The Ins And Outs Of Disc Golf Clubs Part 1 - Setting The Record Straight

Within the sport of disc golf, there are a variety of ways to become involved. We spend a lot of time focusing on how to be a great volunteer at your local course, ways to help support TD’s in the area, and more, but there’s one element that’s not often discussed when it comes to the sport we love. Starting and running a disc golf club is a great way to boost involvement in your area and expose others to the game, but do you know how to actually do it?

In this blog series, we’re going to dive deep into the inner workings of disc golf clubs. What makes them great? How can they be run efficiently and effectively? What are the benefits and potential drawbacks to such a formal group? Get ready to learn all you ever wanted to know about disc golf clubs, but first, let’s make a few clarifications about this important topic.

What Exactly Are We Talking About?

There seems to be a ton of confusion around the idea of disc golf clubs, as many people get this concept confused with leagues and events. Before we go any further into this topic, it’s crucial to understand that a league is not a club! Organized events like bag tag challenges, tournaments, and weekly leagues are all run by clubs but they are not clubs themselves.

Sure, putting on any kind of event can be challenging, and the people who take the time out of their busy lives to ensure that everything runs smoothly deserve a huge pat on the back. However, we’re going to talk about the other kinds of tasks required in order to form and start a club, not a league.

Check Your Motivations

Before you even embark upon the checklist of things to consider when starting a disc golf club, it’s important to make sure you’re clear about your intentions. If there are five other disc golf clubs in the greater metro area where you live, why are you starting a sixth? Will your club have a specific focus or is it simply to spread the word about the sport?

DD team member Jake Key has been involved in several disc golf clubs over the years, and they have always had very clear goals in mind. “The first [club] was for juniors only. I focused on getting students excited first about something they hadn’t done before,” he explained. At the time Jake was a PE teacher and used the club idea as a way to introduce disc golf to the kids who were interested. He took this same concept and applied it to another club in Wisconsin, acting as the club President and working with other players to promote disc golf on a college campus that already had a course installed.

Once you’re clear on why you’re starting your disc golf club, next comes the important task of actually organizing it! Make sure to stay tuned to read the rest of this blog series and uncover the ins and outs of disc golf clubs.

Falling In Love With Disc Golf - How Did You Get Your Start?

Nowadays, most kids are exposed to a handful of sports in school, and whether it be baseball, soccer, basketball, or football, it’s a safe bet that every kid in America has played or at least watched one of these activities well before they hit puberty. Some parts of the country may have other sports in the mix like lacrosse or hockey but rarely do we see a huge group of kids exposed to disc golf at a young age.

It’s something that many people are trying to change, and between the #growthesport movement and various individuals working to promote disc golf within their own schools and communities, we’ve come a long way. The fact of the matter is, though, that for the last few decades at least, people started falling in love with disc golf as adults.

Exceptions To The Rule

Of course, we can’t say that disc golf and adulthood go hand in hand - take Paige Pierce, for example, who started on the course with her dad at age 4. Naturally, this allowed her years of practice and has certainly helped her to get to where she is today. DD team member Steven Jacobs first dabbled in the sport during junior high, and while he didn’t get competitive until a few years later, he certainly started playing far sooner than many others. A part of the Dynamic Discs family for the last few years, AJ Risley has been disc golfing since age 10.

We often see disc golfers proudly showing off their children making putts in diapers on the family basket or posing their newborns with minis in their tiny hands, and without a doubt the sport is moving in the direction where so many more kids will be able to determine if they like disc golf right alongside learning how to ride a bike.

Is Later Better?

While it’s natural to think that the more time you have with a sport the better you will be, that’s not always the case. Dustin Keegan is currently rated 1019 and didn’t pick up disc golf until he was 20 despite living right next to a course for much of his childhood. Making a huge impact on the 2019 season, Missy Gannon didn’t play disc golf until her adulthood, and even then, had to give it multiple tries before she finally took to it.

Some might argue that adults can pick up the game just as easily as kids can, especially since they have more years of experience understanding how their body works and can learn about disc molds and flight paths with ease. However, being able to learn and practice your craft from a young age may bring just as much value to the table.

We want to hear from you - do you think it makes a difference when it comes to skill level and the age in which you learn how to play disc golf? How old were you when you first started the sport, and how has that influenced your current success? Let us know in the comments below!

Dynamic Discs Retired Molds Official Announcement

When we recognized that 90% of our sales came from 22 of our 34 molds, we knew that we needed to make the bold decision to retire twelve molds.

Last weeks announcement in regards to retiring twelve molds created quite the conversation, maybe even controversy. My phone started blowing up with both praises and concerns or frustrations. As always, we appreciate the feedback and passionate following. It is your passion that keeps us getting up early in the morning to come and work in the disc golf world that we love so much. It is your passion that keeps growing disc golf, and we look forward to continuing to lead the charge together to take disc golf to new heights.

Our focus has been scattered and pulled in so many different directions to cater to every demand and request. We have delivered in so many different ways since introducing our first four molds in December of 2012. We have 34 active molds in production today and 22 of those account for 90% of our sales. Think about that for a minute. When we recognized that 90% of our sales came from 22 of our 34 molds, we knew that we needed to make the bold decision to retire twelve molds. This decision will allow us to focus 100% of our energy towards doing a better job marketing, promoting, advertising, and featuring these molds that have grown to be favorites for so many of our fans.

As I write this, I’m probably just in as much shock as you to know that the bottom 10% of our sales are done across twelve molds. I personally bag and throw four of these twelve molds. Turns out, just like many of you, I almost never lose these discs. I rarely need a replacement, and the replacement that I have in my storage bin probably won’t need to come out for a very long time.

The most important thing is that this allows our retail partners to stock what is actually selling and clear up shelving space for better color and weight varieties of what is actually selling. This allows for us to increase production runs and provide better color and weight variation for what is in the highest demand. This allows for more unique combinations in our chosen 22 molds.

At the end of the day, it is our retail partners that face the biggest challenges by stocking so many molds. Sales indicate that if a retailer stocked a rack of discs from each mold (12 discs), they would sell less than one from each rack per year. Stocking twelve discs to only sell one is not a recipe for a successful retail operation. We need our retail partners to be successful and win in order to stay in business. We all want to WIN. We believe that focusing on our most popular molds will allow our retailers to WIN.

The good thing about someone or something that becomes retired, is that it can always come back to service! My father retired from the civil engineering career a few years ago after more than 40 years of service. His retirement was short lived and he went back to work part-time because he missed providing his services to better our city and county infrastructure and safety. I am confident that much like my father, some of these retired molds will miss their service and need to be called back to action through limited runs or custom runs that are in high demand. We look forward to the opportunities that this will present to some of our retailers by utilizing the custom run program to bring some of these molds back. At current sales volumes, in some of these molds, we might have years of inventory left on hand; others might only have a couple of months. With that being said, I would imagine sales will spike for a couple of weeks while passionate throwers buy an extra backup or two just in case of the dreaded day of losing a disc.

And now it is time to list the twelve molds that will go into retirement in no particular order:

1. Proof
2. Gavel
3. Evidence
4. Patrol
5. Thief
6. Witness
7. Renegade
8. Freedom
9. Criminal
10. Suspect
11. Warrant
12. Slammer

Don’t lose your faith in Dynamic Discs and know that we are always working on something, and for right now, that is to better support our retail partners by honing in on the most important key products that drive revenue to pay the bills. After all, if our retailers can’t pay their bills, Amazon may become the only place that you can purchase a disc in the near future, and we don’t believe that is what is best for disc golf to continue to grow.

Jeremy Rusco
Owner and Founder
Dynamic Discs

Dynamic Discs Retired Molds

The first four original molds for Dynamic Discs were launched in December of 2012. The Judge, Trespass, Escape, and Fugitive were instant hits to a large degree, and Dynamic Discs continued to introduce new molds to the market on a frequent basis in an attempt to diversify the lineup between Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside Discs. Some of these molds have been staples to the DD lineup, while a few others have almost become forgotten in the mix of over 120 molds between the three companies (the Trilogy).

We have recognized the constant struggles that our retailers face to stock 120+ molds amongst multiple plastic variants. Let’s face it: there is only so much shelving space and only so many dollars that can be dedicated to stocking those shelves. Less popular molds need to be cleared from the shelves to make room for the latest and greatest. Some of the early molds simply lost momentum over time when new molds were introduced that had similar characteristics. The long and short of all of this is that Dynamic Discs will be retiring twelve molds from the lineup. We believe that this will alleviate some congestion for our retailers and allow our retailers to stock a better variety of our most popular molds that account for the most revenue in retail stores.

So what does all of this mean? Dynamic Distribution, the United States wholesale operation for Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside Discs, will not be restocking or requesting production for these twelve molds once they run out of stock. Some of these molds have a very limited supply and will be out of stock soon while others will take a bit longer to run their course.

It is important to keep in mind that these molds can come out of retirement (in limited quantities) at any given time if there is demand or a custom run order gets placed to bring something back. This opens up a lot of great possibilities for our retailers to benefit and utilize the custom run program. We realize that several of these molds are likely in your bag and could bring some concern to what you throw. With that being said, we believe that you will be able to track down the replacements that you need and/or a future custom run will be placed at the right time to allow you to get restocked when needed.

What molds are going into retirement for Dynamic Discs? For the time being, we’ll let you speculate and make your best guess. Please leave your comments below and we will randomly select a winner that noted all twelve of the correct molds on June 12th with a $100 online gift card to Dynamic Discs. Also, I’m sure that plenty of you are wondering what will happen with Latitude 64 and Westside Discs. My general statement around that is that you can probably expect to see a similar statement coming soon.

Thanks for all of your support for Dynamic Discs, Latitude 64, and Westside Discs. We look forward to growing the sport right along with you!

Jeremy Rusco
Owner and Founder
Dynamic Discs

Dynamic Discs Month In Review - May 2019

Dynamic Discs employees and fans are often asked, “Which of your discs are the most popular?” We tend to think that we know the answers, but some of our ideas may or may not be biased depending on our personal favorites. It’s time to put all that speculation to rest with some COLD, HARD FACTS. It’s time for the Dynamic Discs Month In Review.

Some discs may appear twice or more because of different plastic types. Here are May's top sellers:

1. Retro Keystone
2. Tournament Gatekeeper
3. Lucid Vandal
4. Fuzion Raider
5. Prime Burst Judge
6. Lucid-X Escape
7. Zero Medium Keystone
8. Prime Burst Deputy
9. Gold Burst Ballista Pro
10. Lucid Air Defender
11. Lucid Air Maverick
12. Lucid Air Captain
13. Prime Burst Escape
14. Opto Ballista Pro
15. Opto Diamond
16. Classic Blend Burst Guard
17. Lucid Trespass
18. VIP Gatekeeper
19. Lucid EMAC Truth
20. Classic Burst Judge

It’s May, and that means it’s Trilogy Challenge time. The Retro Keystone, Tournament Gatekeeper, and Lucid Vandal are on their way to Trilogy Challenges all over the world. If you haven’t played a Trilogy Challenge or gotten your hands on these discs, you’re missing out on some winners! The Fuzion Raider required a huge event to knock it off the top spot, and you can bet that it won’t be easily knocked off again. The Raider never forgets. Two Judge iterations crack the list this month, and the Keystone, Deputy, and Guard also make non-Trilogy Challenge spots. (Where are my #teamwarden people at?!?) The Ballista Pro also finds its way on twice, and the Gold Line version is sure to be a favorite for quite a while. Some new Lucid Air molds in the Defender, Maverick, and Captain burst onto the scene, while some perennial best-sellers in the Escape, Diamond, Trespass, and EMAC Truth round out May’s list.

Thanks for joining us in looking at a snapshot of our best sellers. Which discs are you surprised to see off the list? Leave a comment below, and let us know why your favorite disc should make June’s Month in Review!

Speculation For The 2019 Season - What Could The Year Have In Store?

Sports fans always enjoy taking a swing at making predictions for an upcoming season, and no matter if it’s football, basketball, or disc golf, there’s a little bit of a thrill that we all get from trying to see if our favorite man or woman will come out on top. In years past, it seemed as if only a select few individuals would dominate the MPO and FPO fields, but as time has gone on, many of the year’s major events are anyone’s game.

We’re finally headed into the midst of the 2019 season and so far, it’s been quite the rollercoaster. Given that not everyone attends each big event, playing the comparison game can get a little bit tricky, but it’s a discussion that’s worth having as it pertains to the future of the sport.

Hard Work And Talent

There are so many variables that go into finding success on the disc golf course, as some layouts are suited to one’s particular skill set while other tournaments may end up favoring a particular player due to extreme weather and that person’s ability to persevere. Ultimately though, it cannot be argued that both hard work and talent don’t also factor into who takes home first place at each Major, NT, or Pro Tour stop.

Multiple time World Champions like Paul McBeth, Ricky Wysocki, Paige Pierce, or Valarie Jenkins have all shown they have what it takes to win, but as others begin to create a scenario of contention year after year, does that necessarily mean these winners aren’t working as hard? Most would say no, and instead, it’s the newer players who are stepping up their game rather than the seasoned pros lessening their efforts.

When Venues Matter

Some tournaments have brought an air of predictability each season, and while courses may undergo minimal to moderate changes each year, for the most part, everyone shows up to GBO or Masters Cup and knows what to expect. Could this level of comfort be an element that others are capitalizing on?

A quick look at UDisc Live stats shows some interesting patterns: for example, DD team member Dustin Keegan placed 6th in Las Vegas and 24th at the GBO this year, whereas last year his finishes were 9th and 51st respectively. While this trend isn’t true across all events, it does raise some questions. Paige Bjerkaas has seen even more success this year, with a tie for 6th at this year’s GBO and a tie for 4th in San Francisco. In 2018 she found herself in 11th after Emporia’s event and finished 9th at the SF Open.

Are some of the sport’s dominating players starting to let off the gas pedal a bit, allowing others to rise to the top? Or is there more at play, like injuries, not enough practice days, or simply luck that’s leading to first-time wins for some? We know this will likely spark a hot debate, but leave your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think the rest of the year will have in store? Will we continue to see a variety of players taking home first, or now that people are warmed up will the usual faces top the leaderboards once again?