Sunday, June 29, 2008

Gateway guys have great showing in PIttsburg

Well our guys didn't get the win but we took 2nd ( Nikko), 3rd ( Chris Boro -who shot the course record in the 3rd round), 4th ( Justin Bunnell) and 6th (George Smith) in the open division and more than $2,000.00 of the prize money.
JB said Barry was on his game with 2 - 1050 rated rounds the first day and after that he never looked back.
He said there was a bit of bad weather, but all in all the event was well run and played on some pretty good courses.
Maybe we can expect some east coast players here in St Louis one day???

here is a link to some footage of our guys from this years St Louis Open.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkxs5DtQzGw

Friday, June 27, 2008

Pittsburg A tier

We have a good group of touring Pro's up in Pittsburgh this weekend for their A Tier.
Justin Bunnell, George Smith, Chris "Dreddy or Knot" Boro, John "ROBO" Ruvalacaba and Nikko Locastro. I would say That's some pretty good representation some 9 plus hours from the LOU!

I think all of these guys have played the courses before and they got there early enough this week to get some holes wired.
Look for a good showing out of the boys, hopefully we can come away with a win this weekend and at the very least they will have enough cash for gas money on the way home :)


On a different note;
Early stages are under way to orginize disc golf in the state of Missouri, through PDGA state Coordinator Rick Rothstein.
With 2 of the top clubs in the nation in ST Louis and KC and the long standing club in Columbia, I expect Missouri to develop a state wide tour and push forward in getting more quality courses installed as wel as work on getting existing courses up to speed with tee signs and scorecards.

if anyone here in Missouri is interested helping organize disc golf in the State, feel free to contact me by email david@gdstour.com

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

my disc golf philosophy 101

I want to first say there should only be 1 division in this sport that plays for money as there are hardly enough true pros anymore to support more than one pro division, yet alone 2 or 3 pro divisions. The pdga has tried to make a profession out of disc golf before it has been made professional.

About 1/2 the courses have issues and most do not even have scorecards, not too mention how poorly designed and unsafe some are.


On top of that my Ball Golfer friends impression of the game is “ disc golfers are so stoned they cant figure out what the pars are so they call everything par 3. or maybe they are too stoned to add or maybe just too stupid so they play everything par 3 to make it easier to add up their score” Catering to this ignorance has been one of the single biggest detriments to the game and sport of disc golf.

Taking amateur money and using it to try and make a profession out of a game has put us behind a bit in developing a good solid amateur foundation.

Today if you do well in adnvaced yo get ridiculed and called a sandbagger, even if you have a mortgage, full time job a wife and 3 kids. Whats wrong with a guy being one of the best Amatuers in the sport?

does a guy with a real life have to turn pro and play for money??



I’ll touch base on you comments and concerns about making courses too long. This is not the problem and most recreational golfers really just want to know what the par on the holes are and the par for the course, so they can play it like golf. After all it is GOLF!!!! The non conforming disc golfers who do not want disc golf to ne like ball gold should make up their own game and call it "frisbee toss in small park".

Ed Hedrick’s version of disc golf was a game mostly for recreation not sport and certainly not for a profession. If he didn’t want it to turn out like golf he should have called it Frisbee toss at target or something like that,,,,, not disc golf.

We had a disc golf course called Creve Coeur that was about 7000 feet about 388 foot average per hole and they were all par 3’s. Most pros would shoot 10-14 under there but ams couldn’t make any 2’s at all, it rarely got played by anyone before the redesign.

I stretched it into a 10,000 foot par 69 with all par 3’s under 330 most par 4’s between 525 and 650 and the par 5’s are over 750. Now the course gets about 200-300 players on a good day, most of them are new players, young kids that play other sports, you know,,,,, athletes!!

Now the top players in the area will go there and can easily shoot -10 to -14 but it’s a whole different mindset.

These distances are examples and a base line for all new courses I design. We have wooded holes of 365-450 that cannot be reached in 1, these holes are par 4’s.

If a hole can only be 3’ed less than 10% of the time it’s a par 4 and if I make a hole a par 4 ALL pins will be par 4 having a 300 foot placement and a 600 foot pin placement on the same hole just messes up the tee signs, scorecards and the course. This makes it hard to let people know what the par is and even harder form them to figure it out.

We still have some holes here that are both par 3 and 4 and while we cant change them all, we can make sure new courses are designed correctly and proper pars are established from the beginning.

New guys and gilrs could care less how long the hole is as long as they know it’s a par 4 or 5 they just play and keep score. Our courses have scorecards that tell what the par is and the players use them.We are going through over 2500 scorecards per course in less than a month at times.

Here are the pars at our 18 hole courses, Creve Coeur 69, Endicott 56, JB 57, Sioux passage 59- 65, Festus 70, Centralia 70-72, Ozark 72, Akita's run 54, Quail ridge 54, Collinsville 57, Hazelwood 54 ( probably more like 48). Moscow mills 54, Most everyone here gets PAR and no one has a problem with playing the course to the par.

I ask questions and take polls all the time from the players at the courses, believe it or not, I very RARELY hear the courses are too long. ( and believe me, to a guy who would call every hole a par 3 the holes are quite LONGGGGG). We make pars for our holes and our courses that make sense to regular people, the idea that all holes are par 3’s has confused a lot of normal people who know what golf is and how it is played. When a guys steps up to a 500 foot hole and some old school guy tells him its a par 3, this confuses and discourages them. Add another 400 feet and when a guy is told that a 900 foot hole is a par 3, they just think whoever made the course or invented the game is on drugs or at the very least, just plain STUPID.

What fucks up a disc golf course is a bunch of par 3-1/2’s that no one can get a 2 on and everyone gets a 3 and if you get a 4 its really like a bogey and a ½.

This hole is probably a par 4 for new players and should be called one, as long as 450 holes are made and called par 3 disc golf will have a harder time evolving into a pro sport!

This game is GOLF and while some cities put in par 3 style ball golf courses, no one I know who plays ball golf seriously will go there more than a few times a year.

I just taught a girl how to throw backhand, she had been playing disc golf for 3 years only throwing sidearm and while her sidearm was really good ( 325’) she can now throw backhand close to400. Yes she was a division one college athlete, but she represents who will be playing disc golf in the future, her and the thousands of new players here in ST Louis each year!~

new backyard disc Game

We just started working on a new backyard disc game for a local toy company and group of invetsors. (We spent 5 hours prototyping some of the parts tonight and while its not complete its coming along quickly).
While I cannot discuss a lot of the specific details yet, its a lot more fun to play than I initially thought. Accurate disc throwing skills, good hand eye coordination and quick reflexes help, but anyone can play. Its easy to set up and only takes about 30 minutes to play a game and about 30-40 feet of room.

more details to come!

Monday, June 23, 2008

pretty good weekend for Gateway

Well it was a bummer Nikko didnt know the Golden State classic was a 3 day event ( he found out at the bus station right before he bought a ticket that would have gotten him there late friday afternoon)
On a brighter note; Other Gateway Team members John E McCray and Justin Bunnell both took 2nd place in the A tiers In Birmingham and Michigan respectively , while Gateway team player Tim Kieth took home the 1ST place trophy and win in the 40 and over pro Master division an the Birmingham summer solstice.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Old school Prototype Wizards

On Friday, I spent a few hours working on some Special runs of Wizards.
1st we ran some CHALKY watermelon colored Wizards,
The flex turned out to be Super-soft what made them the 1st SS chalky Wizards we have ever ran, most Chalky have been between soft and Medium. These babies really feel sweet for those that like their putters flexible with that talc like surface.

We also ran some eraser style Wizards that are a medium blue that are also in the soft-SS range.
These will be hot stamped with the old Putter stamp using the 3 dots, G and Gateway logo.

Ok for those that Like Grip, but only a little flex in the flight plate but prefer a stiffer rim I think we've produced the closest thing to the original prototypes since those with the big arch stamp.
This run is a darker blue in color and have that certain feel about them.
While no where near as stiff as a medium, they have that thin in the flight plate feel yet sturdy in the rim with just the right amount of grip on the surface.
The nose seems to round off a little differently than most recent run of Wizard and they have a very slight dome to them.
These should break in to a flex much closer to those old school prototypes with the big arch stamp, but keep that solid rim feel that lots of top players prefer for the approach discs.

Special runs of these discs will be available through online vendors once we get them stamped!!


Any one with any ideas for what stamped should go on them can email me at david@gdstour.com

Friday, June 20, 2008

Video/email lesson

At times I get requests to help a player out with their technique.
Here is the correspondence;

anyone else need help? JUST ask!

Dave:

I was wondering if you could take a look at my footage that I have posted. For some odd reason, I have lost a lot of distance over the past month or so. I was topping out at 345 last night. The first four throws were with element-x's and they were all around the 300 mark. The next couple were assassins and they were at about 330. The last were all Illusions and were all around the 340-345 range. I am used to throwing about the 380-390 range. Any info would help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtuTvbCEOf8

Thanks,
JT


MY reply:

First off I want to say that you are doing a great job with repeating your form in these shots.

I would say this is great form for tunnel shots of 250-300 feet.

It didn't appear your trajectory was ever higher than 20 feet at most, its pretty tough to throw much farther then 300 feet less than 20 feet off the ground, unless its with a spirit and you have KID or David MAC like power.

This is far from what is need for any shots over 300 feet!

Its is very controlled and you seem to have really good timing which equates to accuracy but it is very much lacking though in what I would call, key power areas.

Ok here goes,

I want to realize that you will probably throw pretty inaccurate shots for quiet some time if you try to implement one or all of these into your distance throw. Other than lacking power your techniques is pretty dam good!

You are going to need a little more of everything to throw farther.

I see several things that jump right out as "lacking in power"!!

1) you do not seem to have a really strong grip, meaning your wrist is not cocked very much. You are getting through the shot with your hand pretty well, but could create a lot more spin with your wrist cocked a little more. This might not be that important I would have to see how the discs are finishing.

2) You are not reaching back very far for BIG D, its more of a mid-range form as mentioned above. If you would reach back a little farther you could get more pendulum swing.

3) Your hips do not get turned away from the target much, again usually used for mid–range shots to LIMIT speed and gain control. If you reached your hand farther back away from your body you could get your hips turned more as well.

4) Your follow through momentum is way down. This is do to the fact that you are not moving so fast through the shot. If you increased your speed gradually through the shot you would propel through the shot faster at release and finish farther out in front of the tee. Most players who play a lot of golf on concrete tees have this problem. Your weight shift is stopping right after release and not allowing for a full follow through. For big D you would be almost hoping on your left foot 2 or 3 feet in front of your release

5) Check out my throw at the end of this clip, this is pretty good form for a controlled 450 foot shot! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC31OctXuUc

Most likely these suggestions will increase your power but without a doubt you will lose some control. The real trick to throwing really far is that it is within a split second of being completely out of control. Don't underestimate how difficult it is to throw far AND ACCURATE!!

Regardless of what anyone says it's much more difficult to throw longer with accuracy than shorter!

Dave:

Well...my distance problem is partially fixed. After raising my throwing arm a bit and cocking my writs, my distance all of a sudden started coming back. I switched out the Illusions in favor of the Blurr. So, the Blurr's were getting out to 400 with no problem. The Assassin's were hitting 350. The Sabres were about 330. I am going to continue to work on the items that you listed in addition.

Thanks
JT



ok,
not sure I mentioned raising your throwing arm but if it helped, all the better.
my biggest concern was that you were lacking power from almost every area. I want to remind you with changes like these there will be a big loss of accuracy for quite some time..
good luck!


It's funny...when I throw...it feels like my motion is hurried and has some decent power. But when you watch it on video, it looks like I am throwing in slow motion. The elbow thing was something that I thought I would try because every piece of video that I watched, it seems as though the persons elbow was significantly higher than mine(Exception being Climo). I watched the St. Louis Open dvd last night. I noticed in the long drives area, that both you and kid have a higher arm position than I do. As for power, that is the next thing to add into the equation. Hey...I will be giving you a call this weekend.

Thanks
JT

About David

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St. Louis, MO, United States
I own and operate Gateway Disc Sports, a disc manufacturing and course design and installation company.