Tips for Playing Frisbee Golf in Winter

Are the cold days of winter keeping you away from your beloved Frisbees?

While Frisbee Golf is a summer sport, it's also one that can be fully enjoyed in the winter. Here are a few tips for winter play:

1. Invest in Hand Warmers 

If you are going to play cold rounds regularly, or it isn't ridiculously cold in your area, a rechargeable hand warmer may be sufficient to keep your hands toasty enough to give you the confidence you need to make a putt.

Personally, I have terrible circulation and the rechargeable hand warmer just doesn't produce enough heat for me. Disposable "Hot Hands" are a must play for winter rounds. I typically use a large mitten for my throwing hand and put the hot hand in it to keep the blood flowing to my throwing hand.

2. For Heavy Snow - Use Ribbons

For a few of your drivers, tape ribbons on your frisbees. I've found that quality Scotch Packaging tape works best. A simple X pattern tape job on top of the disc should last you all winter. When the disc goes under the snow the ribbon stays above which allows you to easily find it. If you thought locating discs in the summer was hard enough, try in a foot of fresh powder in the winter.

When applying ribbons, it is very important to do it at room temperature inside your house. I recommend doing it a day or two before you go out to play so that you can allow your discs to cool to outside temperatures before playing. When discs are warm and snow is cold you get far more moisture collected on them which requires lots more wiping.

If you tape a ribbon to a cold disc, there is a good chance that it will fall off, your disc will fly less far, and it will get lost anyways which defeats the whole purpose of having the ribbon in the first place.

3. Add Kool Aid to Your Frisbee

While ribbons are excellent tools to help you locate your discs, the reality is that the ribbon itself creates a lot of drag and greatly reduces flight distance. For ease of disc finding without losing 30% of your distance, try dumping a little bit of Koolaid powder on your disc. As your disc hits the snow it "marks" the spot with your favorite color. This doesn't always leave a mark, and makes your discs stained and sticky, but in some instances can be worth it.

4. Learn to Throw Stand Still

For winter play, your footing will be one of the biggest handicapps. Slipping while throwing is a quick way to add numerous strokes (and frustration) to your Frisbee golf round. Being able to throw standing still is a huge advantage that will translate into improved abilities for those awkward situations during summer rounds as well.

5. Carry lots of Towels

When a disc is cold and wet it is much harder to grip but easy to slip. I especially struggle with forehand shots with wet discs, so keeping them dry is very important. A good disc golf towels is especially important when the discs you are throwing are cold. A warm disc on cold snow causes it to melt which requires lots of wiping. If you keep your discs outside in your car trunk, there will be far less wiping required. I found that "waffle weave" style towels are the perform best for keeping discs dry, especially when weather conditions make it impossible to keep a towel completely dry.

6. Have a different set of discs for snow play

Choose More Understable Discs
For snow play, you will likely not throw with the normal power you have in prime weather conditions. For this reason more understable discs will likely provide more distance. For my winter disc golf discs I like to have a few drivers with ribbons (for the especially risky throws). I keep these discs specifically for winter disc golf and have one disc that has had the same ribbon on it for six seasons now!

Choose Discs With Better Grip

Because grip is so much more difficult in cold wet conditions, plastic type makes a big difference. My personal favorite discs for snow play include Vibram Rubber (unfortunately Vibram no longer manufacturers discs), Infinite I-Blend and base plastic discs. The other nice thing about I-Blend and base plastics is that they are very inexpensive, so if you do lose a disc in the snow, the loss doesn't sting quite as badly.

Choose Discs that Are Visible in The Snow

For snowy frisbee golf, choose discs that will easily stand out in the snow (obviously not white, but if you want to make your friends really angry, throw a white disc in the snow and have them help you find it). I find day glow yellow and pink to be the colors that stand out best in the snow. These colors become almost translucent.

Black Friday Frisbee Golf Deals

Do you love Black Friday Deals?

Do you, or a loved one of yours love Frisbee Golf?

This is your guide to Black Friday Disc Golf Deals. This post will be updated as we find out more deals, but here is what we know so far.

Mystery Deals Boxes

One of the best ways to get a lot of plastic for your dollar is with a mystery or deals box. Here are a couple of the ones I recommend.

Discraft Mystery Box

The Discraft Mystery Box is by far the most screamin' Black Friday disc golf deal in all of disc golf. You get a pack of 10 discs (mostly misprints, but often some collectible discs too) for about $5 each.

Infinite Deals Box

While the value isn't quite as impressive as the Discraft Mystery Box, the quality is better, especially if you aren't a friend of Discraft frisbee golf discs. The fun thing about this box is that you are guaranteed a variety of discs from a variety of different brands. The Infinite Deals box is also designed to be a "move up pack" from a starter set and guarantees you a putter, midrange,  understable driver, and overstable driver to give you a full bag of frisbee golf options.

7 Premium Plastic Discs - $62.99

Individual Frisbee Doorbuster Deals

Infinite Discs has black friday deals all week long featuring a different disc manufacturer each day.

I-Blend Discs - $9.99. For all of black Friday weak. I-Blend is my favorite disc golf plastic for drivers. It is soft and grippy and glides sooo far.

Trilogy Day - Thursday. 
Infinite Discs will have select Premium Plastic Frisbee golf discs on  sale $9.99 -- That's nearly 50% off! These include glow and MyDye discs that retail for nearly $20.

Discraft Day - Tuesday
Titanium Plastic Discs - $10.99
The discs that will be on sale include the Buzzz, Force, Vulture, Comet, Zone, Predator and more. Paul Mcbeth, the #1 ranked disc golfer in the world will be throwing Discraft for the 2019 season so this is a great opportunity to try out some of these discs.

The Coolest Looking Frisbee Golf Discs You Will Ever See

I just got to see the coolest looking Frisbee Golf Discs I have ever seen. Discraft has a new "full foil" disc style that looks just amazing. While most frisbee golf manufacturers hot stamp foil on discs, Discraft makes the entire disc FOIL! This enables it to sparkle and shine with different light. Basically, these things just look amazing. I'm not sure how durable they are when thrown, but at $27 a disc, not sure many people will actually be throwing them.

Not only is the full foil amazing, but as 2019 Ledgestone Insurance Open fundraisers, these frisbees also have some sick bee themed stamps.  Because they are highly sought after by disc collectors, these discs will be hard to get your to find.  There are currently seven limited bee edition Buzzz's available.

Leafcutter Bee

Bumble Bee

 Franklin's Bumble Bee

 Killer Bee

 Honey Bee

 Digger Bee

 Robot Bee

Rovic Frisbee Golf Cart

I got a chance to test out the new Rovic RV1D disc golf cart. This is a great way to carry around all the discs you want, without all that weight on your back. It's a pretty good set up. Check out some pictures for this cart here:

The umbrella holder on this cart is legit. I can stand up full height and be protected from the rain hands free! One of the most annoying things during a rainy disc golf round is having to put your umbrella down to throw or putt. With this, your umbrella is always up. 

The handy "cell phone" holder parket is the perfect place to store your phone, keys, mini marker disc, or some hot hands for those cold fall disc golf rounds.

The cart contains a seat for those slow tournament rounds where you just want to sit down during the slow backups. The way this seat works is a little bit different as the seat is suspended by the wheel support. It only actually sits on the ground, and supports your weight once the bottom touches the ground like a one leg stool.

The seat is an optional accessory that is not included in the $199 price.

Another optional accessory is the cooler bag. This has a built in cooler that will hold your lunch, extra beverages, a few discs, or anything else giving you lots of storage to bring whatever you want on your disc golf round.

On the top right you can see the green yellow by the handlebar that acts as the brake. When down, this ensures that your cart and disc golf bag are not going to roll down the hill.

As you can see from this seemingly unnecessary wheel cover, this cart is modified from a traditional golf push cart, Rovic is a company that also makes carts for ball golf. 

And that's the whole fancy setup. If you want to get lots of compliments on the course, pick up a Rovic RV1D cart today.

Review of the New Innova Discover Bag

I took a family trip to Moab, Utah this weekend and used it as an opportunity to test out the new Innova Discover Bag.

The Innova Discover Pack is an INCREDIBLY CHEAP backpack style frisbee golf bag. It is currently the least expensive backpack style bag on the market.

As is the case with most things, you get what you pay for. And while this is an adequate bag to carry your Frisbee golf discs, it is nowhere remotely close to the quality of a more expensive back pack. All in all it is a good bag for the price and will meet the needs of many recreational Frisbee golf players.

The material of the Discover Bag is light weight and relatively flimsy. The bag itself only weighs about one pound which is a pro because of the light weight, but surely won't be as durable as heavier and more dense material. I found the bag very comfortable to wear unlike many of the more expensive backpacks I have tried. A nice thing about the light material is that I was able to fold it up very compactly which helped it fit in my car where I had limited space. While the main material is very thin, the bottom of the bag is enforced with a U-Shape cardboard enforced lining which helps the discs remain upright and will help the bag last longer in the areas it is most vulnerable to wear and tear.

The annoying thing about the flimsiness of the bag is that it easily tipped over, and did not hold my water bottle well (as evidenced in the above photos).  The course I played was hilly, so the bag tipped over easily and several times the discs spilled out. I didn't have the bag filled to capacity and perhaps that would have prevented the disc spills.

Pros of the Discover Bag

• Incredible Value (Starter bag price for a backpack!)
• Comfortable
• Holds up to 18 discs (more than any starter bag)
• Takes up hardly any space, great for travel.

Cons of the Innova Discover Pack

• Not likely to last multiple years of use
• Tips over easily and spills discs when on hills

Overall, if you're looking for a backpack style bag at a budget price that will hold 15+ discs, the Discover Pack is worth the investment. This bag is excellent as travel bag due to its light weight and the fact that it can fold up to take up less space.