You are standing on the tee. Today you are playing one of the better courses in your area. This hole is a great example of why. The basket is not reachable off the tee. It’s 650 feet away. Good thing you watched that YouTube video last night on disc golf driving tips!

You’ve been working on your distance for occasions just like this one. You are primed and ready to let the disc rip. You can’t wait to impress your friends. You grab your favorite Destroyer. You step up. You crush it like you’ve never crushed it before. You might have even heard the disc squeak, “ouch!” as it leaves your hand!

The rest of the group watches the disc as it sails out past 400 feet. It’s a thing of beauty that skips and flares at the end of its flight leaving you just off the left edge of the fairway. You walk off the tee pad head held high, chest out, and proud of what you just did.

After your display, you kind of scratch your head as you see that one of your friends is holding a Buzzz. Doesn’t she know this is a 600 foot hole? What is she thinking? Well, if she wants to make it easy on you, you’re certainly not going to stop her, right?

You watch as she throws a shot up the right hand side of the fairway. It settles down about 300 feet out and fades gently to the middle of the fairway. Ha! You’ve got her by at least 100 feet!

D’oh!

Now for the interesting part. As you walk up the fairway, your confidence starts to fade. As the disc gets closer, you start to see what kind of second shot you’ve left yourself. The nearer you get, the uglier things look.

When you get up to your disc, you see that you’ve landed in some tall grass that will make a run up impossible on your second shot. The basket is guarded on both sides. With the angle you’ve left yourself there is nothing but trees and bushes blocking any workable line in.

All the good angles are gone from this spot. The harder you look, the worse it gets. It’s going to take a miracle shot to get anywhere near the basket. Looking around, you see that the only spot that has a decent line to the basket is the one your opponent is standing on. She smiles at you and waves.

She is in a perfect position to get up and down. She marks her disc, takes the same Buzzz she threw off the tee, and throws a beautiful straight shot right up to the basket. At most she has a 15 foot putt for a 3.

With your terrible footing, shaken confidence, and lack of a good options for your second shot, you end up in the bushes to the right of the basket. By the time you get out of the bushes and into the chains, you take a 4.

A lot of good that video on disc golf driving tips did you now, right?

Distance shouldn’t be your first concern.

Your first concern, every single time you play, should be getting the disc into the basket in the fewest amount of throws possible. It’s not how far you are going to throw.

[tweetthis]The only thing recorded on a #discgolf score card is your score.[/tweetthis]

That means that when you step up on the tee, there are a lot more things to think about than how far you are going to throw the disc.

In two previous posts, we talked about managing your upshots to leave yourself a putt you had a good chance to make. We talked about reading the green and also reading the wind. The idea was to leave yourself the easiest possible putt.

When thinking about disc golf course management, there is a natural progression of those concepts. Place your drives so that your approach shot is the easiest possible too. At the very least, don’t leave yourself a difficult shot.

If your upshot is limited, you take away your ability to think about what kind of putt to leave yourself. Instead you can only worry about getting near the basket in the first place.

What does the 4x World Champion think?

Paul McBeth recently wrote a Facebook post about people who ask him to play casual rounds to better learn the game. I loved his response. He said instead of playing a casual round with him, they should watch him play a practice round. What do they watch for? Among other things, where he chooses to land his disc and where he throws his approaches from.

The distance your disc travels is only one minor part of where you choose to land your disc. That’s why this week I want to share a quick list of 9 things you should consider when standing on the tee pad. These are the things to think about when picking a landing spot for your drives.

***As an aside… To do this, your field work needs to start focusing as much or more on accuracy and disc control as it does on the actual distance you are throwing.

9 uncommon disc golf driving tips.

• Accuracy. Ask yourself how far you can throw accurately. Sure, you might be able to hit the local football field and bomb discs out past 400 feet. The real question is how far can you throw them and have them land where you intend them to?
• Placement. Where do you have the best approach shot from? Does throwing a shorter drive leave you in a better position? Where are the good lines to the basket? You will need to have checked the hole before playing it to know.
• Footing. Where is the best footing to be had? Can you see a wide area that would leave a good approach shot? Where in that area would put you on flat ground with the opportunity for a clean run up?
• Disc Angle. What angle will the disc need to land at for it to get to the spot you pick? Will it need to skip to this spot? Do you need the disc to settle down flat on your chosen location? This will help you pick both the disc as well as the line you want to throw off the tee.
• Ground condition. Will your drive skip when landing? Will it stick? Can it roll away? Is the ground hard or soft? You can do the best job in the world of picking the right spot to throw your second shot from but if you can’t get your drive to stay there, it doesn’t matter.
• Obstructions. What obstructions will be in your way on your approach? If you choose to throw a straight second shot but then realize there isn’t a high enough ceiling to do that, you will be in a tough spot. Ask yourself if you will have a clear and unobstructed second shot.
• Your preference. Many holes will present you with a multitude of possible second shots. Which type of shot do you prefer to throw? If you can leave yourself both a hyzer and an anhyzer approach, which are you better at? Look for the shot that leaves you the best chance for success.
• Distance. Not of your drive, but of your second shot. What distance are you most comfortable throwing? A good example is leaving yourself a longer second shot so that you can throw that shot at full power. Full power shots are more accurate than ones you try to take something off of.
• Ego? Are you making your decision on the tee pad with your ego or your head? It takes a big person to throw a mid off the tee on a 600 foot hole. Make sure you are playing smart and making good decisions. Letting your ego play for you rarely works out well in the long run. Check out this post for more on this topic.

Do your homework.

To do any of this, you have to be familiar with the course. I’m not just talking about having played it before. I mean really knowing the course. Without this type of intimate knowledge, you’ll never be making the best possible decision.

A great way to do this is to walk or play the course backward. Look at each hole starting at the basket. Take a hard look at the lines in to the basket. Then walk out to those spots and look to the tee. You’ll be surprised at how much more clearly you see the hole when doing this. This drill also gets you out of “play mode” and into “observation mode”.

If you can, take notes. Jot them down. Even if you never look at them, the simple act of writing them down or recording them in your phone will help them stick in your memory. You won’t have long during a round to make these decisions. They need to be made before you even start playing.

Execute.

Think before you throw. Instead of getting up to your second shot and then dealing with an unknown, try to make your second shot one you wanted and planned on. If you have your plan of attack down before you start, all you have to worry about at that point is execution.

Most people, when they search the web or YouTube for disc golf driving tips, they are looking for more distance. I totally get that. Who doesn’t want more distance? But what good does that distance do if it doesn’t help you score lower?

Anyone can try and throw far. There’s a million tips out there on how to do that. Not everyone can score well. For that it requires a different set of tips. I really believe that if you go out and execute the 9 points above, you will get lower scores.

Often the most important shot on harder and longer courses is your second shot. Make it work for you, not against you! Don’t believe this works? Take a minute and watch Paul McBeth or any other top pro play. There isn’t a drive they are throwing where they aren’t thinking about what their second shot is going to look like.

Do you like these tips? Do they help your game? If so, make sure and subscribe to the blog. We’ll make sure you never miss a post. You never know when one tip ends up changing your game for the better forever!

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The post 9 Disc Golf Driving Tips You Don’t Hear That Often appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

Putting. It’s where the game of disc golf is won and lost. It’s the one skill that the pros practice more than any other. They might even practice it more than all of the other skills combined. If you are serious about your game, you practice it too. You might even practice more than one kind. Spin putts, loft putts, straddle putts, and turbo putts are all things I see people working on around the practice basket at my home course. There’s one type of putt, though, that I almost never see anyone practice… Putting from your knees.

As I write this, it’s about 11pm and I spent most of today playing in a tournament in Marengo, IL. The Marengo course is a nice mix of open and wooded holes. Lots of challenge and lots of trees. With those trees comes a lot of low hanging branches. Today, those branches made me have to putt from my knees 4 times.

At 6′ 6″ tall, it’s something I find myself doing pretty regularly. But even though I may have to do it more than most, it’s still something everyone should be able to do. It’s a fundamental skill that will help you save throws on your score card.

Recently, we put up two posts about leaving yourself easier putts. One was about reading the “green” around the basket. The other was about considering the wind direction and what type of putt you would most like to leave yourself. If you’ve gone out and practiced that, you’ve found that while it improves your scores pretty quickly, it’s not foolproof. Despite our best efforts, we can still leave ourselves difficult putts.

When to putt from your knees…

Putting from your knees comes in handy in a few instances. The first is the above mentioned low ceiling putts. The second is when you are stuck in the bushes and have to get down on one knee while stretching your opposite leg way into the shrubbery to rest behind your marker. In both cases, putting from your knees is your only option.

If the only time you putt from your knees is in competition, you are doing yourself a disservice. There’s just no reason not to practice it. You don’t need to practice it hundreds of times, it’s just a variation on your normal putt. You can spin putt from your knees and you can straddle putt from your knees. They key is to get down and actually do it a few times.

[tweetthis]You have to be great at several types of putts to be great at #discgolf[/tweetthis]

You’ll find there are a few minor adjustments to be made. Your weight shift will be different. You’ll use more arm. You’ll line up at the basket a bit differently. It will feel awkward and weird at first. Stick with it and in no time you’ll be putting from your knees like a pro.

Now for the bonuses…

The first one is that this skill is a life saver when you are playing in high wind. Getting down low and keeping your putt lower to the ground really helps when it’s blowing outside. The next time you are playing and it’s gusty out, try it and you’ll see what I mean.  You’ll make more putts and your misses will not blow near as far away.

The second one is that this will help you win games of horse (or disc, or pig, or bagger… whatever you choose to spell when playing this putting game). Because almost no one ever practices this putt, you are almost sure to throw your opponents off by putting from your knees.

Here is your challenge. Throw a few putts from your knees during practice this week. Then, when you are playing, look for opportunities to use your new skill. I think you’ll find that it will help you more often than you might think!

Here’s your second challenge for today. Subscribe to this blog so you make sure you never miss a thing! You never know when one of our tips will change your game for the better forever!

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The post The Disc Golf Putt You Don’t Practice Enough appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

If you were to take all of the posts about improving people’s disc golf games off of Facebook, Reddit, and DGCR, you’d reduce web traffic from disc golfers by half at least. All that would be left is people bickering about which brand of disc is better or bragging about their 500 foot drives that aren’t real.

One of the most fundamental aspects of improvement in any field is that what gets measured gets managed. Measurement is critical in almost anything you want to do well. Without it, improvement is exponentially more difficult.

Why Measure???

First, how do we know if we are improving if we don’t measure? Do you know your make % from 30 feet? Do you know how far your average 200 foot approach shot lands from the basket? Do you know how many times a round you 2 putt from inside the circle?

If we don’t take the time to measure the things we are trying to improve, we don’t really know if we are improving or not. Even if we notice some improvement, we don’t have a clue as to how much!

Second, without measurement, how do we know the biggest area of opportunity in our game? We might think that driving distance is our weakest point, but then when tracking we realize that 30 more feet on our drive wouldn’t actually lower our score at all.

We might think that putting is what we need to work on because we missed a big putt in competition. But then when we look closely we realize that was the only putt we missed inside the circle that whole day.

By measuring our skills, we get a clear idea of what needs to be “managed” in the first place.

Third, how can we set targets for improvement if we don’t know where we started or how much better we need or want to be? If we don’t measure, then we are left with the very vague “I want to get better”. That’s a very tough target to hit.

Another Benefit…

Now for the bonus. Often the simple act of measuring will produce improvements on its own. Just by paying attention to a particular aspect of your game, that part of your game will naturally improve.

I’m reminded of this past winter when I decided to finally learn to putt. I kept a putting log that kept track of thousands of practice putts over the span of several months. The simple fact that I had committed to myself to make entries in that log every single day is what motivated me to actually practice every single day (that and the fact that I was posting weekly updates here for all of you as well!!!). That, in turn, led to a vast improvement in my putting.

If I hadn’t started to measure, I never would have seen the improvement that I did.

The challenge is to actually pick some things you “think” you need to work on and measure them. Once you do, you’ll know if you really need to work on those disc golf skills or not.

[tweetthis]Measuring your improvement in #discgolf is the only way to know if you are getting better.[/tweetthis]

If you decide that you do, indeed, need to work on those things, now you are well equipped to make improvement. You have a starting point determined. You can regularly compare to your starting marks. You can easily set a goal for improvement, giving yourself a target you can reach for daily.

If you think about it, almost all of you already do this in a broad sense anyway. It’s called keeping score. Your scores going down are how you know that you are getting better at the game as a whole, right? All this is is taking that broad measurement and making it more narrow in focus. Measure specific skills instead of the game as a whole.

So what do you need to measure? How much better do you want to get? What goal will you set for yourself based on that measurement? How are you going to improve your disc golf skills?

One way to help yourself improve is to subscribe to this blog. We’ll email you a really swell newsletter every Sunday with links to all of that week’s posts along with unique content that you only get in the newsletter. You’ll love it or your money back!

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In last week’s post, we focused on trying to get your disc to land as close as possible to the basket. First, your scores will be lower in the long run when you try to land close instead of running at the basket. Second, shorter putts should be easier to make. Shorter putts mean getting up and down more often.

One key to a quality disc golf approach shot

There’s something besides just leaving yourself a short putt that is important. You also want to leave yourself as easy a putt as possible. What else besides distance can impact how easy or hard a putt is? The wind.

When we talk about course management, one of the things that disc golfers have to remember is that the sky is our course. The wind matters as much or even more than the land we play on. If we always keep that in mind, we’ll hopefully find it easier to remember to work with the wind and not fight it.

[tweetthis]The sky is our course in #discgolf and managing the wind is critical.[/tweetthis]

Some people prefer headwind putts. Some prefer tail wind putts (that’s me). Some prefer crosswind putts. Regardless of what you prefer, what if every putt was in a wind that was favorable to you.

Make it easier on yourself

Imagine, if tailwind putts are your thing, that you played a round where every putt was in a tailwind! That would be a huge advantage, right? That is totally in your control. It all comes down to your approach shot and where it lands in relation to the wind and the basket.

This brings us to one of the most common mistakes players make when throwing disc golf approach shots. They rarely stop to think about what the wind will be doing on their putt. They usually don’t think about it until it’s too late and they step up and realize they wish they were on the opposite side of the basket!

Last week we talked about 5 aspects of the area around the basket you should think about when throwing approach shots. Now all you have to do is add this 6th one, the wind.

When you step up to throw your approach, take a quick look at the trees and bushes around the basket. Which direction is the wind blowing? Which side of the basket do you want to be putting from? Remember to try to leave yourself the easiest possible putt.

As we head into fall golf, we’ll all see a lot more windy days. Playing in the wind is something we all have to do (I’ve also written posts about driving in the wind and also practicing in the wind if you are interested). Playing with the wind is something we can all choose to do! Making the choice to use the wind to your advantage is a game changer! I guarantee that it will give you an advantage over most of the other players out on the course.

Something else you can choose to do is subscribe to this blog! You never know when one tip will take your game to the next level. Subscribe by entering your email below and make sure you don’t miss a thing!

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The post Avoid This Common Disc Golf Approach Shot Mistake appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

Recently, one of our readers, Mickey, reached out and asked us to cover course management. Looking back across all of the posts on this blog (and holy cow are there a lot of them now!) we realized that we hadn’t really covered much, if anything, in relation to this very important topic. This week will be the first of at least 4-5 where we take on the subject of course management. Thanks for the great idea Mickey, hopefully these posts help you and some others play better disc golf!

When we talk about disc golf, the overall object is to get the disc in the basket. The fewer throws that takes, the lower your scores. There is nowhere that more throws are shaved off of your score card than around the basket itself. Whether or not you agree with the old adage that you drive for show, there can be no doubt that we definitely putt for dough.

[tweetthis]Putting in #discgolf is hard if you are always far away from the basket.[/tweetthis]

You hear a lot of people talk about how to improve putting. Most of that talk involves actual putting technique. What is not addressed very often is how to leave yourself putts you have a better chance of making. There are a few things that go into that. Today we’ll be addressing reading the green.

The green is the area around the basket. I usually think of it as the 10 meter circle that surrounds the basket. That’s where you are typically putting from. The closer you can leave yourself, the higher your percentage of putts made will be. That leaves us with the question of what should we be thinking about when throwing our approaches (or even drives on shorter holes).

If you pay attention to these 5 things, you’ll give yourself a much better chance of having a shorter putt. If you always work to leave yourself the shortest putts possible, your score should go down.

1. Is the green flat or slanted?

This is going to tell you what’s going to happen to your disc once it lands. If the green slants away from the direction the disc is coming in, the disc will tend to travel further, skip, and slide more. If it is slanted towards the direction the disc is coming from, the disc will hit that angled ground and have a higher tendency to stop.

2. How long is the grass?

The longer the grass, the faster your disc is going to stop. The short the grass, the more action and skip you’ll get when the disc comes down.

3. Is the ground wet or dry?

Wet grass is slippery. You’ll notice this a lot when you play all day. Your early morning round, when the ground is covered with dew, will see more skips away from the basket. Later in the day, when the ground has dried out, you’ll notice your disc stops a lot quicker.

4. Is there something other than grass around the basket?

If you are shooting into mulch or wood chips, for example, your disc is probably going to stop almost dead in its tracks. Pick your landing spot accordingly.

5. Are there any obstacles around the basket?

If there are trees or low hanging limbs on one side, but not on another, aim for the clearer side of the basket. It doesn’t matter how close you end up, if there are things in the way, you’ll miss more putts.

6. Bonus tip…

Notice that nowhere in these tips have I addressed trying to throw the disc into the basket. Your goal on approaches should always be to slide the disc right up under the basket leaving yourself a drop in putt.

Most of the time, when you see a pro throw in an approach shot, they were not trying to make it. They made it by mistake. The aim should always be to be able to consistently get up and down.

If you can get up and down in 2 most of the time from 250′ and in, you’ll suddenly be able to beat most of the players you could run into. That’s a huge skill to have. Paying attention to the above 5 things will go a long way towards helping you do that.

We left out one major part of managing your approach shots. Make sure to check out this post to see what it is!

If you don’t want to have to remember to come back each week to check for the latest tips, consider subscribing to the blog instead. We’ll send you a swell weekly newsletter with content you can’t find anywhere else. We’ll also send you links to every new post we put up each week! You won’t miss a thing! Just enter your email below.

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For those of you that noticed, this regular Monday feature will no longer be called “Just the Tip”. My goal is to help as many disc golfers as possible. It turns out that anyone on line searching for “just the tip” was definitely not trying to find disc golf tips. Those that searched “disc golf tips” were never directed here. So, in an effort to reach more people, I am reluctantly changing the name.
**Image credit for the “bonus” picture – Frederic Bisson

The post Disc Golf Tips – 5 Things You Should Think About on All Approach Shots appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

You’ve done your research. You’ve gone to Facebook, DGCR, DGR, and You Tube. You’ve read the reviews on all the disc golf blogs. You’ve poured over the In Bounds flight guide. You’ve consulted Joe’s Flight Chart and the Marshall Street Flight Guide. You’ve asked your friends, you’ve called your neighbors. And now you are ready. It’s time to buy a new disc!

Some people really put a lot into purchasing a new disc. Me, not so much. I have this problem that if I have money in my pocket, and there is a disc for sale in front of me, somehow the money leaps out of my pocket and I end up with a disc in my hand. I wake up a little dizzy and disoriented and not quite sure what happened. I should probably get that checked out.

Sometimes people are happy with their purchase. Sometimes they are not. Sometimes they trade the disc to a friend. Sometimes it becomes a permanent addition to the bag. And then sometimes they take to the internet to tell anyone that will listen, and many who get caught in the fray, that this disc flies nothing like anyone said it would.

I remember when I first started playing. I sat one day and watched a couple of guys in the local club just bombing some huge hyzers almost 400 feet and sticking them pretty darn close to the basket. They were throwing Eagles so I went out and bought an Eagle. For some reason, my Eagle only went about 150 feet and most of it was while falling out of the sky to the left… Hard to the left.

Another time, I played with a guy on a wooded course and he was just killing it with a Comet. “You should get one of these.” he said. “It’s the straightest disc in the game.”. So I bought one. But mine seemed to be defective. All it did was flip over to the right and burn to the ground. It didn’t go straight at all.

One of the light bulb moments that all disc golfers have at one point or another is that form is king. Why is the Comet flipping over and not going straight? Form. Why is the Eagle crashing out of the sky? Form. As the old saying goes, it’s the archer, not the arrow.

Unfortunately, many disc golfers who have not yet had that light bulb moment take to the inter webs to rage against the commonly accepted descriptions of discs. They are willing to argue with anyone that will listen that Firebirds are not over stable and Destroyers don’t go that far.

These are the same people that insist that they don’t need to learn how to throw a putter off the tee. They’re the same folks that claim that they’ll play however they want to and no one should tell them differently. And I actually agree with them… Right up until the moment they jump on line and start giving others advice.

[tweetthis]FaceBook, home to the largest amount of questionable #discgolf advice on the inter webs.[/tweetthis]

So yes, throw how you want. Insist on never learning proper form or technique. Put your foot down that you are only ever going to putt with your putter and that’s it. That’s fine, this great sport has room for everyone. Just please stop going on FaceBook and telling people that their descriptions of disc flights are wrong when you are the only one disagreeing.

It really is the archer and not the arrow. And bad archers don’t get to make arrow recommendations.

So the tip this week is instead of getting advice about discs from random people on the internet, head to your local disc shop and ask a pro. Don’t have a local shop? Then go to your local club and ask one of the pros there. Just make sure you ask for advice from someone who knows what they are doing. Then, once you get the disc, if it doesn’t do what it is “supposed” to, work on your form a little before completely writing it off. It really is usually the archer.

One thing I would recommend is to subscribe to this blog. We’ll send you a sweet disc golf newsletter each week with exclusive content you can only see there. We’ll also send you links to all of that week’s posts. And, as if that weren’t enough, you will be entered into every random draw type of contest we offer! So get busy and enter you email below!

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The post Just the Tip – It’s the Archer appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

I’m spoiled. At least when it comes to disc golf courses I am. I am lucky enough to live 2.5 miles from an amazing course with 36 holes of disc golf goodness. Squaw Creek in Round Lake, IL is currently rated on DGCR as the best course in Illinois. It’s my home away from home.

Ever since they revamped this course from the mediocre 18 holes it used to be into the 36 holes of championship caliber disc golf it is today, I haven’t had much of a reason to travel or go elsewhere to play. Not until recently, anyway.

One of my goals for this summer was to meet and play disc golf with as many new people as possible. It’s been a very fun summer and I’ve met some very cool people. Some have even become regular playing partners and new friends. Doing this has required me to travel away from Squaw Creek to play. I’m loving it.

What I didn’t realize had happened over the last two years is that I have grown used to my new home stomping grounds. I wouldn’t say I take it for granted, but it has become warm and familiar to me. It’s lost some of that new car smell. What I’ve forgotten is just how good for my game it is to play at a new course.

Here’s a short list of why you should get into the car this weekend and make an effort to play someplace new:

1. It reminds you of what it’s like to be new to the sport again. It puts you on new and unfamiliar ground where you don’t just walk up and automatically grab the disc you always throw.
2. It forces you to throw lines you don’t normally throw. You will be presented with shots that you normally never have to attempt. The more different kinds of shots you have to throw, the better you will become.
3. It allows you to play with people you might not regularly get to play with because they live a little ways away from you. Offering to “meet in the middle” somewhere is a great way to stay in touch with some of your less seen disc golf friends.
4. It makes you use discs you might not normally throw that much. Disc X that never seems to come out of your bag might become your go to disc on a new course. It’s a great way to learn your lesser used discs more thoroughly.
5. It’s fun. I mean come on folks, do I really need to give you a list of reasons to go play a new course?! This in and of itself should be more than enough motivation.

So stop making excuses. Stop filling your days off with other stuff that keeps you too busy. Summer is already more than half over. Make time and plans to go someplace new to play and do it soon! You’ll be thankful and happy that you did.

[tweetthis]Go play a new #discgolf course today![/tweetthis]

You should also make time to read this blog regularly! I’ll make it really easy for you to do that by emailing you a killer newsletter each week along with links to all the new posts. Don’t mis a thing, subscribe today!

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Well, it’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean summer. No, I don’t mean tournament season. I mean it’s time for me to be sidelined with an injury. Just call me the Derek Rose of disc golf. I seem to get injured to the point of not being able to play at least once a year. A lot of other people do too, it seems. So this week instead of a playing tip, I thought I’d share a tip that could keep you playing longer instead.

When I get injured, it’s almost always my lower back. The sad thing is that I know it’s coming and what causes it, but I play anyway when I know I shouldn’t.  It took two solid years to rehab from 4 bulged discs in my back. That was two years of intense pain and no disc golf. I’m intimately familiar with my back, how it works, how it breaks, and how to fix it. The problem is that I’m stubborn. I really need to fix that problem right along with my back.

As I talk to other people I play with, it seems like I’m not alone. This is about the time of year when folks have been playing so much that over use injuries start to crop up. Injuries due to poor form rear their ugly heads. The sale of knee and elbow braces to disc golfers skyrockets. Shoulders pop. Ankles creak. It’s time for those dreaded mid season injuries.

What is a disc golfer to do? It’s 75 degrees and perfect outside. All your friends are headed to the course to play. You think that you could probably gimp your way through a round, so a hand full of Aleve or Advil later and you are out there hucking plastic. That can get you through a few rounds. It works great until it doesn’t. That’s when the real injury happens.

There’s two types of injuries. The ones where we can tough it out and play through them are the first. The second are the serious ones we can’t play through and require medical attention. The problem lies in the fact that number one becomes number two more often than not. We insist on playing when our bodies are giving us every sign not to.

This is why I haven’t played much disc golf lately. When my back starts hurting, that’s my body telling me to take it easy for a bit. That’s my back’s way of saying to do extra yoga, twice a day, and to make sure I use my standing desk at work. If I do those things for a couple of weeks, I’m usually good to go. If I don’t, and I decide to go play instead, I’m asking to be out for much more than a couple of weeks.

We have three choices when aches and pains show up. What we choose determines how much playing time and enjoyment we actually miss.

1.  We can see a doctor and then rest and rehab for a week or two until the injury is healed or the pain subsides.

2.  We can take extra pain meds and play anyway until the injury is so bad that we have to stop playing for several weeks or even months.

3.  We can ride the thin line between not quite healed but still playing occasionally. This typically results in ongoing pain that just never goes away. The serious injury may take longer to come, but it eventually does. Then we are out for an indefinite amount of time as our bodies try to heal from the damage we have inflicted.

By far, choice number one is the smartest. Choice number one, in the long run, has the least down time from playing. Choice number one is also the hardest. It requires that we give up something now to gain something later. It requires that we delay the gratification of a round today in exchange for the gratification of many rounds down the road.

For those of you that have been injured or are injury prone like me, you are familiar with these choices. If you haven’t been injured before, or are suffering from your first real injury now, take heed. The choice never gets easier, but it’s always clear.

For the sake of your health and for the sake of being able to play as much as possible this summer, take a week or two off if you are hurt. See your doctor. Don’t try to play through it. Don’t mask the problem with medications of any kind. Your body hurts because it’s asking you nicely not to over do it. If you ignore it, it won’t be so nice. Trust me when I tell you you don’t want to feel what it’s like to have your body opt for the not so nice reminder.

Here’s something you can do even if you are injured… Subscribe to this blog by entering your email below. You’ll get a weekly newsletter sent directly to you along with links to all of the new posts from that week!

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The post Just the Tip – Injuries appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

Decisions Decisions

Many of today’s top executives are doing something odd in the morning. They are getting dressed in the same clothes every single day. I don’t mean they are wearing literally the same thing, without washing. I mean that they own 5 identical outfits and that’s what they wear every day. They will wear the same charcoal suit with the same color shirt and same color tie every day. They wear the same style socks and the same shoes. Same belt, same watch, all the way down the line. What they wear is just the start.

They have a highly structured morning routine that contains as much similarity from day to day as possible. That routine is designed to eliminate any choices they have to make each day. They eat the same thing, get up at the same time, do the same things in the same order, and yes, wear the same clothes every single day.

Why are today’s highest level performers standardizing as much of their morning as possible?

Decision fatigue

It’s been shown in studies repeatedly that the human brain has a harder time with each successive decision it has to make in a given day.

Basically you start the day with the ability to make a limited number of decisions well. Once you pass that number, your ability to make good, well thought out choices decreases with every decision. This is why at the end of many days you can’t even decide what you want for dinner let alone decide on anything of consequence. This phenomenon is known as decision fatigue.

The odd thing is that our brains don’t really distinguish between big decisions and small ones.

To our brains, deciding what to eat for breakfast is a decision. Deciding what to wear is a decision. Deciding what route to take to work is a decision. If those things aren’t standardized, by the time we get to work or school, we’ve already made too many withdrawals from our decision bank to be able to successfully make it through our day.

Decisions and Disc Golf

So what the heck does this have to do with disc golf? A lot. Disc golf is 18 holes of decision making. If you are playing in a tournament, it’s often 36 holes. Every shot requires you to decide on a disc, decide on a line, decide on a stance, and decide on many other variables that come into play.

I often look back at the mistakes in my rounds and can point at bad decision making as the culprit. I chose a shot I shouldn’t have thrown. I threw a disc I had no business throwing. It’s these bad decisions that often cost us the match.

On top of that, we then beat ourselves up because we realize we made bad choices. We know that we “knew better” but did the dumb things anyway. What we didn’t realize was that we made those bad decisions because we used up all of our ability to make good choices before we ever started playing. We are playing our rounds in the midst of a serious case of decision fatigue.

That leaves us with the obvious question of how to keep this from happening. It turns out that there is quite a bit you can do to avoid decision fatigue on the course. Here are 10 tips that will help make sure you hit the course with your brain’s decision bank as full as possible. Hopefully full enough to make it through that day’s play without choosing poorly.

10 Tips For Making Better Decisions

1. Pack your disc golf bag the night before. Don’t spend the morning trying to figure out which discs you want to bring with you. If you carry 15-20 discs, that means that you have already spent 15-20 decisions just putting discs in your bag. (Here’s a checklist that might help with the other things you might want to have in the bag)
2. Pack your car the night before. Get all your extra clothes, hats, sunscreen, bug spray, etc. loaded up before bed. Instead of running around in the morning trying to remember if you have everything, all you have to do is get in the car and go. (It’s also helpful to use checklists like this for your disc golf trips)

3. 

   Pick out your clothes the night before. Yep, just like your Mom did for you in 3rd grade. Lay them out so all you have to do is put them on in the morning.

4. Decide what you are going to have for breakfast the night before. Don’t spend the morning fumbling around the kitchen looking for the cereal you like and then change your mind and decide you want to eat out that morning. Wake up with the plan already made.
5. If you are driving a distance to get to the course, map it out ahead of time. If you have GPS, make sure to use it. Let your smart phone or navigation device do the thinking for you.
6. Check out the course before hand. Even if you do it on line. Try to decide on at least your tee shots for each hole. Remember to allow for different winds. It’s powerful when you can step up on each tee and automatically reach for the disc you decided on days ago. If at all possible, don’t play tournament rounds blind.
7. Carry fewer discs in the first place. The less discs you have, the less of a chance that you are stuck between one of several. Get rid of all overlap in your bag. The shot you face should decide on the disc for you. What you throw in any situation should always be clear.
8. Stick to the same warm up drills before your round(s). Always do the same stretches. Always do the same amount of putting with the same number of putters for the same amount of time. Do the same light field work and throw the same warm up shots each time.
9. Try not to play any holes before your round. If you’ve properly scouted the course, then field work should be plenty before you start. Every hole you play before the round requires multiple decisions. If you do play a few holes, make sure they are worth their cost in decisions. Play the ones that you really need to practice.
10. Practice. The more you practice, the more you take game time decisions out of the mix. The more you have practiced the more sure you are of what to do in any situation. If you can make your in game decisions more like automated responses, you’ll save your decision making power for the more important situations.

After compiling this list, it was surprising to me just how many decisions we can take off of our plate. Making good choices is a critical skill in playing great disc golf. It’s also critical in just about every other area of life you could think of. It makes good old common sense to do everything you can to make good choices in both disc golf and life. It works for those high level executives, it will work for you too!

Here’s an easy decision. Subscribe to this blog by entering your email below. Then you won’t have to decide to come back every day and check for new posts. I’ll just email them to you once a week along with a super sweet weekly newsletter.

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The post 10 Steps to Making Better Decisions in Disc Golf appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.

At my home course, we have leagues on Wednesdays. I’m very happy to have Wednesdays off. This allows me to get there before they start and get some practice in. Being that it’s a very busy course, it also allows me to see group after group show up to get in a round after work.

I noticed something the other day as I watched these people get out of their car and head towards the first tee. I almost never see someone warm up. At best, they’ll hit the practice basket for 5-10 putts. Then it’s on to the first tee. I not only see this when people play casual rounds, but I also see this at tournaments. Not everyone, of course, but enough people don’t warm up that I notice it.

If you go to any professional sporting event. This is definitely not what happens. In baseball, they have batting practice, stretching, calisthenics, fielding practice, and then they’ll play catch for a while. Only when they are fully warmed up do they play the actual game. All major sports do something similar. In fact, most organized sports at any level will include a decent amount of warm up before the game starts.

So why not disc golf? Why does person after person just pull up to the course, get out of their car, step up on the first tee and throw? At best they might do a couple of windmills with their arms. But aside from no physical warm up, their first drive is their first throw of the day. Their first putt is the first one in the round, and it counts towards their score.

It seems to me that if we only get to play a set number of holes, and all of them count, it makes sense to warm up at least a little bit before playing. It doesn’t even need to be a lot. Just give yourself 10 minutes. Show up 10 minutes before your buddies and get some practice throws in. That short amount of time is more than enough to get a good amount of pre round practice in.

At worst, play catch for 5-10 minutes with a friend.

One step better than that is to play catch and then play a quick game of PIG or DISC at the practice basket.

One step better than that is to grab a few putters and put them all in from 15, 20, 25, 30, 50, 100, and 150 feet.

In the end, the point is to do something. It’s sure to save you at least one throw once the real round starts. It’s sure to prevent at least a little bit of frustration. It might even prevent an injury if you include some stretching and mobility work. On top of all of that, it’s fun! You’re still throwing a disc. Isn’t that what you came to the course to do?

The next time you head out to play, give yourself that 10 minutes. You will probably find that you play better. It will get your mind ready for the round. It will get your body ready to throw. Best of all, it will get your score card ready for lower scores!

You know what takes even less than 10 minutes? Subscribing to this blog. Just enter your email below. We’ll make sure you never miss a post. And you never know when you might see a tip that changes your game for the better forever!

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The post Just the Tip – Give Yourself 10 appeared first on Mind Body Disc - Disc Golf Blog.