Group Disc Golf Etiquette

These rules, or guidelines, pertain specifically when you’re playing others. This etiquette is a good default to abide. Most everyone who has been playing for a while is familiar with these and follows them. One thing to make note here is that some groups may have their own set of rules that they follow, and they may disregard some of these. But, for the most part, if you’re familiar with these guidelines, you’ll be able to play with any group and not feel like you’re doing things wrong.

Furthest throws first

This mannerism is pretty self explanatory. After everyone throws their initial drive, the group will progress up towards the basket. Ideally, they’ll stop behind the first disc that they come upon. Allowing the individual furthest from the discatcher to throw first. This is the procedure as it allows for the play to have the most flow. But more importantly, it’ll keep everyone safe from getting hit by a disc. If you have yet to be hit by a disc, it can hurt pretty bad.

Don’t distract or cause distractions while others are throwing

As disc golf derives itself from golf, it has a lot of similar mannerisms. One of these is to be quiet and calm, without causing distractions while someone is working to throw. This helps the individual throwing have focus, and be able to perform to their best ability. As you do this for others, they will in offer the same respect to you. its all about performing at your best and others doing their best.

Don’t nice a shot until it lands

There is a common believe that if you compliment someone’s throw while it is flying through the air it’ll turn bad in some way. It’ll hit a tree, have a bad skip, roll unfavorably, or some other negative thing. Basically, avoid this by waiting until someone’s shot lands and has completely stopped to compliment the throw.

Help card mates

Being helpful is almost always a good thing. There are a lot of things with which you can help your card mates. the big thing that I’m thinking of here, is helping your mates to find an errant disc. Sometimes when you’re playing a disc flies unfavorably and gets lost in the bush. Having all the eyes to find the disc makes the process go quicker, and it helps with the good vibes.

Sportsmanship

Regardless of the sport you play, sportsmanship is always a must. It is always a good practice to treat others in a generous manner, to be fair, and to treat others with respect. Treat others how you would like to be treated.

General Etiquette for Disc Golf

This etiquette should be followed all the time, whether you’re by yourself or with a group. These mannerisms are a must to follow.

Avoid the risk of hitting someone

Getting hit by a disc is quite painful, you should do your best to avoid hitting someone else with a disc. This means that if you are unsure as to whether you can hit someone you should err on the side of caution. Do your best to avoid situations that you may hit someone. Don’t throw over someone’s head, or throw when they’re close to your distance limit, or throw if they’re close to where you’re aiming. Getting hit sucks, lets try to limit the amount of people who can get hit by being too cautions and a little more patient.

As a side note, if you do see that your disc looks like it’ll hit someone yell “FORE”. Please do this, it is paramount to get people’s attention and give them the most time to react. Yelling “fore” a few seconds before you realize it very well could hit them doesn’t benefit anyone. It doesn’t provide them enough time to see the danger and act. So please, if it looks like it is going to hit them, yell “fore” to grab their attention.

Obey park/course rules

When you’re out playing disc golf, make sure you are familiar with the park/course rules. And abide by them. You never know who will see you breaking a rule, what that person will do when you break the rule. The consequences may be nothing, or they may be large and detrimental to your disc golf community. Its better to keep the rules, and show the world that disc golfers respect the land and land owners where the course resides. One rule that I am pretty sure that exists everywhere is don’t litter. If you brought it in to the course you should take it with you, or leave it in a trash can.

Let faster players play past you

This is something to which every disc golfer should pay attention. If someone is on your tail, see if they would like to play through you. It is courteous to let faster playing group/individual play through you. We all have different time constraints or playing speed preferences, it doesn’t take that  much longer to let someone play through you.

Return lost discs – make an attempt

Losing a disc sucks, unless it was a disc that you’re okay to lose – but even then it still sucks. So if you’re out there playing and you find a disc do your best to get that disc back to the owner. Especially if it has some form of identification on it; this could be a phone number, PDGA number, name, or any combination of these things. And if there isn’t anything, there are so many Facebook groups that you could make it known to the community that you found a disc. Hopefully this will get the disc into the owner’s hands. Just think, if you lost a disc, would you want someone to try to get it back to you?

Represent disc golf in a good light

A lot of these etiquettes are to be courteous to other disc golfers. They are also to be courteous to non-disc golfers. You’re playing disc golf, and because of that, you represent disc golf. When non-disc golfers see you playing they will see every other disc golfer out there. Which means that your actions will help non-disc golfers form their opinion about all of us. With that in mind, act in a manner that will help others to form good opinions about all of us. How you act out on the disc golf course will determine how others perceive disc golf.

I live in an area that had a really awesome year round 18 hole disc golf course. That 18 hole course is now  a 9 hole disc golf course that is only playable during the winter months. And we get snow here, winter golf is difficult and not all that fun. In addition to this 9 hole seasonal course, this year it is threatened to not even go up. The reason this is because of disc golfers not representing disc golf in a good way. The land managers have lost a lot of respect for the disc golf community and sees it more as a nuisance than a good thing. I don’t want this sort of thing to happen to you and your disc golf community. So, be sure to represent disc golf in a good light.

Concluding Etiquette Thoughts

Learning something new is always a little stressful, especially when you’re the novice playing with other experienced people. Rest assured, we have all been the newbie playing veterans before. And I think that the majority of us remember this, and act accordingly. To help you understand other aspects of this sport, you should also check out this how to keep score & scoring rules post.

All in all, disc golf is a pretty enjoyable sport. It makes for some good times whether by yourself or with others. It gets you outside, and helps you to find some belonging. So, keep following this disc golf etiquette and enjoy the sport!

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Disc Golf Beginner Tips

There are 5 suggestions that I think will prove to be an excellent starting point for you. These disc golf tips for beginners will help you create a solid foundation to grow and increase your disc golf skills. Here are 5 tips to help you in your disc golf journey:

• Find a mentor
• Watch YouTube videos
• Learn proper form – remove the run up
• Practice
• Have fun

As I have said, these 5 disc golf tips will help you lay down a groundwork of which you will build your disc golf skills and understanding of its various concepts. Helping you to become an expert within Disc Golf. Before we get into the tips, I’ll suggest one final thing: accept that you’re a beginner and embrace that you don’t know disc golf. Doing so will help you to learn and improve in much faster.

Find a Mentor

If you’re like me, you do not want to sound like a noob, look like you don’t know what you’re doing, nor do you want to not know what you are doing. However, overcoming this and asking for help will accelerate your skills and understanding. A mentor will be able to provide tailored disc golf tips

A mentor can be anyone who knows more than you, it also doesn’t have to be the same person. This is going to be someone who knows more about disc golf than you, willing to provide advice, and is helpful.

Your mentor doesn’t even have to be someone that you see in-person. You could find a trusted source of information, someone in an online forum, or even watching some videos. Getting this information will help you to learn the concepts and skills necessary to really excel in disc golf. General advice is a good starting point; however, it will be best if you can get tailored advice to you.

There are a few ways in which you can obtain personalized tips. Having someone in person who plays with you, or that can watch you and provide suggestions. Or you can find some venue in which you can post videos of yourself throwing or post questions on here. There are a lot of these venues on the internet. If you would like, you may even post questions in the comments below and we’ll be sure to take care of you.

Key take-away here; personalized advice is always better than general advice, find somewhere/someone who can provide it, and take it regularly.

Watch YouTube Videos 

I love watching videos on YouTube. These videos have been a great source of information for me, they teach me a lot! And there are a lot of different types of videos, there are informational and instructional. I really enjoy the informational videos, as they help me to understand concepts and even when to use certain shots.  There are also loads of reviews of all the disc golf goods on YouTube. This is a great way to figure out if a certain disc is a good disc for you.

One channel that provides a great amount of tips is Infinite Discs and Dynamic Discs

Learn Proper Form

Proper form is probably the best thing to do at this moment. Learning how to throw properly will be so easy when you don’t a habit set in place. With this said, throwing is quite personal, and not everyone’s throw will look the same. But the fundamentals will be similar enough.

For a back hand throw, I like to think of my body acting like a catapult. My body is the arm of the catapult while my arm is the like the rope that holds onto the boulder. And my shoulder is the pivot point.

Throwing a side arm, is very different. The best way I can describe how to throw a side arm is to look at how a baseball player throws a side arm. It’s the same motion and same mechanics in play. The only difference between the two is how the hand is position.

Practice

The next best thing to do is to practice. Practice a lot! Playing disc golf is a lot of fun. Shaping lines to go through the woods, or draining those long putts, it’s just a great feeling to watch the disc flying through the air. Practicing is boring though. You’re throwing into a field, sometimes you’re practicing your form while other times you’re working for a specific flight. Either way, doing the same thing over and over gets tiring and isn’t always the most fun.

However, this is what separates the good players from the bad players. So, if you have the goal to get good, you’ve got to spend the time practicing every throw, every angle. Learning what your discs do, which discs are best for you, and learning how to replicate everything. I always have the thought that pros are highly consistent. Practice develops the consistency, they step up to throw something, and they’ve already thrown hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, so they have a solid idea of what is going to happen.

So practice putting, approach shots, scramble throws, rollers, forehands, backhands, flex shots, big turnovers, hyzer-flips, all the different ways to throw. In so doing, your game will become incredible.

Have Fun

The most important thing to do above all else is have fun. This is a sport, and sports are there to bring in a little competition and spice into our life. Competitions are meant to be fun, a way to bring balance into our life and take a break and moment to reset. Don’t forget that disc golf is about having fun out there, enjoying the time with your friends. And I get it, it sucks and it is difficult to have fun when you’re not playing as well as you would like. It happens, just focus on what is good (this is much easier to say than to do, unfortunately).

I think that this disc golf beginner tip is one of the best tips that I can offer.

Final Thoughts on Disc Golf Tips for Beginners

There are a multiplicity of disc golf tips out there, some of which will be great for you, while others won’t be all that great for you. Hopefully, these will provide a good place to start your journey to improve your skills, and to become a better disc golfer.

Here is a bonus tip for you; never stop asking questions. Even if it is a simple verification question.

Concluding Thoughts

Thanks for reading! Hopefully these 5 disc golf tips for beginners helps you know where to start improving your disc golf game. Also, I hope that the rest of your day goes well. And, if you have any questions, leave a comment below. We’ll be happy to provide an answer. Until then, keep throwing that plastic and getting those rounds in. And if you need help understanding how to keep score, check out this article: Disc Golf Scoring Explanation for Beginners

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