The Ins And Outs Of Disc Golf Clubs Part 4 - What Now?

As with many things in life, the process of taking an idea and turning it into a reality within the disc golf world can take a long time. From the first inkling of inspiration to actually formalizing your plans, it takes a dedicated effort to make a difference in the sport, whether it’s starting a league, installing a new course, or creating a disc golf club.

In this blog series, we’re tackling the last option on that list and reviewing what’s needed to create and run a disc golf club step by step. If you’re just now joining us, head back to our first three blogs to learn how to formalize your group, understand the importance of a solid set of board members, and more. Today, we’re all about getting to the heart and soul of your club - how do you actually utilize this structure to accomplish your goals?

Taking Care Of Business

Running a disc golf club sounds like it’s all fun and games, but there are actual decisions to make on a regular basis. Most clubs have a very set schedule for their meetings and work up agendas to make sure they cover the various aspects of what they’re trying to accomplish. While you don’t have to devote enough time to your meetings to make it feel like a second job, there is an element of professionalism that should permeate each gathering.

Chris Eads, who offered some valuable information in Part 3 of this series, explained how his club tends to operate:

“Our meetings mostly consisted of turning in mini money and discussing upcoming tournaments and the needs of those events. We currently run 7 events a year and we maintain 10 courses that we use for these events and weekly minis.

We use the public library as our meeting place because it is free and is pretty centralized for all parties that wish to attend. When running a meeting it is always important to stay focused on the tasks at hand. We have someone who creates minutes for us so that we can look back on previously discussed topics and also future topics that need to be addressed.”

Innovation And Growth

Not only are disc golf club meetings great for maintaining your club’s current happenings, but they also create the ideal platform to introduce new ideas. Latitude 64 team member Luke Wessel is a part of the Apple Valley Disc Golf League in Apple Valley, MN. While we’ve learned that a club and a league are two very different things, he mentioned some interesting ideas that he implemented just after joining which could easily transfer over to a club setting: “I picked up where they left off but started doing things behind the scenes like digitizing records and helping to boost payouts and prizes.”

Disc golf clubs are one of the best ways to bring exciting ideas to the table to not only keep your members engaged but also to attract new people to the sport and help to grow your local community. Keep your eyes out for Part 5 of this series where we learn how clubs actually make money!

The Ins And Outs Of Disc Golf Clubs Part 3 - Setting Up A Chain Of Command

All of us have experienced at some point in our lives the truth about the phrase: “You’re only as strong as your weakest link.” Whether it be at work, school, or in another type of group, the people that you surround yourself with can make or break the goals that you’re trying to achieve. What exactly does this have to do with disc golf? Welcome to Part 3 in our series that takes a closer look at disc golf clubs.

We’ve already covered the differences between a club and a league as well as explored just how important it may be to make your club official through a nonprofit status, so now that you’re ready to move forward, it’s time to assemble your crew. Let’s talk a bit about some things to consider when selecting your club’s board members.

What The Board Entails

If you want your club to be at least marginally successful, you’ll need someone steering the ship. In most organizations, there’s a group of people who tend to run things, and while you can call them board members or officers, their function remains the same - to help map out the goals of the club and make sure their actions are in line with said goals. You may want to work toward raising money for a local charity, help upgrade the courses in your town, or even just spread the word and teach more people about disc golf. Whatever reason you started the club in the first place, it’s the job of the board to make sure you stick to that plan.

When considering how this group of people will help, it’s important to know exactly which types of roles should be included. Most disc golf clubs have a board that’s complete with a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, and even a course maintenance individual. You can also create specific positions to focus on outreach, sponsorships, or any other goal that’s important to you.

How Important Is It, Really?

Chris Eads, a DD team member and part of the Western Arkansas Flying Disc Association, shares his thoughts on having a solid team of people on the board: “I think one of the most important things to a successful club is having people that you can trust and count on on the board. When you run an event you can have thousands of dollars in cash going through an event and it's comforting to know that that money is safe, especially since a lot of that money is usually used to donate to charities.”

Being able to trust the people who sit beside you is key whether you’re a huge group or a small club that’s just starting out. Ray Woodruff, who we spoke to in Part 2 of this series, echoes the importance that Chris describes: “Be sure to have people on the board who will put the club in front of their own interests and will be willing to pick up the standard of ideas that are brought to the board for help in executing. Don’t forget that the board of the club is the backbone and will deliver success or failure as they do or do not work together.”

Board members are typically elected in a club atmosphere but that doesn’t mean that you have zero say about who ends up on the team. As long as personal agendas can be left at the door and the goals of the club remain the focus, things should run smoothly. Make sure to catch our next part in this series to learn more about the ins and outs of disc golf clubs!

KVOE Radio On Air Chat with Paige Pierce, Paige Bjerkaas, and Robert McCall

During the 2019 PDGA Junior Worlds, KVOE, our local radio station here in Emporia, Kansas, was kind enough to chat with Paige Pierce, Paige Bjerkaas, and Robert McCall about the event and disc golf in general. Give it a listen below and share your thoughts in the comments.

The Ins And Outs Of Disc Golf Clubs Part 2 - What's Your Status?

If you’re just now joining us for our latest blog series, welcome! We’ve recently started discussing the huge topic of disc golf clubs and will be reviewing all of the most important information you need to know if you’re interested in starting one. Before going any further, head back to Part 1 of this series where we make sure everyone is on the same page.

All set? Good, because we’re about to get a little more detailed moving forward. The truth of the matter is that any disc golf club isn’t much different than a business, so if you or your friends are looking to establish one, it’s not as easy as making up some flyers and advertising around town. Let’s discover your options for making this decision an official one, should you so desire.

What Is A Nonprofit?

When this word comes to mind, most people think about donations and tax write-offs. While many nonprofits do include those elements, there’s more to them than you may think. According to Wikipedia, a nonprofit is “dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view. In economic terms, it is an organization that uses its surplus of the revenues to further achieve its ultimate objective, rather than distributing its income to the organization's shareholders, leaders, or members.”

Sounds like a disc golf club, right? While you won’t necessarily be forced into formalizing your club in this way, it can hold its fair share of benefits, especially if the club gets to be rather large. Establishing a club as a nonprofit will also force members to create bylaws and articles of incorporation, which again will help to keep things organized should you become incredibly popular.

First Things First

Disc golf clubs can, and may want to, formalize themselves as a nonprofit on both a state and federal level, and like any other business action, it requires a fair amount of paperwork. We spoke with Ray Woodruff, President of the Mile High Disc Golf Club in Denver, CO to get a little more insight on the matter. He shared with us a bit about their own nonprofit journey, a decision that became very apparent as they neared 600 members:

“In the beginning, nonprofit status was sought and obtained within our state, but the federal level was pushed aside for the time being. This has come to haunt us since paperwork is the death of any good organization, even a fledgling disc golf club. As time went on, it became painfully obvious that we would need to complete the federal process for our nonprofit status.

Bring in the lawyers... Nonprofits can be set up in many ways - the one that most people think of are the places that we donate money to and can deduct from our taxes, but that doesn’t always work for a disc golf club. We are currently speaking with tax advisors to complete the setup of our club's federal nonprofit status and hope to be finished with that process by the end of the year. While we are hoping for a charitable designation, we know that the IRS decides that based on your application.”

As you can see, setting things up right off the bat will likely create smoother sailing down the road. Disc golf clubs can always begin their operations without any formalization and then change their minds later, but it may become a bit more complex to do things this way. If you’re serious about your club, opt for nonprofit status as soon as you can to get things started on the right foot.

Stay tuned for more in this series, including things to consider when choosing your board, how to handle club finances, and more!

Ron Convers Jr. Comes Home From Pro Masters Worlds With A 3x Champion Title

Anyone who has been to Smugglers’ Notch knows that the courses there require an immense amount of dedication to each and every shot. You can’t step up to the first tee unprepared and believe that you’ll come out on top. Confidence is key, and that’s exactly what Dynamic Discs team member Ron Convers Jr. brought to the 2019 Pro Masters Worlds. He entered this event with a Grandmasters win in both 2016 and 2017, and after an epic battle with Patrick Brown in 2018 that landed him in 2nd place, Ron was determined to come out on top once again.

This year he had a different mindset and between his ability to focus, some trusty discs in his bag, and the preparation that he’s undergone all season long, it’s no wonder he succeeded. Ron’s accolades extend farther back than just 2016, however, so let’s explore a bit more about this incredible player.

Skin In The Game

Convers has been playing disc golf longer than many of our readers have even been alive, over 30 years at this point, and has set foot on courses around the nation with some of the biggest names in the sport. He attributes part of his desire to compete to the motivation he gained after watching ‘Crazy’ John Brooks play in the early 1990s, and from then on, Ron’s been a force to be reckoned with.

He won the very first Glass Blown Open and has been a part of the DD family from the start. While he may not be on the road in a full-time capacity, he can still be seen at anywhere between 10 and 20 events over the course of any given season. The 2019 season, however, has presented some challenges for him that he’s overcome with grace and positivity: “My family has had a very challenging year and in the process of taking care of necessary things I've burned up my vacation time and money!”

Despite his focus being shifted heavily toward his family, Ron managed to work on several key aspects of his game before attending Worlds, including improving his forehand distance and accuracy and not only losing 23 pounds but adding some muscle as well.

What Was Different?

The more you play a course the better you naturally tend to do, but when things go wrong it can have a tendency to create a mental strain that’s hard to beat. “Last year I came up and played Pro Worlds and had a horrible round on Fox Run. It was my worst recorded round in competition since I was an Am and it shook my confidence in my mental game. Being able to put that aside helped boost my attitude and confidence after the first round on Fox Run this year,” Ron explained.

Rather than focusing on all of the missteps he made last year, he approached the event with a fresh perspective. His disc selection sure helped too, as the courses at Smugglers’ Notch are incredibly demanding. Convers said:

“I relied on throwing mids in the woods. [My] Truth, EMAC Truth, and the Suspect got hard workouts. On the more open Fox Run course, the Ballista Pro was a distance go-to with the Lucid Enforcer as a backup. My fairway approach game got a boost with my forehand and I used my Lucid Criminal and Lucid X Felon to pin several of the harder shots and approaches.”

One Hole At A Time

When all was said and done, Ron beat out the rest of the 31 men in his field by a total of four strokes, and while he didn’t always have a commanding lead at any point in time, he was able to make steady progress each round. “I was pleased that I played well overall, but each round had a hole or two which were really bad. Being able to card good rounds in spite of those holes and being able to stay focused on the work at hand made the win possible,” he said.

Convers shot well during round one, and with only one bogey ended up just one stroke behind the lead at a -7. Again, round two saw one more bogey to his name, this time at Fox Run, but he was able to manage an impressive six down and come out two strokes ahead of Patrick Brown. Maintaining momentum through four rounds plus a semifinal and final 9 is no easy task, and by the time round three came up, it seemed that Convers had slowed a bit.

While an eagle on hole 11 certainly helped him to make up strokes, his eight down wasn’t the best score of the day. Instead, Brown brought in a -9 and Anthony Pugh shot -10. At this point, Ron was still very much in contention for the win, and his gameplan of staying focused kicked into high gear. Smart and safe became the name of the game, and his -5 during round four and impressive -11 in the semifinals were enough to put him into the final four.

“After the first hole of the finals, I had 5 strokes over Kevin [Babbit]  and just coasted to a no-risk finish,” Ron described. Knowing his strengths, putting in the time throughout the year to improve upon his skills, and having all the confidence in the world is what lead him to the win. Now a 3x Pro Masters World Champion, he’s headed into the rest of the season with ease. What’s next for this amazing player?

“If I hadn't managed to win a B-tier in Open the week before Worlds, competition would have been almost impossible. As it was, I had a great time because of the wonderful people in our sport. I hope to play the Mid America Open and five to six more Pro events as I did last year. Next year, [I’ll attend] the Canadian Nationals and more events on the West coast unless I get the opportunity to travel to Scandinavia. I hope to continue to play good golf and would like to hit a 1020 rating in the future.”

Congratulations on a job well done Ron!

Dynamic Discs Month In Review - June 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 June's top sellers:

1. Tournament Gatekeeper
2. Retro Keystone
3. Lucid Vandal
4. Fuzion Raider
5. Lucid Raider
6. Prime Burst Judge
7. Lucid-X Trespass
8. Lucid Renegade
9. Prime Burst Escape
10. Lucid EMAC Truth
11. Opto River
12. VIP Gatekeeper
13. Lucid Felon
14. Prime Judge
15. Lucid-X Getaway
16. Origio Burst Harp
17. Lucid Truth
18. Lucid-X Felon
19. Lucid Patrol
20. Classic Blend Burst Guard

‘Tis the season for Trilogy Challenges, so we see the Gatekeeper, Vandal, and Keystone atop the list once again. These new discs are surprising players and making a lot of bags. The Fuzion and Lucid Raider continue their dominance in June. Eric Oakley doesn’t even have to ask, I’ll just answer: “It’s that good.” The Judge is hanging tough among all these new releases in two plastics, while the Guard and Harp are the only two other putters to make the list. Team Series discs were restocked, so we see the Lucid-X Trespass, Getaway, and Felon working their way back in. Some typical best sellers are sticking around in the EMAC Truth, Escape, River, Felon, and Truth, but the big movers in June were the recently retired Renegade and Patrol who refuse to go to the retirement home quietly, claiming, “We can still take care of ourselves.”

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 July’s Month in Review!

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