2017-02-01 Three Three Three One After reading a lot more in the bag lists of disc golfers out there, I realized that I at once skip over all those big bags with many different molds. They don't provide anything to learn for me; they are more the result of missing a clear and straight idea of play. Not that you couldn't play well with a large bag, that just isn't my way of playing. I search for a streamlined shape, not for a collection of discs. Those bags with few molds but many pieces of each don't irritate me, because I can simply cut down the number of discs for each mold in my mind. Having few molds is surely the first step, as it eases the deci- sion making process heavily. But I also want to have few discs, for even easier decisions and because I don't want to carry that many; I want to go lightweight. (Remember, if you have no more than three discs, you don't need a bag at all.) The following in the bag post helped me advance: 2x fossil scale (circle) x line p1x (jump putts, us approach) envy (soft n) (driving putter) 2x zone (esp, zflx) (os approach) 2x comet (x, z) (comet things) 2x buzzz (big z, cryztal) (workhorse mid) k1 kaxe (tweener) 4x teebird (dx, 2 star, brinster) (workhorse driver) 3x firebird (star, champ, luster) (os utility, skips) 2x tern (star, champ) (bombs) Been thinking of narrowing it down for a c15, would probably ditch one each of the teebird(star), firebird(star), zone (esp), comet (z), and buzzz (cryz), and could probably play just as easily [0] The list includes 20 discs in 10 molds, but he already mentioned to cut it down to 15 discs (same 10 molds) by leaving out some doubles. I'll come back to this later. The eye opener of the list were the usecases in parenthesis. He wrote about his ``workhorse mid'' and ``workhorse driver''. This is the crucial point: There are some workhorses and some special- ity discs. The workhorses are those discs that form your starting lineup. In his case it's the Scale, Buzzz and Teebird. These are sufficient to play a solid round, likely they amount for 80% of all shots, anyway. These workhorses are the discs I would like to have two pieces each or even three, not only backups but ones with slightly dif- ferent flight characteristics. All the others I would call specialists. They are picked in specific situation for certain jobs. I'd say that you won't need more than one piece each of them. (Why does he carry three Fire- birds for ``os utility, skips'', especially as he has four wor- khorse Teebirds already?) This separation between workhorses and specialists appears to me to be central for bags that follow a clear concept. You should be able to tell for each disc if it's a workhorse or a special- ist. (This might be different depending on wind and course design.) Now, let's get back to the number of discs. He had 20, and al- ready suggested a reduction to 15. (He would not cut it down the way I would have done it, based on my workhorse specialist separation idea.) But although 15 discs are better than 20, they still feel to be too many for me. Thus I like to suggest the 3-3-3-1 rule for a 10 disc bag. As- suming you want to result in a 10 disc bag, then the idea is that you may put in three putters, three midranges, three drivers, plus one joker for whatever disc you like to add. In harmony with the workhorse specialist concept, the resulting bag will likely look something like this: 2 main putting putters 1 driving/approach putter 2 workhorse mids 1 mid of other kind 2 workhorse (control) drivers 1 windfighter 1 max distance driver, or roller, or ... You could also go with e.g. 3 Aviars, 3 Rocs, 3 Teebirds and a Mako3. (In the Discraft case, it could be the Zone-Buzzz-Comet combination as your three midranges.) Your workhorses will be the discs you have multiple pieces of, because you cannot afford to have multiples of your specialists ... or, if you come to realize that you want to invest them though, then they are actually your workhorses and not your spe- cialists. Building bags within limitations forces you to decide ... in ad- vance. Because, all the decisions you make at home you don't need to make on the course. This keeps your head free from distrac- tions while playing. For me, such mind games -- at least they start as mind games -- are rungs on the ladder to clarity and understanding. The wor- khorse specialist distinction is one such rung for me. It helps me to see a bag clearer -- more structured -- and thus enables me to understand it better and thus, hopefully, play better, by hav- ing a concept of play. Long time players do that automatically (implicitly) thanks to their experience, I try to compensate that as far as possible by trying to understand it all explicitly. [0] http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3127850&postcount=121 http://marmaro.de/discgolf/ markus schnalke