Steve Hill

Shop for the disc golfer in your life with the Rattling Chains Holiday Gift Guide

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By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

Let’s face it – disc golfers are a picky lot. Whether it is a certain weight range (160-164 grams only), color (bright pink, so I can see it in fall foliage), or plastic blend (give me Champion Edition, or give me death!), those who take part in this sport are particular about what they use.

Come the holidays, this level of exactitude can result in stress for those non-disc golfers who are charged with shopping for the disc golfers in their life. Sure, they can risk it by picking up a disc at their local brick-and-mortar shop, but it might be something the golfer won’t use. There are always gift certificates to online retailers, but some might find those to be impersonal. (Note: This writer does not feel that gift certificates to online retailers are impersonal. Hint hint, family.)

What’s a gift giver to do?

How about following this handy Rattling Chains Holiday Gift Guide? Free of (full-sized) discs and full of useful gadgets and other funky ideas, there is bound to be something here to satisfy even the most finicky of disc golfers.

This article, then, isn’t intended so much for the disc golfers reading as it is for those related to the disc golfers. As a result, feel free to print it out and pass it on to “Santa.” There’s still time to shop.

Night golf setup (LED Flight lights, UV flashlight, packaging tape) – Now that winter has set in, have you noticed your disc golfer has become irritable or jittery? With daylight fading while everyone is locked up in their cubicles, it makes it tougher and tougher to get in the multiple rounds per week that hardcore discers love.

LED flat lights are the perfect gift for the golfer who wants to play at all hours.

LED flat lights are the perfect gift for the golfer who wants to play at all hours.

The solution? A simple night golf setup.

While you can head to the local Radio Shack or doodad shop and snag those round watch batteries and loose LEDs, why not make life easy and spring for LED Flight Lights? With three settings (strobe, flash, and solid), an on/off switch, and flat housing, these bad boys are easily taped onto the underside of translucent discs for awesome nighttime play. Nothing else is quite like watching your disc fly through the starry sky like it is a UFO gliding toward the basket. Throw in a UV flashlight for charging any glow discs (or for spotting the basket) and a roll of heavy-duty packing tape, and call it a day. LED flat lights, $0.84 from extremeglow.com; UV flashlight 2-pack, $9.99 from newegg.com; packing tape, cheap, any store.

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Oh, brothers: MVP Disc Sports turns from hobby to profession

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By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

The story is the same for every disc golf manufacturer.

Follow along with me if you’ve heard this one before: Two teenagers find disc golf and fall in love with the sport. At the same time, the young men spend their summers working for their father, who just so happens to own a plastic injection molding company.

One day, the teens approach their dad with the idea of making a golf disc and, thinking it will be a good learning experience, he gives them the green light. The disc catches on and soon, a company is born.

Wait, that’s not how every disc golf brand is created? Well, chalk up another point in the “unique” column for MVP Disc Sports.

Now 21 and 23 years old, respectively, brothers Brad and Chad Richardson have used a grassroots following to build MVP into a competitive company that continues to strengthen its position in the market via a new spin on disc technology.

And it all started, oddly enough, with a car door handle.

‘A Good Lesson’

Maple Valley Plastics, owned by Don Richardson, has been in business since 1967. In addition to making a variety of products for government contracts and toy companies, the primary focus of the business is the automotive industry. After seeing an interior door handle that was made of a stiff core material and covered with a rubber-like material for a soft feel, Chad was inspired to apply the design to a golf disc.

“This led to the idea of a softer material on the outside of the disc for chain-grabbing properties in a putter,” Brad said. “But rather quickly it evolved into the discovery of using a dense, rubber-like material for an enhanced gyroscopic property of a disc.”

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Attending a pro clinic is a lot to digest, but still useful

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Dave Feldberg demonstrates correct form for throwing a hyzer by reaching away from his body. (photo by Courtney McSherry)

When describing my skill level to fellow disc golfers, I often refer to myself as a “recreational enthusiast.” I love the game, and play as often as I can, but I am still not a great player.

Naturally, then, I am always looking for ways to strengthen my game. Whether it is some way to add more distance to my drives, or a putting routine to improve my accuracy, I will take any pointers I can get. Sometimes this helps, and other times it leads me to change what I am comfortable with, which yields inconsistency.

So when I heard that my local pro shop, Kinetic Disc Golf, was bringing an instructional clinic to Kit Carson Park in Escondido, Calif., featuring top players Dave Feldberg, Nikko Locastro, and Philo Brathwaite, I jumped at the opportunity to attend. It isn’t every day that three 1000-rated players roll through town, so I figured I should take advantage.

The end result?

A brain left drowning in new ideas and techniques, simply trying to wade through all of the knowledge and seize on what would help me the most.

Upon arriving at the clinic, I took stock of some of the fellow attendees and was pleased at the cross-section I observed — seasoned players with every disc known to man in their bags, all the way down to a new player with six months of experience who brought along his nine-year-old son. (Reports that said nine-year-old has a better forehand drive than me may or may not be true.)

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Noodle-Armed Review: Innova Starlite Roadrunner

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(The Noodle-Armed Review is intended for those players, like myself, who aren’t power arms and don’t quite hit 300 feet. Sure, it would be nice if you could throw longer, but let’s just hope you have a solid mid-range game to make up for it.)

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

Arguably one of the most successful disc golf ventures of the last year is Innova’s Blizzard Champion plastic, in which air is injected into discs during the molding process to make them lighter. Used to bring down the weights of warp speed drivers like the Boss and Katana —  as well as a host of others — it was only a matter of time before Innova extended the Blizzard trend to Star, their top-of-the-line, opaque plastic.

But when Innova announced that its first foray into this field would be used on the Starlite Roadrunner, I was counted as one of the skeptics.

Already a massively understable disc, the Roadrunner is one of my favorites. You can go full bore on it for easy distance and big turnovers, or use it for precise hyzer-flip flights through wooded courses. It is a pretty underrated disc, in my opinion.

However, given its penchant to be a bit flippy in regular weights, the thought of it moving down into 140-gram territory seemed unnecessary. Innova’s previous lightweight discs were all in the stable-to-overstable category, and making them weigh less served to lower the cruising speed they needed to reach their optimal flight. But since the Roadrunner already did not require much power to fly correctly, making it in this new Starlite plastic seemed like a runaway train to roller city.

But when I went out to play with some friends one day, another guy had picked one up and let me give it a toss.

I immediately went from a skeptic to a devout convert.

The ease with which the disc flew, and the lack of effort needed to make it do so, was quite enticing. As a result, I picked up a couple of my own to see if they could make the bag and help me reach that ever-elusive noodle-arm barrier — a 300-foot drive.

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DGCR 102: Social networking, searching, and the site’s greatest hits

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This is the second of a two-part series about DGCourseReview.com. The first part ran last Friday.

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

Relative to other sports, disc golf is still in its infancy. It does not have a long history, nor does it boast a mainstream following. For every person who plays the sport, there are likely five more who have never heard of it.

For players who become quickly addicted to the game, then, there is a void. While they would like to spend all day and night talking about all things disc-related, there are likely few other friends or family members who have any shared interest.

It is this lack of local conversation that leads many players to the discussion forums at DGCourseReview.com (DGCR). With nearly 35,000 registered users, they are bound to find someone with whom they can click.

The New Social Network

Site founder Tim Gostovic has created multiple forums for discussion within DGCR. A byproduct of his efforts, though, has been multiple strong relationships founded and maintained through the site.

“DGCR has built a lot of friendships and there are member meets happening all over the country,” Gostovic said. “It’s really great to see the photos of people that might not have otherwise gotten together hanging out and enjoying the sport. I actually regularly play disc golf with a friend I met through the site.”

Jerry Honis (in blue) teaches kids about disc golf as a favor to fellow DGCR member William Safford (photo courtesy William Safford)

Members can unite by posting threads in the site’s dedicated DGCR Meets subforum, or through simply finding someone in their neck of the woods and sending them a private message.

Ryan Glasshagel of New Glarus, Wisconsin, has taken the latter approach and played with about ten fellow DGCR members.

“I consider DGCR my Facebook,” Glasshagel said. “I spend more time on there than any other site on the Internet. I have met some great people on the site that I would consider friends.”

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DGCR 101: A history of commitment drives the Internet’s largest disc golf hub

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This is the first of a two-part series about DGCourseReview.com. Check back next Friday for the second installment.

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

When many players discover the game of disc golf, it is only a matter of time before they want to branch out from their home course and discover other venues to play.

Luckily for them, searching Google for “disc golf course” or “Frisbee golf courses,” much to the chagrin of those who despise that term, yields many results, none more useful than DGCourseReview.com

Boasting a directory of more than 4,500 courses, Disc Golf Course Review (DGCR) allows players to find courses, track scores, map out road trips, and so much more.

Genesis of the site

New players of the past were not always as fortunate as those today.

Take Tim Gostovic, the brainchild of DGCR. The Rochester, New York native started playing disc golf 10 years ago and was immediately hooked on the sport. As his interest grew, he and his friends took their love of the sport beyond their local surroundings.

“After I had been playing for two years or so, my friends and I started traveling outside our area to play new courses,” Gostovic said. “That escalated to full-on road trips after exhausting the nearby options. We would visit the PDGA site to see which courses were around and try to plan our trip.”

But with the PDGA website listing only locations and directions — and with other sources of information being scarce — Gostovic found the planning process to be restrictive.

“The problem was that it was very difficult to decide which courses were worth stopping at,” he said. “There weren’t really reviews at the time, and maps and photos were tough to come by and required going to a club’s site and hoping you could find something there. It was quite the ordeal and didn’t really guarantee the course you were traveling hundreds of miles to play would be a good one.”

It was from these dilemmas that DGCR was born.

“After planning two road trips using the ‘check the entire Internet’ method, the frustration of the planning process led me to the idea of a central repository of maps, photos, information, and reviews to make my life and the lives of traveling disc golfers like myself easier,” Gostovic said. “So I sat down, sketched out some basic page layouts and functionality, and got to work.”

After a little more than a month of development, DGCR was launched in May 2007. In addition to the number of courses available to locate, there are currently more than 44,000 reviews and 84,000 photos to accompany them.

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Halloween-stamped discs more treat than trick for disc golfers

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Disc Nation has a Halloween-themed disc for the fifth straight year. (photo courtesy of Disc Nation)

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

Ah, Halloween – the one day of the year where tradition and inhibition take a holiday and let exhibition and fright run amok.

In disc golf, which is already an industry that veers away from convention more often than not on a daily basis, it is an opportunity for both manufacturers and retailers to step outside of their usual routine and add a little flourish with unique holiday stamps encompassing both the aforementioned tradition and exhibition.

Take, for example, Innova Champion Discs and its annual pumpkin discs. Each year, the company releases jack-o-lantern-stamped DX Aviars, DX Rocs, and other assorted molds that give golfers a fun way to ring in the season.

The idea was born out of simple fun and spontaneity, according to the discs’ creator.

“I believe it was 1997, and I was a hot stamper at the time,” said Russell Schwarz, director of special projects for Innova’s east coast office. “I was stamping some orange Aviars, and off the top of my head I went, ‘Hey, I could put a pumpkin face on these things and it would look like a jack-o-lantern.”

Schwarz took the idea to his boss, received the green light for the project and designed the inaugural pumpkin stamp. But it wasn’t something that was a big deal at the time.

“I drew it about 25 times to make it look like a little kid drew it and I made a stamp,” Schwarz recalled. “We stamped, oh, I don’t know, 100, 150 of them? It wasn’t anything formal, we just did it and we sold them. That was all there was to it.”

Jump ahead a decade and a half, and pumpkin-stamped Aviars are a yearly staple for Innova that customers look forward to.

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Company Closeup: Skulboy Designs

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A Skulboy design.

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

Thinking back to the days of middle school and high school, most people can probably recall that one artistic kid who would doodle on people’s binders and scrawl intricate scenes for the most mundane of assignments.

Duncan Crawford was that kid.

“I’m the guy that people remember as the one drawing on everybody’s notebooks,” said Crawford, the mind behind Skulboy Designs. “I’ve gone barbarians and superheroes pretty much since I was a kid.”

Duncan Crawford at work on a design.

As an adult, Crawford has taken his art from the notebooks to the disc golf course, as he pens unique, skull-filled custom stamps under the moniker Skulboy Designs. Known for aggressive, hand-drawn renditions of skeletons, skulls, and images both mythical and historical, Crawford has gained a following among disc golfers looking for more than the traditional stamp on their plastic.

And while his designs have developed a following, their gestation was born out of simply wanting something interesting for himself.

“Once I started collecting discs and getting discs, I found that there were not enough skulls on discs,” he said. “I’ve always been a skull guy. I love skulls, and there just weren’t enough, you know?”

Based in Monrovia, California, Crawford is surrounded by a bevy of courses and an established disc golf scene, which is where he found his path to stamp design. Playing many rounds at Sylmar Veterans Park – home of Steve and Bamba Rico of Legacy Discs – helped Crawford jump into the process by designing a custom stamp for the course’s 2010 Summertime Open.

The disc design that helped get it all going.

Crawford’s relationship with Bamba Rico was what really got the business off the ground.

“I did a stamp for him, then I started doing t-shirt designs for him,” Crawford said. “And that’s what got it all started.”

But when Crawford began to explore the idea of putting more of his designs on discs to sell on his own, he found the bulk orders that Innova and other manufacturers required to be cost prohibitive.

But a chance opportunity soon came his way — in the form of missing out on a tournament — as he was able to meet Dan Mangone, the owner of Discovering the World, a disc golf shop that happens to be the main West Coast distributor for Latitude 64 golf discs.

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Bringing the family on board makes disc golf even better

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By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

Bless my wonderful wife.

First, it was football. She would hear me talk nonstop about all the NFL action she could handle, until it all sank in and she acquired this insane level of knowledge that she can unleash to impress our fantasy football league (of which, yes, she is the only female participant).

Now, it is disc golf.

Steve Hill’s wife Kelly has started to take up disc golf, so maybe knowingly looking for houses closer to courses wasn’t a one-way deal?

Being that I am a disc golf player, writer (allegedly), and all-around obsessive, she is always having to listen to (or tune out – really, I don’t know) my various adventures. Ranging from “I was this close to an ace today!” to “I think I want x disc in y plastic, but I am not sure because I like the grip of z plastic better,” she certainly gets her fill, yet never complains.

Recently, though, I thought I had pushed her to her breaking point.

You see, my wife was recently offered a new job, which found us relocating to North San Diego County, California. For those who are unfamiliar with the area, it is close to the beach, has boatloads of craft breweries and, most importantly, a nice selection of disc golf courses.

In short, we relocated to my personal mecca.

There was only one minor drawback, though — house hunting. Goodness, house hunting is the worst, and nowhere near as glamorous as those shows on HGTV (which I totally don’t watch, and only know about because my wife watches them and I hear them in the background). We were on a crunch for time, and we needed to find a place that would be near enough to her work and not require a ton of time in traffic.

Now remember: Close to the beach, beer, and golf courses. Should have been enough for me, right?

Wrong.

Every time we looked up a new place to rent, I would look at three things — the price, if it allowed pets, and how close it was to the nearest disc golf course. Often times, we were looking at a 25-minute drive, which for many readers (and Rattling Chains head honcho P.J.) is probably close enough.

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Discraft’s Ace Race continues to evolve in its 10th year

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By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

No matter how old you are, or how long you have been playing, everyone who partakes in disc golf wants to achieve that ultimate goal — release the disc, watch its gorgeous path through the air, and SPLASH! Ace!

Even if you are a golfer who has a list of aces as long as Santa Claus’ naughty and nice scroll, it’s always fun to take a run at the chains, and Discraft offers that each fall with their annual Ace Race.

Now in its 10th year, the Discraft Ace Race is comprised of more than 300 individual events held over nearly three months that bring golfers — both veterans and those who have never touched a disc outside of their DVD players — together for the sole purpose of trying to hit as many aces as possible in one day. With this year’s event boasting more than 16,000 participants from 12 countries on three continents, it is the largest single disc golf event in the world, according to Discraft marketing director Brian Sullivan.

Coming from humble beginnings in Michigan and rapidly ascending to more than 50 events in three years, Sullivan said the goal of the Ace Race originally was to serve as the middleman between new players and their more established brethren.

The 2012 Ace Race disc.

“Our research has shown that the average new disc golfer takes three years to make the transition from a one-disc-wonder who plays a few times per year to joining a league and contributing to the local club’s growth,” Sullivan said. “Ace Race was conceived from the beginning to be a vehicle that would help to bridge the gap between casual players and organized clubs, serving as an introductory activity.”

The concept, for those unfamiliar, is pretty simple — Discraft designs a prototype disc each year that is released to the public specifically for the Ace Race. Participants pay $25 to enter the event, receiving two discs (as well as other goodies) that they use to simply tee off and try for an ace on each hole. No birdies, no pars. Just pure, unadulterated ace racing.

Sullivan admits, however, that Discraft did not devise the Ace Race concept all on their own. They just put their own spin on it.

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