True Reason Why Disc Golf Isn't Becoming Main Stream

[natureguy]

DG has become obsessed with testosterone. Throwing the disc harder and further than the other guy. I have been involved with building a local public course for 3 or 4 years. I keep preaching about making the course more family-friendly. About making short tees for younger children, and those with disabilities and injuries. About working with local schools, The Y, and others to promote the sport. It should also be about just fun, not about proving who is more macho. Courses can be for the good amateur and those who want to be pros. But shorter plain old grass or dirt tees for beginners should be standard on all courses. Those who can't throw 100 feet could still play the game along with the older/younger who can. Kids can play with their fathers. The game needs to be accessible to them as well. We don't need more water hazards, thick woods with thorns, or too-high grass that discourages those who forever lose their expensive discs. We need individuals who do more than just play, if the course is free, we need people willing to volunteer to help maintain the courses, free courses are expensive to maintain. And working on them for 45 minutes once a year is not enough. Like old church beliefs about 10 percent of your income for the church, how about for every 10 or 20 hours you play, you volunteer 1 hour to maintain the course, take the time to help kids and others learn how to play. To help out the sport in some way besides setting up tournaments with cash payouts for proving who is the stronger thrower. Courses need to be accessible to all, and not just about distance, but about control, regardless of your physical abilities.

 

[sillybizz]

DG has become obsessed with testosterone. Throwing the disc harder and further than the other guy. I have been involved with building a local public course for 3 or 4 years. I keep preaching about making the course more family-friendly. About making short tees for younger children, and those with disabilities and injuries. About working with local schools, The Y, and others to promote the sport. It should also be about just fun, not about proving who is more macho. Courses can be for the good amateur and those who want to be pros. But shorter plain old grass or dirt tees for beginners should be standard on all courses. Those who can't throw 100 feet could still play the game along with the older/younger who can. Kids can play with their fathers. The game needs to be accessible to them as well. We don't need more water hazards, thick woods with thorns, or too-high grass that discourages those who forever lose their expensive discs. We need individuals who do more than just play, if the course is free, we need people willing to volunteer to help maintain the courses, free courses are expensive to maintain. And working on them for 45 minutes once a year is not enough. Like old church beliefs about 10 percent of your income for the church, how about for every 10 or 20 hours you play, you volunteer 1 hour to maintain the course, take the time to help kids and others learn how to play. To help out the sport in some way besides setting up tournaments with cash payouts for proving who is the stronger thrower. Courses need to be accessible to all, and not just about distance, but about control, regardless of your physical abilities.

How has disc golf become "obsessed with testosterone"? Interesting how you think testosterone and "proving who is more macho" has any correlation with being able to throw further. What a weird statement to make. I guess the best female players in the world are more "macho" and have more testosterone than the vast majority of the male amateur disc golfers alive, right? Throwing further takes practice, patience, and talent not testosterone or being "macho".

As far as EVERY course having tee pads for people who throw 100 feet, no just no. That's what short, crappy, "family friendly" courses are for and there are literally 1000's of them across the US. It is much easier to find a course that has a bunch of short holes on it than say a par 72, 10,000 foot course. If you throw 100 feet there are some courses you probably shouldn't play until you gain more testosterone errr I mean throw further and get better. ORRR you can play those courses knowing you need to practice and get better at the sport and perhaps getting your butt kicked score wise will motivate you. Most courses do cater to amateurs and newbies. No need for say IDGC's WR Jackson course to try to cater to 6 year old kids, it's not built for them.

Go play one of the chucker courses down the street or get better at the game.

Asking disc golfers to volunteer their time for nothing has never worked in my experience. We used to do club work parties where we would buy breakfast for everyone and 3 people would show up out of the 10-15 that said they would show. That's offering them free food and they still won't show up to a 2 hour work party.

 

[Sewer bill]

How has disc golf become "obsessed with testosterone"? Interesting how you think testosterone and "proving who is more macho" has any correlation with being able to throw further. What a weird statement to make. I guess the best female players in the world are more "macho" and have more testosterone than the vast majority of the male amateur disc golfers alive, right? Throwing further takes practice, patience, and talent not testosterone or being "macho".

As far as EVERY course having tee pads for people who throw 100 feet, no just no. That's what short, crappy, "family friendly" courses are for and there are literally 1000's of them across the US. It is much easier to find a course that has a bunch of short holes on it than say a par 72, 10,000 foot course. If you throw 100 feet there are some courses you probably shouldn't play until you gain more testosterone errr I mean throw further and get better. ORRR you can play those courses knowing you need to practice and get better at the sport and perhaps getting your butt kicked score wise will motivate you. Most courses do cater to amateurs and newbies. No need for say IDGC's WR Jackson course to try to cater to 6 year old kids, it's not built for them.

Go play one of the chucker courses down the street or get better at the game.

Asking disc golfers to volunteer their time for nothing has never worked in my experience. We used to do club work parties where we would buy breakfast for everyone and 3 people would show up out of the 10-15 that said they would show. That's offering them free food and they still won't show up to a 2 hour work party.

Course maintenance in public courses will perpetually be a thorn in the side of disc golf. The rewards are limited, sometimes time sensitive and all it takes is one municipal dipshit to unwind the progress of hundreds or thousands of volunteer hours that were previously approved by a different municipal dipshit.

Convincing people to help will always be about as realistic as any other proposed volunteer opportunity, very limited in reception beyond words.

Your post feels kind of gatekeepy but you're also not wrong.

 

[sillybizz]

I'm more of a shrink the sport kind of a guy.

 

[Sewer bill]

I'm more of a shrink the sport kind of a guy.

I'm 100% with you.

 

[Dcinmd]

How has disc golf become "obsessed with testosterone"?

I guess you are not familiar with disc golf strong.

 

[BillyP]

I think DG is becoming mainstream. If you watched the championship, 4 white guys all dressed in the same clothes with the same personalities throwing the same shots. Boring. All of 'em in sponsor apparel that looks just like the other player's apparel. Boring. Commercials, boring. $150 gear bags, $100 electronic range finders, $20 minis, etc. It's as boring now as watching ball golf. Good job PDGA. Soon LLCs will have corporate retreats with MBAs playing 3 holes for fun. DG is mainstream and becoming more so daily.

 

[Naenae]

I'm more of a shrink the sport kind of a guy.

I'd say stabilize it where it's at. There is just enough momentum for new courses to arise, replacing the ones that are rapidly becoming decrepit. As for professionalizing the sport and getting the hippies and weirdos out (not your comment), I'd say that the hippies and weirdos are some of the nicest folk I'm meeting on the course. Every time I see the Macbeth ad for his lightyears beyond ugly orange sunglasses with the smug look on his face, I think "this has gotten too full of itself". Still, let the pros continue, but don't fool them or the public into thinking they are going to replace the PGA, or make PGA money.

 

[Sewer bill]

I think DG is becoming mainstream. If you watched the championship, 4 white guys all dressed in the same clothes with the same personalities throwing the same shots. Boring. All of 'em in sponsor apparel that looks just like the other player's apparel. Boring. Commercials, boring. $150 gear bags, $100 electronic range finders, $20 minis, etc. It's as boring now as watching ball golf. Good job PDGA. Soon LLCs will have corporate retreats with MBAs playing 3 holes for fun. DG is mainstream and becoming more so daily.

Exactly I want diversity and I want to see the televised component of disc golf accurately reflect the true sport.

I want to see gang members on stolen dirt bikes running from cops cutting through fairways while a stoned out of his gourd sunburned shitty tattoo covered white guy with an ankle monitor battles it out with 5 discs that aren't his against a fat hispanic guy who's 20 beers deep throwing yellow sun faded ce plastic while their wives caddy and talk shit the whole time to them and pack bowls on every hole.

Then I want the round to end where they finish like 16 over par and hug it out for two personal best scores and celebrate like they just won the world championship and then they stare straight into the camera recap that awesome 250 foot shot through the woods and fade to a disc golf strong commercial brought to you by bushnell range finders and the end commercial is mark Ellis selling pine tar he scraped off one of the trees into a rusty dip can.

 

[jupiterboy]

We've got the X-games model for alt sports. Those olympic skaters don't all look like repressed, corporate logo models, although everyone seems to be a logo model these days. This idea that we've got to get rid of the smokers and the whatevers and then those other ones—it's fascist. That's counter to the idea in general. Bad impulse. Once you start cleaning up you'll find there's nobody left.

 

[Sewer bill]

We've got the X-games model for alt sports. Those olympic skaters don't all look like repressed, corporate logo models, although everyone seems to be a logo model these days. This idea that we've got to get rid of the smokers and the whatevers and then those other ones—it's fascist. That's counter to the idea in general. Bad impulse. Once you start cleaning up you'll find there's nobody left.

I so so so hope disc golf does not make the mistakes the skateboarding industry did with corporate money. Being that there's a centralized organization sort of representing disc golf vs skateboarding where there was loose allegiances of brand owners each looking to get rich any way possible I hope they can see the writing on the wall before they sign the poison checks.

I was dedicated to skateboarding growing up and got to compete in several competitions and to see the corporate money twist skateboarding into what it is today is a full on tragedy.

Vision skateboards running the murderer gator graphics as a re release, braille and the berrics being the scientology brand reps of the industry, the cover up of what some teams used to do on tours and now those aged pros are selling morality ethics and sobriety through corporate brands, it's disgusting.

 

[jupiterboy]

Mixed bags forever!