High speed drivers?

[TOB3RT]

I have been playing a little over a year, and by no means do I consider myself great. Browsing the site, I see a lot of people having bad things to say about the high speed drivers, especially for beginners. My question is why the bad publicity?

I throw my Daedalus on many occasions and I usually have great results. The same goes for my boss, for the most part, and I don't see why there's so much hate for them! :\

I recently threw 2 over par at Winthrop Lakefront in Rock Hill, which is by no means excellent but definitely a PR for me and I used my Daedalus on a majority of the holes. Can anyone give me some pointers and help me understand this?

Oh, and what's up everyone! The name's Toby

 

[scarpfish]

Some new players are very adept at this game and can quickly move up from beginner's discs to the advanced stuff. For every new player that I've seen like that, I've seen many, many more who crippled their form by using drivers that they weren't ready to throw.

Just looking at the course you're describing, I don't see a single hole distance on that list, where you couldn't shoot just as good if not better, using slower plastic. Many pros would be going off the tee with mids at most on many of those holes.

 

[TOB3RT]

Some new players are very adept at this game and can quickly move up from beginner's discs to the advanced stuff. For every new player that I've seen like that, I've seen many, many more who crippled their form by using drivers that they weren't ready to throw.

Just looking at the course you're describing, I don't see a single hole distance on that list, where you couldn't shoot just as good if not better, using slower plastic. Many pros would be going off the tee with mids at most on many of those holes.

With my midranges, I cant seem to get hardly any power with them. Is that due to having "crippled form?" For example, I tried throwing a mid on hole 4 (241 ft) and I got about half of that and ending up getting par. I went back just to see how I would do with my Daedalus and it landed right beside the basket and all I had to do was touch it in.

I appreciate you being helpful! If it is a result of having crippled form, should I just go back to the basics and just start playing with just slower plastic until I can get my game up?

 

[scarpfish]

With my midranges, I cant seem to get hardly any power with them. Is that due to having "crippled form?" For example, I tried throwing a mid on hole 4 (241 ft) and I got about half of that and ending up getting par. I went back just to see how I would do with my Daedalus and it landed right beside the basket and all I had to do was touch it in.

I appreciate you being helpful! If it is a result of having crippled form, should I just go back to the basics and just start playing with just slower plastic until I can get my game up?

If you're only getting a mid 125' feet, you have things to work on.

 

[bobmcnelly]

Welcome to the site Toby! How far are you typically throwing your Daedalus? Have you ever tried driving with a putter? It has done wonders for my game overall.

 

[Toro71]

I see a lot of people having bad things to say about the high speed drivers, especially for beginners. My question is why the bad publicity?

Personally, I'm a pretty big proponent of the "whatever works" school of thought.

What these comments re. warp speed drivers and beginners is about is, often a beginner will mistakenly start with something like a boss as their only disc, and will adapt their form to make it work for a variety of shots.

This means, forcing it to go "straight" by throwing it on a big anhyzer angle, for example. It's not really what that disc was designed for.

If a newer player goes too far down this road, once they get introduced to different discs, like a stable midrange for example, their form isn't going to allow them to make this disc work its best for them.

So, the great advice (that's all too easy to ignore) is to start with slower, more neutral discs, because they "teach" you to use more "standard" techniques to get the discs to do what you want rather than vice versa, and hopefully give the player a steeper learning curve in the long run.

 

[TOB3RT]

Welcome to the site Toby! How far are you typically throwing your Daedalus? Have you ever tried driving with a putter? It has done wonders for my game overall.

If given enough room, I can probably hit about 330' with the Daedalus. I have not, but I will try to drive with a putter when I go play today.
:thmbup:

Personally, I'm a pretty big proponent of the "whatever works" school of thought.

What these comments re. warp speed drivers and beginners is about is, often a beginner will mistakenly start with something like a boss as their only disc, and will adapt their form to make it work for a variety of shots.

This means, forcing it to go "straight" by throwing it on a big anhyzer angle, for example. It's not really what that disc was designed for.

If a newer player goes too far down this road, once they get introduced to different discs, like a stable midrange for example, their form isn't going to allow them to make this disc work its best for them.

So, the great advice (that's all too easy to ignore) is to start with slower, more neutral discs, because they "teach" you to use more "standard" techniques to get the discs to do what you want rather than vice versa, and hopefully give the player a steeper learning curve in the long run.

This actually sounds a lot like me. So I should start using something slower then? Will take all DD and even high speed FD out of my bag for the time being. Thanks!

 

[mbressler13]

All these guys have great advice so far. I have been playing for just over two years and it took me a while to realize that I just couldn't get the amount of spin to get max distance drivers to go very far. I have actually gone to throwing more fairways and mids to work on my form. I did jump in head first when I started playing by buying speed 13 drivers and had minimal luck with them.

 

[slowplastic]

If you are playing occasionally for fun and want to chuck the high speed 330' then that's all well and fine. Also, good job on throwing it that far already!

The issue as has been raised though, is that to get it to go straight even at that distance, you have to throw it anhyzer (to the right), let it fade a bit so it goes straighter, then fade more at the end so it ends up a bit left of where you threw it. This works, and is likely going to be somewhat consistent...but then what if you need to throw a shorter shot? A slower disc may not fight out of this type of throw as consistently.

If you learn to release flat with slower discs, they will go dead straight with a bit of fade (for a typical stable/overstable midrange). From here, you can learn other discs that will have different flight paths, and also adjust your release angle by as little as 10% hyzer or anhyzer to get different flights. This is a very consistent way to play and throw.

For example, it is possible to throw a midrange dead straight 330' with a nearly flat release, and that is a consistent shot for great players. For most good players, they can throw a fairway driver nearly straight at that range and it is very consistent. Compare that to trying to throw an anhyzer of a high speed driver as hard as possible, and accounting for all of the sweeping motion that it will do. Plus learning to throw only in this manner will likely give bad habits when trying slower discs later, and they will always flutter or flip into the ground short after release.

 

[Toro71]

If given enough room, I can probably hit about 330' with the Daedalus. I have not, but I will try to drive with a putter when I go play today.
:thmbup:
This actually sounds a lot like me. So I should start using something slower then? Will take all DD and even high speed FD out of my bag for the time being. Thanks!

Personally, I wouldn't say you need to go that far necessarily. Depends on your goals etc. But don't do anything if it means no fun.

Most guys would say don't spend too much time on the speed 10 or 11 + just yet. But something like a River or Leopard or Inspire etc is a good driver to start with.

Basically, better outcomes await if you learn to throw a Comet/Fuse/Tangent type mid (or pretty much any putter) over 200' rather than starting with a speed 12 driver and forcing it past 200'.

 

[scarpfish]

Basically, better outcomes await if you learn to throw a Comet/Fuse/Tangent (or pretty much any putter) over 200' rather than starting with a speed 12 driver and forcing it past 200'.

One of which is the ability to launch that speed 12 driver to OMG distances some day.

 

[Toro71]

One of which is the ability to launch that speed 12 driver to OMG distances some day.

Exactly...or at least I'm still hoping, lol....

But this nails it, OP. Once you get the finer details of your form down by maxing the potential of mids/putters on drives, you'll start to see how you can really get the most out of higher speed stuff with less "effort" than you'd expect.

 

[Questatement]

Oh, and what's up everyone! The name's Toby

Heya Toby and welcome to the game, forum, etc.

If you want to stay on the edge of what discs you can "wield" without slowing down your learning process via gaining better/faster form with slower discs, try using this guide and if you can't throw a given disc at the minimum distance in its given range, save it for later.

http://www.gottagogottathrow.com/discgolf/pdf/JoesFlightChart1.pdf

Good luck too!

 

[Questatement]

Almost forgot a couple of caveats.

A headwind will increase your initial disc speed by the speed of the wind in addition to your body (arm as it were) release speed, even though the wind will slow the disc faster than if you threw it at arm+wind speed without the wind. Therefore, you can ususally throw an additional speed higher per every 5-7 mph of headwind and still get the disc up to speed and get the same distance as the slower disc without wind. The wind will also cause it to spin faster, hence turn, therefore you might also want to step up 1 high speed stability HSS rating per every other speed you increase due to wind or, every 10-14 mph of headwind. There will be a limit to HSS of course but you get the idea. Don't fall for the 'just grab a more HSS disc of the same speed." It will not go as far as the less HSS of the same speed without wind.

Lastly, there is nothing wrong with using faster discs for non-traditional uses (vs. horizontal glide) when and where it gets you the placement that you need but you don't want to carry a half bag full of such discs when you'll only pull one or two out per round. For instance, I use a Banshee as a skip chain grabber for low canopies b/t 20'-80' out and have quite a bit of success with it even though I can throw it 300'+ feet via horizontal glide.

There's more but that's probably enough for now.

 

[Timeetyo]

Almost forgot a couple of caveats.

A headwind will increase your initial disc speed by the speed of the wind in addition to your body (arm as it were) release speed, even though the wind will slow the disc faster than if you threw it at arm+wind speed without the wind. Therefore, you can ususally throw an additional speed higher per every 5-7 mph of headwind and still get the disc up to speed and get the same distance as the slower disc without wind. The wind will also cause it to spin faster, hence turn, therefore you might also want to step up 1 high speed stability HSS rating per every other speed you increase due to wind or, every 10-14 mph of headwind. There will be a limit to HSS of course but you get the idea. Don't fall for the 'just grab a more HSS disc of the same speed." It will not go as far as the less HSS of the same speed without wind.

Lastly, there is nothing wrong with using faster discs for non-traditional uses (vs. horizontal glide) when and where it gets you the placement that you need but you don't want to carry a half bag full of such discs when you'll only pull one or two out per round. For instance, I use a Banshee as a skip chain grabber for low canopies b/t 20'-80' out and have quite a bit of success with it even though I can throw it 300'+ feet via horizontal glide.

There's more but that's probably enough for now.

Correction for the red there. The wind doesn't cause additional spin - how would it? What it does is increase the effective airspeed (as you said, release speed + wind speed) without increasing spin. The spin actually helps stability, not causing it to turn.

 

[zendragon]

I would put one correction on your correction, if the other post about the physics of how a disc flies is correct. When it is spinning at its fastest, it is naturally understable, due to the higher amount of wind pulling on the side spinning away from the wind. More wind increases more understability for this reason.

For the OP's questions though, I will second, third, fourth, whatever, everyone's comments about your form. Learn to throw a putter and a mid first. I have been playing for I think 4 or 5 years now, and I am just learning how to throw properly after starting with drivers too soon. I could get them up to around 350', but with some serious anhyzer flex involved. I watched videos and tried to re-learn everything from the ground up and just recently have I been able to get my mids close to 300'. I took all drivers out of my bag other than fairways as well, just to make sure I worked on my form. Because my old style was such a habit though, I find myself naturally twisting my body to throw that anhyzer throw I was so used to and throwing my disc into the ground, or way off to the right. It's taking me way more work to un-learn the bad habits from so many years than if I had just started out learning it right in the first place.

 

[Nihilist]

Correction for the red there. The wind doesn't cause additional spin - how would it? What it does is increase the effective airspeed (as you said, release speed + wind speed) without increasing spin. The spin actually helps stability, not causing it to turn.

This is correct. Head wind causes the air to move faster over the nose of the disc, in turn making the disc act more understable. Spin stabilizes the flight, which is the reason why players with great form can throw super flippy discs on a pure hyzer without them flipping all the way over.

I wouldn't throw anything faster than a teebird/leopard of the tee and become proficient at driving with your mids and putters.

Learning these slow flying discs will also help you dial in your approach game.

 

[Animage]

I'd rather throw all my drives 80%-100% power than use a 50% power throw with a driver. Really messes mentally with my snap releases and timing as well.

250 ft hole at my distance means 80% powered Roc throw. I can throw fast and smooth and park it. I could 50% an eagle and park it too, but I have as much of a chance throwing goofy than and watching it hard hyzer at 200 ft or something.

 

[Timeetyo]

I'd rather throw all my drives 80%-100% power than use a 50% power throw with a driver. Really messes mentally with my snap releases and timing as well.

250 ft hole at my distance means 80% powered Roc throw. I can throw fast and smooth and park it. I could 50% an eagle and park it too, but I have as much of a chance throwing goofy than and watching it hard hyzer at 200 ft or something.

Agreed with this. When I am on the borderline of powered down teebird or full roc3 throw I pretty much always choose the full roc3 throw. Too many miscues when trying to make that powered down shot.

 

[TOB3RT]

Wow. So much great advice here.
opcorn:
I took everything out of my bag besides mids and putters. Thank you everybody for being so helpful!