Breaking Down a Round of Disc Golf Pt 1
If you haven’t read them yet, I cannot recommend enough that you read through PDGA #4949 Chuck Kennedy’s “Fair Ways for Statistics” articles on the PDGA website:
There are more than several factors that go into a round of disc golf: Mentality (pre-round), the way the course plays, the way the course was designed, the psychological effects of the course, the pin location, green accessibility, the surfaces of the course (ground), etc… And that hardly scratches the surface. That being said, these are the subtopics that this quasi-essay will break down.
Mentality
Any disc golfer of any skill level will tell you that the more confident you are in your play, the better you will shoot. A common ideal amongst disc golfers is that you have to ‘will’ the disc to the basket, and anytime you tell yourself, “don’t hit that tree”, you hit the damned tree. When you go into a round believing that disc golf is easy, and most importantly, FEELING like the sport is easy, you are more likely to succeed.
That being said, even the slightest discomfort, or negative thought, can entirely throw off one’s ‘qi’ with the course. Example: I step up to the first tee and think, “yikes, it’s really windy”. At this point my round is just about over because I am intimidated by the wind and am stressing about how it may affect my throw, my game plan for the hole, or the reaction my disc will have once hitting the ground.
Mentality is one of the few aforementioned aspects that is directly correlated to every aspect of disc golf, because while the holes may be different, your thoughts stay with you the entirety of the round, affecting you hole, after hole, after hole. On your most impressive rounds, you’ll notice that you are so focussed on the positives of your round, that a bogey/par seems like a mere setback, and you subsequently have no issue shaking it off and getting right back on your birdie train.
A fairly large portion of a disc golfer’s success can be attributed to self image on the course, for example, if I step up to a 300ft wooded hole that tails right, I’m inclined to think, “Oh yay, a sidearm hole,” whereas stepping up to a dead straight, tightly wooded, Hole 4 at BRP looking hole, I may think, “Lord have mercy…” The ability to rationally throw a shot that you are confident in is more likely to yield a result you are happy with. Just like a round that you are feeling confident going into, is more likely to yield a lower than a round where you immediately question your success.
The Flow of the Course and Why it was Designed That Way
Let’s face it, some courses don’t turn out the way that the designers intend; neighbors aren’t tolerant, city parks and recreation services aren’t ok with the way holes and walking paths interact, etc. But, some courses are designed on huge plots of land in rural enough areas for the development of championship level courses (e.g. Toboggan, Maple Hill, Blue Ribbon Pines, etc…). These courses and their layouts are often times proofread by more than one established course designer to ensure the course is challenging, diverse, and beautiful.
What makes a course challenging is not simply how many trees, hazards, and hills there are. Some courses are more psychologically challenging than others and this is often times implemented by using the same obstacles on back to back holes. Suppose you are playing a hole where the pin is located on a steep green and your disc rolls away 40ft on your par putt and you card a double bogey. The next hole, you have a birdie putt from circle’s edge to a basket on another steep green. Due to the result from the previous hole, the average disc golfer is more likely to be more intimidated this time around and lay the putt up. This is an example of ‘fear of similar results’, a concept that plagues humanity since the first yielded result is not directly correlated to the result of the second hole. This concept applies to any common theme in successive holes.
Opposite of the last paragraph is the utilization of very different hazards and obstacles on successive holes. A hole containing a water hazard behind the green following a hole with one in front, can subconsciously force the player to come up very short on the latter hole out of fear of going in the water. Should the player land in the water on the first hole, there is a better chance of the player overcompensating for their previous mistake, and winding up in the water again.
The Green and the Cruciality of Shot Selection
A green that is accessible by a singular route can be one of the most challenging in disc golf. It’s no question. Combine this with a fast green and you have one of the most challenging holes in disc golf. Not many of even the top touring pros can gently settle a disc on a hard packed dirt green; doing so requires the disc to land flat, a feat nearly impossible unless the shot being thrown is perfectly straight (the hardest shot in disc golf).
However, throwing a shot that travels unnaturally can assist a disc golfer in getting the disc to settle (e.g. Anhyzer sidearm in place of a hyzer backhand). When thrown correctly, the disc will land flat, moving the correct direction, and sputter out to a halt. For any course with fast greens, this may be necessary to shave a handful of strokes off of your score.