4 Disc Golf Tips for the Absolute Beginner
We’ve pondered this sport deeply for half a decade now, and have distilled our best advice to any brand new player into these 4 practical tips. Watch and read on to learn where most newbies go wrong, and how to get started on the right path early without making the same mistakes!
Disc Selection
Learn to walk before you try to run.
There is a famous Reddit post where someone collated data from almost 1500 lost discs they found over the years. They spent a lot of time collecting discs from ponds. The 3 most common lost discs were, by a wide margin, what we call high-speed drivers.
To explain, the traditional large summer-holiday frisbee you are familiar with is a slow disc. A very slow disc by disc golf disc standards. Disc golf discs are smaller, thinner and a lot faster than the traditional “frisbee”. They are designed to travel faster and further, and importantly they are not supposed to be used for games of catch!
When selecting your first discs, think about vehicles. The old slow frisbee you are familiar with is like a bus. Slow and safe. The shiny, skinny, sharp, high speed driver you are eyeing off (like RPM Discs’ Kahu XG or Kotare) is like a Formula 1 car or a superbike. If you go straight from bus to F1 car you will lose control, injure yourself and lose the disc, without ever throwing it well, accurately or very far.
Choosing a disc that is too “fast” is a very common beginner error, and you are free to make it yourself! We sure did.
We strongly recommend that beginners choose a safe disc (we’d suggest RPM’s Ruru, Piwakawaka or the Loop Discs Wonder), a family sedan or hatchback if you allow us to push the analogy further, and enjoy getting used to their slower and straighter flight before launching your first Kahu into the lake. Because you will launch your Kahu into the lake at some point.
Grip
This is pretty straightforward, and there's load of content out there that explains disc golf grip’s in depth. In summary, choose a grip (or two) and stick to it. Your grip should be comfortable, powerful and repeatable.
The two most common grips are:
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Fan Grip: With fingers spread across the bottom of the disc and thumb firmly on top. This is great for accuracy but can’t handle much power.
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Power Grip: With all 4 fingers tucked firmly into the rim of the disc, and thumb closer to the rim. As the name suggests this feels more powerful, and can withstand much more arm speed when you really start ripping the disc.
Fan Grip
Power Grip
Your favourite grip will probably change over time anyway so don’t overthink this. Just play around with this a bit, and once you have found something that works for you, stick with it.
NOTE: We are not discussing forehand techniques in this article. Forehands are sweet to throw, and worth investing time in later, but starting with a backhand usually suits most new players. Also, different forehand grip techniques are a deeeep rabbit hole to go down!
Upper Body
The most common error is people trying to generate power by winding-up the upper body and curling the elbow in the process, then wildly unwinding and sending the disc in a generally too-high and uncontrolled direction! We’ve all done it, it’s ok if you do too.
The disc golf throw or “swing” is about efficiency and straight lines. Once you develop decent technique it is remarkably easy to throw a disc 80+ metres with minimal effort.
Watch our video for a demonstration, but in essence when you reach back you should get good shoulder rotation and the arm should extend straight and slightly away from the body, not curling up and tucked behind the body. Then when you rip through on the disc it travels in a straight line, with more speed, less stress on the body, and usually a lot straighter toward the target.
The “pull-through” should be flat and level, then make sure you allow all the left-over energy to follow through with a nice arm swing and the lower body rotation, to look like a boss and prevent injury.
Bad reach-back
Good reach-back!
Lower Body
If you want to throw a disc accurately and far then what your feet are doing is probably more important than what your arms are doing! With good footwork, anything is possible. With dodgy footwork you will remain severely limited.
We have one mate who has persisted with a “standstill” shot for 5 years of play, but he is a weirdo (who we love dearly) and he can still blast a disc 120m without so much as a step.
The rest of us like to take a few steps before we throw. This facilitates a loose body, reduces the risk of injury, sets up for a beautiful follow-through and most importantly helps you throw further!
Essentially you should practise a tight and tidy 1, 2, 3 step on each throw. The beauty of this motion is that you can practise it anywhere. If you play for a while you will catch yourself practising your x-step in the hallway, in the kitchen, on the train. Watch our video above for the full demonstration.
The x-step should become automatic, and we’d strongly recommend learning it as early as possible so you entrench good habits from the start. Also it feels cool, looks cool, and is fun!
Recapping on these basic disc golf tips
So…if you’ve made it this far, good for you. You’re clearly interested in the sport. Here’s a summary of what we’ve discussed:
- Discs - choose the right disc. The high speed discs will come soon enough. RPM’s Ruru, Piwakawaka or Loop Discs Wonder are bloody good starting points.
- Grip. Fan Grip for accuracy, Power Grip for distance. Play around and see what works for you!
- Upper body. Think straight lines. Reach straight back, and pull through flat and level. Follow through smoothly to dissipate any leftover energy and to just look smooth and cool. Because disc golf IS cool.
- Lower body. Learn the x-step early. Practise it often.
Hopefully this isn’t too much information. If someone had just told us these things when we started, we would probably have ignored them and kept blasting our Kahus (yes, plural) into the rough, but at least we would have had a chance to avoid some bad habits which we are still undoing now!
Stay safe and happy chucking.