Two universal truths — and 7.5 tips — to help improve your putting

By Jack Trageser — Rattling Chains Staff

Anyone who plays golf of any kind understands putting is a big part of the game.

Surprisingly, though, most don’t take the time to develop the systematic approach required to produce real and lasting improvement. That’s good news for those who are willing to do so — assuming you’re interested in having an advantage that directly translates to lower scores and more fun After all, missed putts aren’t fun.

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As the title of this posts claims, we’ll examine 7.5 ways to help you in this regard. First, a good way to start is by recognizing there are two universal truths in regard to putting in disc golf (and ball golf, for that matter):

1. Consistent putting is a major component to consistently scoring well in disc golf.

2. More than any other element of the game, good putting requires a solid, well-developed mental game.

The first point is important if you play tournaments, leagues, or any other type of competition where scores are accumulated over numerous rounds. You may shoot a hot round (where you’re in the zone) every now and then, but unless you consistently make a large majority of the putts, you won’t consistently score well, regardless of how great the rest of your game is.

Everyone can relate to how frustrating it is to have the best drives all round yet end up not having the best score.

The second point is the theme that ties together the tips listed below. Players are different in terms of the physical aspects of putting technique, and what works for one player (grip, stance, form, etc.) won’t necessarily work for the next. Everyone, however, faces the same challenges and can benefit from these approaches.

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Happy Independence Day!

By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

What better way to celebrate America’s birthday than rattling some chains today, right?

But before you head out, here’s some eye candy in the form of patriotic disc art. A big thanks to the readers who contributed these photos for everyone else to enjoy.

Be safe, have fun, and happy Independence Day!

A patriot on a Legacy Patriot, courtesy of Adam Hassett of Sweet Hat! Disc Supply.

A patriot on a Legacy Patriot, courtesy of Adam Hassett of Sweet Hat! Disc Supply.

A red, white, and blue shaving cream dye, courtesy of Brian Pierce.

A red, white, and blue shaving cream dye, courtesy of Brian Pierce.

A whole stash of U.S.A.-themed discs, courtesy of Army Infantry Sergeant Andrew Belet. Thank you for your service!

A whole stash of U.S.A.-themed discs, courtesy of Army Infantry Sergeant Andrew Belet. Thank you for your service!

More patriots, this time with the spin-dye treatment by Dan Howard on some Skulboy discs. Photo courtesy of Skulboy himself.

More patriots, this time with the spin-dye treatment by Dan Howard on some Skulboy discs. Photo courtesy of Skulboy.

Regardless of your political leanings, Kevin Morrow's talent shown on this glow Leopard is undeniable.

Regardless of your political leanings, Kevin Morrow’s talent shown on this glow Leopard is undeniable.

Nothing like getting a flag dye straight from the Innova factory on an Augusta Wraith, courtesy of Jeff Corbin.

Nothing like getting a flag dye straight from the Innova factory on an Augusta Wraith, courtesy of Jeff Corbin.

A Dynamic Discs Dyemax in honor of 9/11, courtesy of Wade Racher.

A Dynamic Discs Dyemax in honor of 9/11, courtesy of Wade Racher.

A disc alone wasn't enough for Kevin Morrow, who also blasts these patriotic chains.

A disc alone wasn’t enough for Kevin Morrow, who also blasts these patriotic chains.

Steve Hill is the associate editor for Rattling Chains. Email him at steve@rattlingchains.com and follow him on Twitter @OneMileMore.

Schusterick overcomes heat, himself to win Beaver State Fling

By Steve Hill – Rattling Chains staff

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster season for Will Schusterick.

After a dubious, dramatic playoff victory at the Memorial that found him in it only because of a scorecard error, he then posted an eighth place finish at the Texas State Championships, followed by 13th and 10th place National Tour showings.

Will Schusterick throws during this past weekend’s Beaver State Fling. (photo courtesy PDGA Media).

A couple of top-five finishes later, though, and as the season rolls toward the World Championships it seems Schusterick is peaking again at the right time.

The fourth-ranked player in the world took a share of the lead early at last weekend’s Beaver State Fling in Estacada, Oregon and never looked back, holding on for a two shot victory with a 35-under-par 209 to earn $3,600 in prize money.

Nate Doss shot a 33-under 211 to take second place and earn $2,300, while Ricky Wysocki and Dave Feldberg tied for the third place purse of $1,685 with 32-under 212s. Adam Hunt threw a 31-under 213 to round out the top five and take home $1,400.

Heading into Sunday’s final round with a two-stroke lead over Feldberg, Schusterick said his consistently long drives saved him on a day where he lost his putting stroke for the first part of the round.

“I actually missed seven putts inside the circle the last round, but they were all for birdie,” Schusterick said. “I was putting horribly the last round. Like, terrible.”

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McBeth puts on his Sunday best for KCWO win

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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Poll 61: Disc golf plans for the summer

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.

weekly_pollSummer, 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

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.

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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

(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)

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!

Poll 60: Putting style

So how do you putt?

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

weekly_pollMaybe 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

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.

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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?

Let’s be serious here.

Well, not so serious.

weekly_poll

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!

More on that in a moment.

First, let’s check back with last week’s poll and see what some readers had to say.

Last week, we asked you how far you would walk or hike to play a disc golf course. Only 73 of you voted, but it was still somewhat surprising how the results panned out.

The winning selection was more than a mile, picked by 25 (34 percent) of the voters. A quarter of a mile (18 votes/25 percent) was next, followed by a mile (12 votes/16 percent), half a mile (11 votes/15 percent) and across the parking lot (7 votes/10 percent).

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