve been copying as for WHAT to do into WHY to do it and HOW to do it. I haven’t been able to try it yet but it hit me like a hammer between the eyes.
Interesting. Back in my early days I was fortunate enough to meet and play with David Greenwell, the reigning national Pro champ. He gave me a number of tips but the one thing he really liked about my throw style was my snap. He said that I had one of the best release snaps he had seen. Arm strength can only carry you so far, Disc rotation is what gets you that extra yardage and snap is what gets you that extra rotation. The guy in the video refers to it as acceleration but it is actually that extra disc rotation that you are going for. That provides that acceleration and allows the disc to carry longer, because the bottom line is, that once the rotation slows, the disc drops so more release rotation equals more air time for the disc which obviously translates to more throw distance. I like the “hammer” analogy he uses, it explains the technique well and although he doesn’t mention rotation, snapping is what increases the acceleration of the outer edge of the disc. The mechanics start with the hand and wrist but the effect is to whip the outer edge of the disc to force extra rotation. When I was in my prime I could wrist snap a putt from 30 plus feet with very little arm movement. By limiting the arm motion and relying on rotation to drive the disc, I had better accuracy. That takes a lot of practice but it can be very effective on short shots especially when an obstruction makes full arm motion problematic.
This is what I was talking about with wrist snap putting…
Well for Christmas I picked up a set of discs for my wife and sun. So once the ground isn’t so muddy, winter is the rainy season, I’ll take them out. A local game shop owner I was talking to mentioned the pdga.com site, since that lists all the courses. I found out about a bunch in my area.
And, yeah, local board game stores often carry the full line of Innova discs.
Thanks for answering! One of the silly things I picked up years ago was throwing a playing card 40 or 50 yards, it’s a motion like flicking water off of your fingers. I knew that it had some sort of analogy to disc golf but I couldn’t put it together. That putting video reinforces what I was thinking, along with the video I posted, that you have to perceive a point of inertia somewhere on the disc and throw that, rather than trying to move your body and arm and hand in a certain way and the disc becomes magical.
Get Udisc on your phone, that’s probably the best resource for finding courses.
Nice, thanks for the tip!
I’ll do that now because I’ll forget in two months when things dry out enough :)
The closest course to me is a beast. It demands both length and extreme accuracy due to most of the holes being in heavily wooded areas. I can’t deliver the length and accuracy needed. I can play this course at about 20-25 over par.
There’s another course a but further away that’s short and wide open, and I can play that one under par. The par fours probably should be par threes. It’s only nine holes and every time I’ve played it I’ve been under par.
Both are fun. The hard course is fun for the challenge and the hiking about in the woods. The short course is fun for making birdies. Making a birdie always feels good.
One thing re: discs and losing them, invest in a mystery box. The whole concept is fun in itself, and you’ll get a ton of great discs for a fraction of what they cost buying individually. Some are bought within minutes but Gateway has one that is more or less always available, 11 discs for 69 dollars, free shipping. Fantastic value and you won’t be so scared to lose one.
Threw a few today working on this, and I definitely felt the snap, but I think it’s just exposed how badly I’m using my lower body. I’d say a gain of 20 feet or so and a shockingly greater amount of accuracy, I was chucking max-range drivers and landing them in a 20 foot circle, but not the huge gainz I was hoping for. That said, I think I understand the whole motion well enough now that I can video myself and figure some things out rather than chasing ghosts.
Edit: Also full caveat, I was just doing field work where I have a 300 foot target mostly known, when I map out my local course I see throws that are more like 240 that I feel like are 300 when I actually make them, so maybe I’m just starting to come to reality about how short I actually throw. When you were in your prime as a good but not pro player, what was your honest easy distance on a flat unobstructed drive? Could you look at a 400 foot hole and think, “Oh, this is just my 85% shot, no problem.” ?
In my prime I could drive a 400 ft hole to within mid putting range with some regularity. I would guess 325 ft was my limit. I played Ultimate Frisbee in college and could throw a 165 gram frisbee almost the length of a 100 yd field. My friends and I had a contest to see who could split the uprights from the farthest distance and I hit one from the opposing 20 yd line. With all humility, I had a helluva a throw. I had great long distance accuracy as well but what kept me from going pro was I lacked consistent accuracy on mid length putts. I played with a few of the pros several times and while I tied them on holes several times, only once did I actually beat one on a hole. Playing with the world’s best showed me that I would need serious dedication to the sport to take that next step. As I mentioned I lacked a consistent mid game and to get there would have taken more time than I could commit. Like most sports, the jump for a top amateur to a consistent pro is not a small one. I still love the game but due to my rheumatoid arthritis, my ability to “grip it and rip it” is long gone.
That makes me feel a lot better, thanks. Watching Lizotte or Eagle you start to think that 450 easy distance is a thing that you should have, but it sounds like 350 is far more reasonable for mortals as a goal, especially 48 year old newbies. And yeah, the putts they can hit are insane, but as you say that’s just hundreds of hours of practice. It also tells me that most folks are full of shit on Reddit, but that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Another option for people struggling to get distance is to give throwing forehand a shot. Generally backhand is going to be better, but for some people forehand is just going to feel more natural.
Probably my baseball background, but I always have found a forehand to feel more natural even after I learned to throw a good backhand.
Good advice but I’m the opposite, no baseball background and a lot of golf/pull through background. That said, I did throw a few today and they made a lot more sense as well, using the “throw the spot on the outside from your grip” idea. I’m very protective of my strong side elbow due to reconstruction surgery from shooting.
One of the odd shortcomings with disc golf is that it isn’t easy to practice. There aren’t disc golf driving ranges. If I want to work on distance I have to throw my discs and then walk to retrieve them and then throw them back. It’s a bit boring and labor intensive. I’d rather just play a round and throw my discs that way.
In fact, in the short time I’ve been playing, if there’s no one behind me I’ll often throw two or three drives and then a couple of approach throws. I only count my real throws on the holes but the other throws are helpful.
Throwing multiple discs while playing rounds was the main way I practiced my drives. The other option is to find a large park and a partner and then toss your discs back and forth from distance. I was lucky enough to have a appropriate park within walking distance from my house that saw little traffic and I had a friend who played as well who was near by. We often brought some aluminum poles with us and drove them into the ground for targets.
There was still a lot of running after discs because of lower accuracy on those really long throws but it was still helpful to have a partner.
I managed to play a couple of days ago, and I’m disappointed that my distance gains aren’t there as I’d hoped. I think I’m getting more snap, but now I’m pretty sure it’s a lot to do with overpowering from the reachback rather than saving power for when the disc is in front of my chest (the Power Zone.) Another thing to work on!
I know the vast majority don’t care about disc golf, but I don’t care about them not caring. ;)
So I’ve found my distance gains. Just like any other sport, you have to reach point X before you can really understand feature Y of the swing. Over the winter and through playing and practicing quite a bit (for a disc golfer) I think I’m at the point where I understand the various fundamentals of the swing but can’t put them all together yet. I have scratched 350 feet today, and it felt good. I’ve gotten a bit of an idea on how to aim myself, and my putting isn’t abominable, just deplorable. Still absolutely in love with the game.
350 feet is amazing to me. That’s longer than a football field. I think I am somewhere around 200 feet, but I haven’t practiced much.
So how do you practice? You can’t go to the range and throw a bucket of discs. I throw 3 or 4 and then I gotta walk and get them. It’s a bit tedious.
I throw six or seven and walk to them? That said, the real gains came from watching YouTube videos and working at home with a towel (adds resistance so you don’t booger up your elbow or shoulder.) If you can get a hand towel to snap, then you’re doing it right.