Disc Golf

Okay, here's one of those topics that can be in general chat or within the games section, so by all means, feel free to move this if there's already a place for it.

Most of the active members of this thread play disc golf.  Me, never played, though I've been interested.  With Crivitz now having a course, and with the youngest and I spending time In Marinette's City Park this weekend, I thought I'd break down and buy some discs.

Checked online, and oh look, Walmart has sets of discs for $10 - $20.  Not bad, I can do this.  Turns out that our Walmart doesn't sell the sets, not unless you want to buy that starter's set with the two net baskets.  Oh no, instead of a set of three discs for $15 (average), they have individual discs for $8-$12.

...

$12 for a frisbee?  Are you freakin' kidding me?  Mother puss bucket...  I had the money, don't get me wrong, but this just seems like a ridiculous amount of money for a plastic throwing disc.  Then again, looking at how much we spend on one model kit (gaming or otherwise), I guess it's alright.  Anyway, landed up buying eight disc: two matching sets.  Picked up a archangel distance driver 8/6/-4/1, cobra mid range 4/5/-2/2, skeeter mid range 5/5/-1/1, polecat putt and approach 1/3/0/0.  Now remember, I bought two of them, one yellow and one blue, so that the boy or wife or whoever could play.

Now, I'm sure you guys know what the numbers mean and all that.  Me, I had no idea, other than what the side of the display box said: speed, glide, turn, and fade.  But what the hell exactly does that mean?  Here then is the meat of my post, for any other newbs who might ever stumble upon this!

SPEED - The higher the number, the harder / faster you have to throw the disc in order for it to work properly.  The higher the number, the faster you have to throw.  Numbers can range from 1 - 13.

GLIDE - The higher the number, the longer the disc will float in the air.  I would think any disc can have a high hang time, depending on how you throw it, so until I actually use these discs, my assumptions probably mean squat.

TURN - without going into the details, numbers 1-5 is overstable, meaning how quickly it'll turn left.  0 is neutral, that it'll go straight, and -1 to -3 is unstable, or turn to the right.  It is said that unstable discs are good for beginners... we'll see, we'll see.

FADE - If I understand this right, fade is how much the disc will come back near the end of it's flight, or head in the opposite direction it started in.  I've seen this happen while using a normal frisbee, so I know what I am seeing, I just don't know how to put it into words.

Put altogether, my driver (8/6/-4/1) will go a fair distance (can be used as both a fairway and a distance driver), with a pretty good amount of hang time.  It'll curve to the right without question, and will drift a little bit back to the left.  At least, that's the way I'm seeing this.

This sound or seem good to everyone?  I'm the newb here, so I don't know too much... I'm just surprised that no one here has posted about this yet.

Sooth, as I was texting you about city park this evening, it occurred to me that I forgot to respond to your Q&As. Sounds like you are correct about most of your disc ratings. Chances are you purchased Innova discs, which are the most popular, and I believe the only thing available around here. Yes, they are quite a bit pricier than standard frisbees, but they have full-time engineers designing, modeling, doing computer simulations, to make sure they profiles catch the wind just right, have the right loft, speed, weight, blah blah blah. I remember when I first got my Groove distance driver, there was an article on the Innova website explaining how I should compare the profile (edge and rim shape) with other distance drivers to physically see the differences their engineers had... um... engineered.

Which brings me to the Innova website. When I got my first set of discs, and stared dumbfounded at those same numbers, I read the little booklet that came with the discs. The information was okay, but I wanted more. Go to the Innova website. Read. MOST of your questions will be answered! Sadly, you will also be introduced to such wonderful words as Hyzer and Anhyzer. As much as you would like to think I'm talking about erectile dysfunction, those are actually types of throws. Yes, because just like early skateboarders decided a certain type of jump should be called a bunny hop, disc golf pioneers decided if you're throwing just so and you tilt the disc thusly, it should be called something gnarly like Hyzer. YOLO! The full list can be found here.

Is this important? Not unless you're going for a tournament or circuit or whatever organized sport is called in disc golf. To this day, I can't force myself to remember the difference between a Hyzer and Anhyzer. However, it's good to read through, and with practice you will learn some neat stuff. For example, your disc swinging right then fading back left... if you throw the same disc... um, backhand?... like throwing a stone for skipping, it SHOULD do the exact opposite, swinging left and fading right, which is a damn good thing to know for getting around trees! I've also seen dudes throwing over the shoulder vertically, tomahawk style, with good results. And one time, I saw a guy throw from behind his neck like a shot put (without the spinning) and however the hell he did it the disc was crazy flat and accurate and had damn good distance!

So, read and practice. AND... I know this isn't like extreme snowboarding or mountain climbing or hog wrassling, so I know how dumb this is going to sound... watch youtube videos! There's actually guys on there that will show you grips, throws, techniques for aiming, techniques for more control, stuff like that. I didn't believe a stepping lead-in (stomp stomp stomp throw) could actually do anything until I saw it in a video, and I believe it helps my distance from the tee. It IS just throwing a frisbee, but it's also a lot more involved!