One round. One disc. What’s your choice?

One disc for one round? This would be my choice. What about you?

One disc.

Do you know what yours would be?

Just one.

One glorious piece of plastic to carry for 18 holes.

Drives. Up shots. Putts. In and out of trees or wherever else.

One simple disc.

Backhands. Forehands. Flicks. Overhand shots. Rollers.

One.

Oh how life could be so simple, eh? No need for a bag full of discs. Just that one piece of plastic.

One.

Could you do it? Could you survive? Would you get the cold sweats when you had a certain shot and you didn’t have another disc? Would you panic?

Or would you just deal?

This idea came to me recently after a lackluster round at a St. Patrick’s Day tournament. Though I didn’t play awful, I knew I could do better. There were times I went with one disc, threw it and wondered if I was better off using something else.

After that round, I swore off disc golf for a bit. I needed to re-focus. Until the next day that is.

With the idea of doing some photography of the older baskets at the Rutgers course in New Brunswick, N.J., I set out with Rattling Chains staffer Darren Dolezel. We opted to play some sort of round, but with me toting my camera — I didn’t want to carry many discs.

Tom flicks his Core out during a one-disc round.

The idea of the one disc then came up.

At first we used a disc we each had in our bags — a Vibram Ibex. The disc is one I’ve been using more and more and Darren also uses it some. But after five holes of match play (Darren won, 2-1) we switched it up as another local golfer, Tom Murray, joined us.

The game changed at that point. We decided that we would pick one mid-range disc you thought you could play an entire round with.

My choice was simple — my Discraft Buzzz, a beautiful piece of plastic that is a constant disc I use. It was one of the first discs I owned (along with my Innova Pro Leopard and a Gateway soft Wizard putter). Being it’s one of my first discs, it’s one that is really broken in and I have a good idea of what I can do with it.

Tom chose a Latitude 64 Core and Darren, who carries many mid-range discs, settled in with an MVP Vector.

The plan at this point was simple — see what each person would do with their disc for 18 holes.

Par at Rutgers is 54. Off we went.

I rode 10 pars (for me, a solid round) for a 10-over-par 64. Tom’s round was interesting as he had three birdies and 11 pars to end at a 1-over 55. Darren four birdies and 10 pars to finish at even-par.

This result made me wonder if I should do this more — even in a tournament. Maybe it’s something I need to do to improve.

What I learned from this experience was that with one disc, you need to think more. You have to work on making sure you think about throwing the disc, especially when putting from more than 10 feet or so.

The thought process changes when you are faced with using one disc. It makes you simplify the game a little and it really makes you focus.

In the end, it really seemed to be a good way to clear my mind with disc golf. It’s something I am going to start doing every once in a while, if not just for the reason of making me think a little bit more about the mental aspects of the game and how to clear my mind.

All it took was one disc. Who knew?

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Now we ask you — what disc would you choose for one round and why?

Let us know in the comments below!

P.J. Harmer is the lead blogger for Rattling Chains. If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, ideas or anything else, feel free to e-mail me and the crew at: pj [at] rattlingchains.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitterand like us on Facebook!

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