Just the Tip – Aim For Your Circle

Just the Tip HeaderYou step up to the tee, line up your shot, and throw what you think is a great drive through the woods.  You watch as the disc dances its way past tree after tree in the direction of the basket.  Then, out of nowhere, your disc hits a branch and drops straight to the ground, well short of the basket.  What you thought was going to be a great shot is now questionable.  As you walk up to your disc, you keep your fingers crossed that you have a decent second shot.

When you get up to your disc, you are disappointed to see that from your location, you don’t have a very good line to the basket.  You can see the basket, but the odds of hitting the very small window you have are very low.  If you play in the woods at all, or really anywhere with trees, you have run into this situation on more than a few occasions.

So what do you do when you can’t throw at the basket?  Or worse yet, when you could throw at the basket, but it’s a tough shot with severe consequences for missing your line?

It’s situations like this that teach us to stop aiming at the basket all the time.  You don’t have to run every shot directly at the chains.  Instead, you need to aim at “your circle”.

By “your circle”, I mean the circle you can draw around the basket that defines where you are most likely to make a putt from.  Some people call it their confidence circle.  If you are gold from 20 feet and in, then your “circle” is anywhere within 20 feet of the basket.  Looking at things this way significantly changes the game, especially in situations like I described to start this post.

A circle with a 40 foot diameter is a heck of a lot easier target to throw at than only throwing at chains.  If you can’t make it in the basket from where you are, why risk disaster by trying to throw it directly under or at the basket?  Instead, see if there is an easy line to any spot that’s 20 feet or closer to the basket.

Start throwing at your circle in these situations and watch your score drop accordingly.

Throw to the circle
Why throw straight at the basket when there is a wide open area on the left that you are still sure to make a putt from?