McBeth puts on his Sunday best for KCWO win

June 18, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

Sunday just seems to be Paul McBeth’s day.

After trailing Nikko Locastro by two strokes heading into the final day of play at last weekend’s Kansas City Wide Open, the reigning World Champion shot a combined 73 over 27 holes to leapfrog Locastro and secure the win and the $2,240 payout with a 47-under par 224.

Paul McBeth earned his second National Tour victory of the year this past weekend, rallying to win the Kansas City Wide Open. (photo courtesy PDGA Media)

Nate Doss notched his highest National Tour finish of the season, earning $1,715 for second place with a 42-under 229, while Locastro finished in third with a 39-under 232 to win $1,310. Paul Ulibarri (-37, 234) and Will Schusterick (-32, 209 without Final 9 participation) rounded out the Top 5.

For McBeth, his Sunday performance followed the pattern of his other two big victories this year at the “Steady” Ed Memorial Master’s Cup and the Copenhagen Open — play solid opening rounds to stay within a few throws of contention, then play lights out on the final day to blow past the competition.

The 22-year-old said the finality of a tournament’s last day motivates him to succeed.

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The summer is arriving — time to step back and huck some plastic

June 14, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

By Steve Hill — Rattling Chains staff

In the immortal words of Alice Cooper, “School’s out for summer.”

Substitute “disc golf website” for “school,” and you’ll see what we’re getting at here.

The staff at Rattling Chains has decided to take a summer break, if you will, to recharge the batteries and make sure we are still bringing you the best disc golf content the Internet has to offer.

Truth is, we feel like we just finished final exams and need to blow off some steam.

With new employment opportunities, family commitments, and the desire to, you know, actually play disc golf, the day-to-day running of the site was turning into a bit of a grind. Since the handful of people behind this site are volunteers, and we all have things other than the site that take precedence, we felt it was important to take a step back, breathe, and get back to why we started things here in the first place.

The end result is, outside of our coverage of the PDGA National Tour, no new posts are scheduled to run starting this weekend until Labor Day.

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Poll 61: Disc golf plans for the summer

June 11, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

Officially, summer doesn’t start until June 21 in many parts of the world. But for a lot of parts, it’s also already feeling like summer.

Well, some of the time.

Summer, of course, is also the time when disc golf really amps up. With tournaments and casual rounds and road trips… it’s the perfect time to be involved in the sport.

So we want to know your summer disc golf plans. More playing? More courses? A road trip?

But we’ll get to that in a moment.

First, let’s check back to last week’s poll when we asked what style of putt you use. As expected, it was pretty split.

The winning form was a push putt, which received 75 of the 226 votes — 33 percent. Following that was a spin putt (56 votes/25 percent) and straddle putt (31 votes/14 percent). After that was the pitch (30 votes/13 percent), then I don’t know what it’s called, but it works for me (27 votes/12 percent). Other followed with 6 votes (3 percent) and turbo putt (1 vote/0 percent).

Let’s see what some readers had to say.

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Product Review: MVP Tensor

June 7, 2013 / P.J. / 2 Comments

By Steve Hill, Jack Trageser, and P.J. Harmer – Rattling Chains staff

When I spoke with Chad and Brad Richardson, the brothers behind MVP Disc Sports, for an article late last year, I specifically asked them how their signature overmold would translate to a truly overstable disc design.

To that point, MVP had not released anything with serious beef to it, but Chad mentioned that, due to the gyroscopic nature of the overmold, their version of a meathook would have more of a forward-penetrating, transitional fade as opposed to just dumping off at the end.

The MVP Tensor.

With the Tensor, MVP’s new overstable mid-range, they nailed it spot on.

Packing plenty of stability in the beginning of its flight and a nice, late, smooth fade, the Tensor is an excellent addition to MVP’s current crop of mid-ranges.

I was able to throw a 167-gram Tensor, which is a bit lighter than I normally use for mid-ranges. However, I think the lighter weight in this case was helpful, as I was still able to get the Tensor up to its cruising speed with a little less effort. When thrown off the tee, I was getting dead straight for about 85 percent of the flight, with a solid finish right (I’m a lefty). Without sounding blasphemous, off the tee, it flew like a shorter Teebird.

But this disc is no one-trick pony. While it is overstable enough to provide a hook, it handles low lines very well and, when powered up and thrown low, loses the fade and just becomes a laser. When powered down, it can be used on short flex shots around trees to provide a reliable landing right near the basket.

The best part of this disc, though, is how it resists turning over, even when torqued with bad form. I have done it quite a few times with the Tensor off the tee, where I try and overpower it to make sure I get some distance, and rather than holding left like a lot of mids will, it will nicely “S” back to its fade. In this sense, it is extremely reliable.

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Photo Focus: June 6

June 6, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

(Photo focus will run every week or two or so on Rattling Chains. The idea is to focus on disc golf photographs submitted by staff members and readers. To see the guidelines for submitting a photograph for this feature, click here.)

Eric McCabe at the Too Many Days In May tournament in Virginia. (photo by Kevin Morrow)

This years Too Many Days In May tournament concluded with a two-day professional A-tier event at The Blockhouse in Spotsylvania, Virginia.

Several top professionals showed up, including Ricky Wysocki, Michael Johanson, Eric McCabe and Sarah Hokom.

The opportunitiy to shoot some top pros at a local course doesn’t come around too often. Out of all the images I took that weekend some of the best shots came from the Darkside No. 17. The Darkside is not just the name of the course. It’s a heavily wooded course with a thick canopy that makes action shots difficult.

The 17th hole is great to shoot. There is a large tree about 150 feet from down the fairway, where it crests enough to make the tee pad below my shooting position.

Basically, I hid behind the tree and poked the camera out enough to get a shot. With the players teeing off directly in front of you, you get a great tee shot. There are not many courses where you can pull this off. It takes being a little aggressive in picking a spot, but on this hole I was hiding so well most players didn’t even notice me.

The best shot happened to be Eric McCabe and I was able to time his throw pretty well.

— Kevin Morrow

Techie info:

Camera: Nikon D2x
Aperture: ƒ/4
Exposure: 1/640
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO: 800

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!

Wysocki extends NT points lead; Hokom takes women’s crown

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

By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

Elevation? No problem.

Bum leg? Not an issue.

Course record? No big deal. Twice.

Ricky Wysocki earned his third National Tour event of the season this past weekend at the Great Lakes Open. (photo courtesy of PDGA Media)

That sums up Ricky Wysocki’s performance at this past weekend’s Great Lakes Open National Tour Series event, where the Prodigy phenom racked up his third NT victory with a three-round 32-under-par 154.

Prodigy teammate Garrett Gurthie shot a 23-under par 163 to place second, and Will Schusterick and Devan Owens tied for third place with 22-under 164s. Paul McBeth rounded out the top five with a 24-under 165, which took place at the much-revered Toboggan Championship Course at Kensington Metropark in Milford, Michigan.

As has been the case in the other events he has won this year, though, this one was all Wysocki from the first day.

After Owens held the lead briefly with a course-record 52 on Friday, Wysocki bested the score later that day with an 11-under 51. Wysocki then took that one shot lead and extended it to six by throwing a 1077-rated 50 – breaking his own Toboggan course record, all while playing through a calf injury – on Saturday.

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Poll 60: Putting style

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

So how do you putt?

Do you fire it away and hope for the best? Straddle? Push?

Maybe something totally different?

Heck, maybe it’s even something different we didn’t include in the poll?

We’ll get back to that in a moment. First, let’s re-visit last weeks poll, where we asked you if those of you who had a three-day weekend played disc golf over it.

And it sounds like most of you made it a disc golf weekend. Of the 95 people who voted, 83 (87 percent) said they did. Then there were 12 (13 percent) who said they didn’t.

Now let’s take a peek to see what a few people had to say.

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Confessions of a lightweight

May 31, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

It took me a long time to work up to this point, but I am finally ready to admit the truth:

I’m a lightweight, and proud of it.

In a game dominated by those throwing max weight drivers in search of the biggest distance – and, in many cases, ego – possible, I am man enough to admit that I am perfectly content throwing my Latitude 64 Opto Diamond for most drives. Standing out on the fairway with its hot pink hue and weighing in at a whopping 154 grams, it is now a staple of my game.

In fact, I am building all of my drivers around this weight class for the foreseeable future, and I am quite pleased with the results so far.

It hasn’t always been like this, though. In fact, during my two-plus years of disc golfing, I have taken some bad advice, ignored some good, and felt some pain to finally get to this point.

Let’s start with the bad advice.

When I first started playing, I headed out to league night at my local course – not to play, but to learn. The president of the local club was nice enough to show me around and take a look in my bag, which at the time consisted of an Innova DX Valkyrie and the Leopard/Shark/Aviar trifecta found in the company’s starter pack sold in big box stores.

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Poll 59: Did you play this weekend?

May 28, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

Let’s be serious here.

Well, not so serious.

Sometimes, these polls will take a light-hearted approach to try and get some discussion going and just see what people are doing in the world of disc golf.

That’s kind of where we’re going with this week’s poll.

In the United States, this past weekend (for most people) was a long, three-day one. With a federal holiday on Monday, that made for some free time.

So we’re curious about those of you who played this weekend and if you have any stories!

TeeBoxx seeks to be more than a vending machine

May 24, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

After spending most of his life working in marketing and advertising, which included producing commercials and an ill-fated anti-hangover beverage, Aaron Martin said he realized he needed to branch out on his own.

“I got tired of making other businesses money,” he said. “So that’s why I started going into business for myself.”

As a longtime member of the Omaha, Nebraska disc golf scene and a former player for Team Discraft, Martin has watched the sport grow to its current level, bringing both new players and business opportunities to the table. But he has also witnessed firsthand the wear and tear associated with the sport’s boom.

“After playing a lot of courses all over the country, I saw a lot of erosion and trash, and a lot of things that needed to be updated,” Martin said. “That was part of the problem, so I sought out to find a solution.”

That solution has manifested in the form of TeeBoxx, the automated disc golf retail center and accompanying business Martin and his partners have pioneered.

More than a machine

The story of TeeBoxx is nearly five years in the making. Recognizing that most of the money coming through disc golf was associated with retail, Martin – who now serves as the company’s chief marketing officer – and his partners decided that an automated machine was the best way to offer something new.

“Disc golf has been something that I’ve really wanted to be a part of and somehow figure out a sustainable business through it,” he said.

At its most basic level, TeeBoxx is a vending machine much like those that dispense candy and other snacks. With the familiar spinning coils holding discs in place and a keypad used to make a selection, the mechanism is one most people should be familiar with.

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