Poll 41: Prodigy Disc Golf

January 7, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

As many of you know, we don’t do a lot of coverage when it comes to the professional tour.

There’s a reason for that, too. By looking at the numbers over the course of the year, the page views are noticeably higher when we’re not talking about the professional tour. This year, however, we are planning to do a bit more — such as previews and wraps of major tournaments. After all, if we’re going to continue to grow, we need to cover all angles.

Still, the reality is professional disc golfers — especially touring professionals — do not make up the majority of the disc golf population. In feedback we’ve received, people enjoy the in-depth stories, first-person accounts and instructional stuff. We like to be goofy at times and serious when we need to.

Alas, this whole Prodigy Disc Golf things is being talked about in the world of disc golf. So we’re curious what you all thing.

Before you vote, make sure you read what we mean by the way this question is being phrased. More on that below.

First, let’s check back on last week’s poll, when we asked you about your goals for the upcoming year.

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Four disc golf goals for ’13

January 4, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

As I approach two years of playing this lovely sport we call disc golf, I have come to a harsh conclusion — I am just not that good.

I miss easy putts. My drives are still all over the place. I have more plastic sitting in a crate in my garage than I do in my actual bag, and instead of my discs bearing the names of their manufacturers, they might as well be covered with expletives, because that’s how I refer to them.

In short, I’m kind of a hot mess.

But, the promise of a new year at least gives me a little hope that 2013 may be the time for improvement. I have to hold myself to some kind of standard if I actually want to get better, though, so I am setting some goals for myself for the coming year.

Why goals, and not resolutions? Well, according to my friend dictionary.com, resolutions have more to do with determination and will than actual results. Goals, on the other hand, have a defined aim, and that is where I am going with these. Concrete improvement that I can (kind of) measure.

Plus, everyone makes resolutions. See all those people at your local gym? They won’t be there in a couple weeks. Sign up for a marathon and set a goal of finishing it, though, and you’re doing it. It’s about commitment.

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Rattling Chains fun and games: January 3

January 3, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

It’s time for another back of fun and games with Rattling Chains.

It seems last time, people did quite well with the crossword puzzle, so we’re going to change it up this time to a word search, which has 30 terms for you to find.

Think you can do it? Have at it.

It’s smaller on the post, but if you click on the puzzle, it should enlarge enough for you to be able to print it out so you can do it when you have the chance.

Have fun!

If you need to see the (messy) answer sheet, click here.

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, ideas or anything else, feel free to e-mail me and the crew at: pj@rattlingchains.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

Discmasters TV — looking at a disc golf’s first variety show

January 2, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

By Jack Trageser — Rattling Chains staff

Most of you who read Rattling Chains or the School of Disc Golf blog know I run School of Disc Golf as a side-gig, mainly because I thoroughly enjoy getting new players hooked on the game and helping those already addicted get better.

You’ve likely read, at some point, that I used to play in as many tournaments I could, topped out at a 999 player rating (so close!) and, for a time, was an officer of the DeLaveaga Disc Golf Club.

What I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned in this space before is another off-and-on project of mine — Discmasters TV. Since the first new episode in quite a while just hit YouTube, it made sense to take a little time to tell you about the show and its origins.

It started when I came across a YouTube video that covered a Santa Cruz tournament called the Faultline Classic. I thought the video was well-produced, given the obviously limited technical resources. I decided to approach the person who posted the video with an idea I had been tossing around for some time. The concept was for a lighter side of disc golf-type variety show, incorporating instruction, interviews and cheesy — and badly acted — comedy. It should be no surprise the last part came naturally.

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Happy New Year! And the winners are …

January 1, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

I hope everyone had a fun and safe New Year’s Eve.

Remember — lots of water will help you with many issues from a night like that!

And like that, 2012 is behind us. With 2013 now in the picture, may your year be full of birdies, aces and, of course, chains rattling. We’ll continue to grow as well and hopefully do it with all of you!

For about the past week, we’ve also been holding a series of large giveaways. The prize packages, I think, are truly awesome. We had many entries for each contest, which is always good to see.

We have more things to give away and plan on doing it soon.

For now, let me announce the winners. For those who won, please e-mail me (address is below) with your full name (if not used for the entries), and address so I can get this stuff sent out to you!

Let’s get to the winners!

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Poll 40: Looking to 2013

December 31, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

Happy New Year’s, everybody!

Before we begin here, I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas (or whatever holiday you may celebrate!) and I hope you all prosper in the New Year. Be safe out there tonight!

We’re back from our break starting today. And, if you’ll remember from the one post, we’re going to be a little more laid-back for the new year. That means though we’ll strive to keep our Monday to Friday schedule, we might miss a day here and there because we want to make sure Rattling Chains continues and is sustainable.

Hopefully, in the long run, it will make us better. My goal for 2013 is to make this blog even better than our first year.

How about you guys?

What will 2013 bring? We’ll get to that more in a second. First, let’s see what some readers said about 2013. Our last poll asked what you best disc golf memory of 2012 was. We only got 113 votes for this poll, but of those, the winning selection was “other” with 27 votes (24 percent).

Second place went to playing in your first tournament with 20 votes (18 percent), followed by improving certain aspects of your game (17 votes/15 percent), reaching a big goal (16 votes/14 percent), a new course or two you played (15 votes/13 percent), winning a tournament (10 votes/9 percent) and learning how to do something new (8 votes/7 percent).

It seems like it was quite varied when it came to people’s thoughts about 2012, so let’s see what some readers had to say.

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Celebrate the holidays with a Rattling Chains giveaway

December 26, 2012 / P.J. / 73 Comments

I hope everyone had a great day yesterday and that the holidays are treating everybody well.

And despite the Rattling Chains staff being on vacation this week and giving the site a break, something needed to be done…

… such as a major giveaway!

Since before we officially launched this blog, we’ve had many people donate stuff to be used for giveaways. Therefore, the pile is growing. With that in mind, I thought it would be good to make some packages up and have a giveaway where we’d give more than one thing away.

There are three groups of items we are going to be giving away. For each, there are specific things you need to do. If you don’t do exactly what is required, your entry will not count without notification. Any entries that require you to post comments below need to be separate. In other words, if you are entering two of the contests and they each require a comment, you need to comment twice and do it as required.

So make sure you read this fully before just entering or your entry might not count!

Also, though you can (and I would encourage you to do so) enter each contest, you can win only one. It would be smart to enter each, though, giving yourself better odds to win something!

Read on to see what you have to do to enter each contest.

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Wishing everybody a merry Christmas and a great holiday season

December 25, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

As many of you already know, the staff of Rattling Chains is taking this week off to enjoy the season with family and friends.

And maybe even hucking a disc or two.

Therefore, there will be no true new content this week.

We’d also like to take the time to thank each and every one of you for taking the time to visit the site as often as you do. As much as we love the game, we truly do enjoy bring original and quality content to you each and every day.

With that being said, we’d like to wish everybody who celebrates a Merry Christmas and to everyone, a wonderful holiday season.

Please check back sometime Wednesday, however, as we’ll be having a massive giveaway in celebration of the holiday season. There are several prizes to win — and a few different ways to win them.

Thanks again and we’ll be back next week!

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, ideas or anything else, feel free to e-mail me and the crew at: pj@rattlingchains.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

A long road to create the PDGA course directory

December 21, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

By Allen Risley – for Rattling Chains

As a big fan of Disc Golf Course Review, I had to read the profile of its history that ran on Rattling Chains.

The article — and its follow up –was great. Steve Hill did a fine job of highlighting the the various tools available on DGCR – tools I have made a great deal of use of over the past several years. Whether it’s searching for new courses to play, tracking the courses I’ve played, building a road trip itinerary or searching for plastic through the marketplace, DGCR is a great resource. And I’d like to feel I played a little part in making DGCR happen.

You see, I compiled the first PDGA Course Directory.

The original PDGA Course Directory. (photo by Allen Risley)

I had to chuckle a little when reading about the frustrations of DGCR founder Tim Gostovic in regard to planning disc golf road trips using the “check the entire Internet” method. Imagine how frustrated he would have been back in 1984, when there was no Internet to check! Hell, at that point there wasn’t even a complete list of courses in printed form to check, much less one with a search function.

Early disc golfers – those with 4-digit or lower PDGA numbers – typically used word of mouth, a dog-eared copy of the PDGA Pro Tour tournament calendar, or an old copy of Frisbee World or Flying Disc Illustrated magazine to find new places to play.

And paper maps — lots of paper maps.

There weren’t a whole lot of places to find. Back in the early 80’s there were only a few hundred disc golf courses in the ground. In Florida for example, where I played, many of our tournaments were played on temporary courses set up just for the weekend using objects, homemade targets or portable DGA baskets. So even the tournament listings weren’t a sure bet to use to find a new course – it may have been packed up in someone’s trunk right after the trophies were handed out.

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Rattling Chains fun and games: Dec. 20

December 20, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

If you’ll recall, when we posted about the future of the site, we said we were also going to try and do a few fun things, such as games.

This is the first of those games.

We’re going to test the water a little here and see what kind of response we get. Hopefully, it’s something people enjoy as I think it’s a neat little way to do things a little more fun and laid back. Not everything can be serious!

So what we have here this week is our first crossword puzzle. Though it looks small, you should be able to click on it to get a larger version and hopefully be able to print it out with no issues.

Feel free, too, to let us know what you think about the games feature in the comments below. We’ll have other crosswords, as well as some word searches and other things in the future.

Enjoy!

Stumped?

Need to check to see how you did?

Check out the answers here.

If you have any comments, questions, thoughts, ideas or anything else, feel free to e-mail me and the crew at: pj@rattlingchains.com. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook!