disc golf poll

Poll 20: How strong is your arm?

/ P.J. / Leave a comment

I know, I know… drive for show, putt for dough.

Here’s my issue — I can’t drive and my putting is a love/hate relationship with the chains. What’s a rec player to do?

So, this week, we’re talking arm strength. But we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s revisit last week’s poll when we asked how close you all lived to a course.

Turns out a lot of you are way luckier than me.

As noted last week, it takes a while for me to get to a semi-decent course. More than 70 miles one way.

Of the 123 people who voted in this poll, 93 of you (76 percent) live within 0-10 miles of a course!

Talk about lucky! Sheesh!

The next one was 11-20 miles, which received 14 votes (11 percent). That means, 87 percent of the voters live within 20 miles of a course. I am so jealous!

From there, 21-40 miles took third (7 votes.6 percent), followed by 41-75 miles (6 votes/5 percent); 101 or more miles (2 votes/2 percent) and 76-100 miles (0 percent/1 vote).

For the record, I was the one vote for 76-100 miles.

Hopefully, I’ll eventually get to join the legions who are so close to a course. That would be a nice thing.

Let’s see what some of you had to say from last week, too.

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Poll 18: How hot is too hot?

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Will the heatwave stop?

Or do you even care?

I realize we did a weather poll not too long ago, but I’ve seen many “excessive” heat warnings for the upcoming week and one of the other writers here offered that kind of poll. So I’m going to go with it.

But first, let’s check in on the poll from two weeks ago and get things wrapped up there.

We wanted to know if you had ever called somebody out for a rule or courtesy violation and the results were extremely close.

Of the 79 voters, 52 percent of you (41 votes) said you hadn’t. The other 38 (48 percent) said you had.

That’s quite close. So, let’s check a few of the responses to try and get a better picture of things.

Justin Allen says:

I think the area I play in, is the only little piece of the world where the rules to disc golf are not enforced or even recognized. Our weekly tournaments are a big jumble of people just randomly throwing plastic at chains regardless of who is furthest out, people throwing from adjusted lies, or just not paying attention to other players. I find it very annoying and try to keep whoever is in my group in line. This has earned me the title of disc golf hall monitor among my peers. I am awaiting my striped referee jersey and whistle.

That would blow my mind.

I am, by no means, a rules-crazed person, but that would drive me up a wall. If people are so blatant in destroying the rules, I’m not sure I could play in that league. There, eventually, becomes a safety factor, too. If people are just firing off discs whenever and wherever they want, somebody could get railed with a disc.

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Poll 14: How many people have you introduced to disc golf?

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Before we hit up this week’s poll, we need to look back at last week’s edition.

This one as quite interesting, to say the least.

We wanted to know what you would find worthy of paying $5 or $10 per round. Now, we knew that there would be some who would be fully against paying to play.

That, to me, is interesting. Mainly because it does cost something, at times, to keep things right at a nice park. Even if it’s just the mowing or making sure things are cleaned up/cleared out. Someone has to foot some sort of bill.

The numbers were interesting. Please remember that we allowed each voter to pick upwards of two choices. We had 175 voters.

The top choice received 111 votes — pristine maintained course. That was 63 percent of the vote! It was closely followed by on-site facilities (93 votes/53 percent). In third was disc-golf only course (39 votes/22 percent) and, in fourth, was those who will only play free courses (17 votes/10 percent). Tee times took fifth with 12 votes (7 percent).

So for those who would pay to play, we wanted to know what you would expect to see…

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Poll 13: What would be worth paying for?

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How was the weather near all of you this weekend? The Northeast wasn’t too bad as we dodged and ducked thunderstorms and rain, but there were periods of sun. That allowed many to get out and chuck some discs!

The new poll is below and we’ll get to that in a moment. First, let’s look back to last week’s poll and some answers. We asked our readers what it was going to take to push disc golf into the mainstream. We had 82 voters in this poll.

The majority of readers said a major sponsorship would be key. That garnered 24 percent of the choices (20 votes). Following in second with 20 percent (16 votes), was the choice that they don’t think disc golf will become a disc golf sport.

Rounding out the top five were recreational participation reaches critical mass (18 percent/15 votes); popularity among children and teens (17 percent/14 votes); and the popularity of the professional tour (9 percent/7 votes).

There were also some comments to think about.

Ryan Rintala says:

Imagine if a major sponsor like Nike or Adidas got involved? I mean if they came out with a disc golf shoe… and it was placed in a mainstream store like Footlocker, or Champ sports. Just the fact of a shoe being created would make the youth and people in general curious enough to look it up Google. And that is all you need, just a little curiosity created from a mainstream sponsor.

This is a great point because Keen already has a men’s and women’s shoe made for disc golf. But, Keen isn’t Nike or Adidas. And being I’ve heard other people talk about Nike and Adidas in the past in hopes for a disc golf shoe, I wonder how many people know Keen even has this shoe. Companies like Nike and Adidas getting involved with disc golf could be a game changer, for sure.

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Poll 12: What will send the sport to the mainstream?

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Before we get to this week’s poll, allow me to apologize for the tardy post. With the long weekend here in the States, it’s been one of those things. Lots to do and not enough time, right?

I hope all of you who had the long weekend had the chance to get out and enjoy the weather (maybe?), flip some discs or do whatever else.

Anyway, with that out of the way, allow me to try and get things back on track. The poll is a day late this week, so let’s make up some time.

Before we get to this week’s poll, let’s go back to last week’s poll as we have some things to give away.

The idea of last week’s poll was to have some fun and be humorous. A lot of people posted their “reaction” in a serious tone, which is fine. But a few things about the said situation I made up —

  • I’m quite sure no pro would ever act that way (I hope).
  • If all of you could react calmly given the situation, you are better than I would be.

A total of 48 people votes on this one and the big winner was “Humorously,” which garnered 21 votes (44 percent). Calmly (12 votes/25 percent) finished second, followed by angry (7 votes/15 percent) and other (7 votes/15 percent). Crazy only got one vote (one percent).

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Poll 11: How do you react?

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OK, I’m going to be honest — this week’s poll is a hypothetical one that is supposed to give readers the chance to have fun with their responses in the comments section. You don’t have to take it seriously.

In fact, we’re going to have a little fun with it as well.

Answer the question in the poll as normal and then comment. We’re going to do the normal where we’ll give away something from the prize vault for a random commenter.

BUT…

We’re also going to give away some plastic via “Staff Choice.” Basically, it comes down to this — if you create the funniest or most entertaining answer and our staff votes you the winner — you’ll have the disc sent to you. I’m not sure what kind of disc I’ll give away, but you’ll get some plastic if you win!

Anyway, before we get into that, let’s look at last week’s poll about whether or not you are PDGA members.

Of 72, voters, 75 percent said they were current PDGA members. That’s 54 votes. Further, three more votes (4 percent) said they were members, but not current. That means 21 percent (15 votes) of those voting are not PDGA members.

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Poll 5: How many discs do you carry during a round?

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The world of disc golf bags seems to be quite large.

There’s not just a few you can look through to see which one you like best — there are so many! That showed in last week’s poll when we asked our readers what kind of bag they used.

A total of 228 people votes in this poll with the winner being an Innova bag with 59 votes (26 percent). Fade was second with 46 votes (20 percent), followed by Revolution (29 votes/13 percent) and GripEQ (27 votes/12 percent).

The fifth spot went to other brand — so 22 voters use a brand we didn’t list.

There were some interesting bags mentioned, too. Reader Chris Leo talked very highly about the Mystery Ranch Golf Mahal bag. If you haven’t seen one of these yet, follow the link. Wow. Talk about being able to pack a lot of stuff. I’m sure this bag wouldn’t be for a lot of people, but it could be used in a lot of situations!

There also seems to be some love for the GripEQ bags. In the research I’ve done, they seem like a great backpack bag.

At least one reader mentioned being ready to downsize their bag — and I’m on the same page there. Though I love the revolution bag I carry, the reality is I don’t need something that size all the time. So I might be looking to find a good, rugged bag for casual rounds so I can carry fewer discs and have a lighter walk.

One other thing I noticed with some of the responses were people saying they had more than one bag they used. I assume that it’s the difference between serious and casual play. Either way, it seems to be a logical choice for some to have this sort of a setup.

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Poll 4: What kind of disc golf bag do you use?

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Turns out many disc golfers are active in more ways than on the course.

At least according to the poll conducted on Rattling Chains last week. Each votes was able to choose up to three other sports they participated in besides disc golf.

For me, it’s only a couple of things. I like to ride my bike when I get the chance (albeit probably not as much as I should!) and I play softball as much as I can during the spring and summer months.

Outside of that, it’s the occasional hike and disc golf for this guy. And that works well for me. I could probably use a trip to the gym sometimes, but who couldn’t, right?

We didn’t get every sport listed, which kind of stinks with “other” receiving the most votes for the week.

Ninety-two voters took part in this past week’s poll, giving us a total of 178 votes.

Other earned the most with 27 votes for 29 percent of the vote. It was followed by cycling (23 votes, 25 percent). Baseball/softball, ball golf and just disc golf followed with 20 votes each (22 percent).

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Poll 3: What other sports do you play?

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It sounds like many disc golfers don’t like to worry about music playing to get through a tough round.

Last week’s poll produced some excellent comments and thoughts about whether or not one listens to music when playing.

Some do it during casual and not in tournaments. Some seem to need it to really prepare. Others won’t have it at all.

The interesting part is it seemed like a couple people might be talking about having music without headphones. Now that would be crazy and I would not be able to deal with that. Not because of the noise, but because of music preference. If I am in a situation where somebody has a genre of music playing that I don’t care for, I’m just going to get upset.

I’m not playing to get all upset and I’m sure most others aren’t as well.

Well, outside of that missed putt or two.

I personally voted no as I’ve never listened to music when playing. I have, however, kept the iPod in my pocket in case I needed it to block something or someone out. I haven’t had to use it.

Some people had some interesting thoughts, however, so I wanted to share a few of the comments.

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Poll 2: Tunes or no?

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The first week of the poll was a huge success …

… And it took us a while to get everyone into the Random.org setup to be able to randomize and give away a prize!

The results of the poll — how many discs do you own? — were something else, I thought.

The top spots didn’t shock me too much. The 51-100 category won with 153 votes (24 percent of the vote). Second went to 101-200, which received 102 votes (16%). The 21-30 range, which I thought might have been one of the real big ones, came in third with 77 votes (12%).

The one that shocked me, however? Those who voted in the more than 500 discs one — 47 people! That’s 8% of the vote! And that’s a lot of plastic!

That opened my eyes, that’s for sure!

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