A little less than a year ago, I started to casually play disc golf. It continues to be my go-to outdoor activity in the pandemic.
For many sports that I’ve played or still play–notably soccer, football, and track–I enjoy watching professionals compete at a high level on TV. But for some reason it didn’t occur to me to watch professional disc golf until a few months ago.
However, that completely changed when I was introduced to the Jomez Pro and GK Pro YouTube channels. They feature a lot of different disc golf content, including tournament coverage on a 12-hour delay, which is the biggest draw for me.
I have a few cases to make here:
- The YouTube format is potentially better than watching a live sport. While I’ve enjoyed the thrill of seeing watching live sports, I’ve found myself gravitating more and more to highlights and quick summaries (despite often being too condensed). Disc golf tournament coverage combines the best of both worlds. You can see it in the videos below: They’re filmed and edited for presentation the following day, removing all the filler of live coverage. And thanks to YouTube’s timestamps, you can jump around to different baskets or skip over parts you don’t want to watch.
- Disc golf is considerably more impressive, interesting, and entertaining than golf. Regular golf takes undeniable talent. But I think disc golf is on an entirely different level. The pros can throw discs 400-500 feet with their bare hands, and they have an arsenal of techniques: forehand, backhand, rollers, hammers, etc. It’s as if every golfer could throw the golf ball with their left or right hand into a hope suspended 3 feet off the ground.
- Disc golf is compelling to watch even if you don’t play disc golf. This is a hard case to make, but below I’ve put together some timestamped highlights from last weekend’s tournament to demonstrate my claim. Are you not entertained?!
This 510-foot drive blew my mind (minute 26:29):
And then the same guy–Wysocki–replicated the result of the drive with a very different throw later in the tournament (17:25):
Here’s a long putt. McBeth makes this look much easier than it actually is. I still regularly miss from 10-15 feet (26:19):
This is the longest basket I saw in this tournament. I love how Callaway’s competitors celebrate with him (21:20):
I haven’t seen a hole in one in tournament coverage yet, but this was incredibly close (29:11):
Finally, to demonstrate the versality of disc golf and how the pros handle the puzzle in different ways, here’s a great roller (7:12):
Have you watched disc golf on YouTube? What do you think? I’m particularly curious if you find it entertaining even if you don’t play.
I’m having trouble figuring out the timestamps. You mention specific moments from each video but when I press play, it’s the full 30+ minutes that plays; it doesn’t jump to the moments you’re referring to. Am I doing something wrong? 🙂
Hm, I’m not sure about that–when I play them, they jump to the corresponding minute. I’ll add text in a second to show where to skip forward.
Thanks! I’ve watched a few amazing highlights on YouTube over the years, but never followed a real tournament.
If you pause the video at the time you want to share, you can right click and select “Copy video URL at current time” to get a link to that specific time in the video (e.g. https://youtu.be/T3QSgX3PBLs?t=1589 for the first video at 26:29)
Thanks! Yeah, that’s what I did here, so I’m not sure why the timestamp didn’t stick.
You know, it could have just been a weird setting on my computer and/or browser. I came back to this page a day later and the timestamps appear to be working for me now!
It’s great to see you get so excited about the sport! Hall of Famer Dr. Stancil Johnson, who passed away this month, once said, “Frisbee is the perfect union of our greatest tool, the hand, and our greatest dream, to fly.” Watching these clips reminds me of the beauty of a great drive or a long putt.
Speaking of which, here’s a putting game I developed during the pandemic. Let me know if you playtest and have any feedback!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-HZvsXBUEWHVe3Wa24LaTqEKLCIOzTP6OPZjbmfeZg4/edit
Jamey,
So, about three years ago, I had the situation where art imitated life as I was playing Disc Golf on my brother’s game system. I looked around and lo and behold there are several just outside Philadelphia. We went out for the afternoon nd had a blast playing Disc Golf in a huge park 25 min from my childhood home. While it didn’t have the fireworks associated with the console game, it made for a great day of walking and playing.
Cheers,
Joe
It’s entertaining to watch your Disc Golf journey through these blogs. I’m also a casual player. One of the guys I usually play with watches all of the tournaments on YouTube. I have checked out a tourney from time to time and find it entertaining. You can pick up a few pointers and ideas to use in your game too. I also enjoy my twitter follow of Innova Discs. Disc Golf has a real community feeling – pure sport for the joy of the game. Innova really highlights that – with clips from the college championships recently to regular players making nice shots. DG has a low barrier of entry – a couple of $12 discs and normally zero greens fees – and can be a lifelong pursuit. I like it because it is walk with a purpose.