- Joined
- Apr 10, 2010
- Messages
- 959
Great question. I think it depends a lot on personal preference. Some people like the feel or look of a particular plastic from a specific manufacturer. For others, it's a question of weight. Some pros throw very few molds but have many discs of each in their bag, whereas I have many different molds with just one disc of each. I think you have to try to touch and throw a lot of different plastic before you can get yourself settled in on a full bag. That being said, work on your form with a smaller set of discs; then you will know HOW to PROPERLY throw the new ones you pick up, and thus get a better idea of their characteristics from the first few throws.
I started with a DX Shark, DX Wolf (rarely threw that after the first month or so), Champ Valkyrie, and God knows what as my putter - maybe it was the really soft Omega my brother now has? Regardless, I kept buying discs and trying them out. After throwing mostly Innova early on, I started throwing some Discraft stuff, and then I tried out Gateway putters and Latitude stuff. When I would earn a little loot at a tourney, I would pick up something new. Now I have a mixed bag of tricks, especially for tourneys. But this past weekend, I threw two casual rounds with completely different bags - one all Discraft and the other all Latitude. It's all for practice, really.
Depending on the player, you're looking at 4 general kinds of discs: putters (obviously), mids, fairways (speeds 7-9 or so), and drivers (speed 10 and up). I currently carry 2-3 putters (primary putting putter and two putters as approach discs), 5-7 mids (from the understable to the meathook), 3-4 fairways (again, covering the under to overstable spectrum), and only 2-3 drivers. My bag is set up to have plenty of flexibility, but it also guarantees (me, in my mind) that I have a disc with a stability and distance for almost any shot I need.
So as far as what you are missing in the bag, I would say that you are only missing what you need to fill any execution gaps. If I carried Saint, Teebird, Leopard in the fairway slots, but left out my Firebird, that's a huge gap because none of the first three really play overstable over distance. Once you learn what your body should be doing, making discs do a variety of things isn't difficult.
