Beginners Guide to Discs

Disc Golf Discs

In Disc Golf, there are 3 main categories of discs ( putter, mid-range, driver) you will find 1 of each in all good starter packs. the idea is that just like ball golf, we use a driver for the first shot, then use the mid range to approach the basket, and putt with the putter. 

Throwing the Disc

As a Beginner, you should focus on learning how to throw your 'mid-range' disc well and then build on that, once you start to learn how to control that, every thing else will start to make sense, just because the driver has a deeper and sharper rim, doesn't automatically make it go further. learning to throw a disc isn't as easy as throwing a frisbee unfortunately, we recommend 'Over Throw Disc Golf' on youtube, that will get you on the right track nice and early on, and hopefully help prevent you from any avoidable injuries from throwing too hard, with poor form. (smooth is fast & fast is far)

Flight Numbers

The golden rule to remember when it comes to flight numbers is, they are all different and there is no official standard, use them as a guide only, here's a basic rundown :

Speed, its the first number in the group of digits you will see on the front of your discs

1 - 3 : Putter  //   4 - 5 : Mid-range  //  6 - 10 : Fairway Driver  //  11 + Distance Driver

The Speed is the most important number on a disc, it affects all the other flight numbers too. The speed doesn't actually tell you how  far it goes,  it's telling you how fast (not hard) it needs to be thrown to fly how it was designed to.

Glide, is the second number and usually sits between 3 and 6 it higher the number the more glide the disc has which helps it stay in the air. But, glide is relative to the speed of the disc, a 2 speed putter with 3 glide, has way more glide than a 9 speed with 4 glide.

Turn, the 3rd number in the line tells you if the disc will want to turn in the direction of the spin when thrown, usually this number is a negative ( -1) the higher the number (-3) the more the disc will try to turn.

Fade, the final flight number tells you how much fade at the end of the discs flight to expect, the higher the number the more it will fight against the rotation direction. 

Bonus flight info you need to know

Stability, there is 3 terms that refer to the flight characteristics of a disc

Stable - minimal turn & minimal fade

Understable - more turn than fade

Overstable - enough fade to overcome any turn

eg, a disc with flight numbers of 5,4,-1,1 is a straight flying stable midrange, 7,5,0,2 is a overstable fairway driver, and 9,5,-,3,1 is what's known as an understable fairway driver

Other terms you will hear, Hyzer and Annhyzer, this refers to the angle or the disc as you release the disc, hyzer means the outer edge away from your grip is lower than your hand, annhyzer is the opposite, where the far edge is higher than your hand.

 

Hopefully you are not too confused, its a lot to learn but its all good to know!