2017-08-24 Under Par After four months without discgolfing I've been back on the course again ... and shot under par, for the first time! :-) After some putting to warm up, I did the ``worm burner'' exer- cise, I found online. [0] That one really helped me getting the nose down. Nose-up is a problem I suffer(ed) from badly. I had tried to improve it over several field work sessions, but couldn't achieve much. Today, however, this worm burner exercise did help. It is so simple and at the same time so effective. Furthermore, I changed my power-grip: Instead of curling all four fingers around the rim, I spare the index finger out and put its pad to the underside of the wing. This leads to a better disc an- gle relative to my hand, i.e. makes it easier for me to get the nose down. When I started disc golfing and used such a grip I had bad releases with a lot of wobble. This no longer is the case. Thus, being prepared for low throws, I started a round. My mode was throwing a first shot that counted, plus a bunch of seconds to give the other discs and possible other lines a try as well. I had four fairway drivers and a midrange, which I usually all drove with ... as long as it made sense to me. I didn't experi- ment much, just went for the obvious routes matching the typical disc characteristics. The success of the worm burner exercise became apparent on the open second hole: From my second shots, I had two birdie oppor- tunities and the rest being easy pars, whereas in former times I usually struggled to save par at all. In general, I had very few stall-outs, but many flat shots. Also I had greater consistency: My drives usually resulted in good placements for my upshots, which then were no big problems, and thus playing par was more of the normality than a lucky achievement, like it used to be. On the first round I scored 26, which means one under par. (My previous best had been 28.) In both rounds I birdied hole 5, after (both times lucky) drives with the Comet. These were my second and third Birdies in rounds. Not even on second shots have I had Birdies before. Today, however, I had a bunch of Birdies from my second shots -- What an improvement! And, for the first time I shot Par on the 100m hole 9. (The drive was 70m.) The second round was much worse (33). I still got the Birdie on hole 5 and Par on hole 9, but otherwise it were mainly Bogeys, and a missed short putt with a rollaway left me with a 5 instead of a 3. All this was the result of fading concentration. Still, I continued to throw all those seconds, which helped me gain a lot of insight. Through both rounds I wrote down which drives were the best and which one were still good. These are the results: Best Drive Good Drives Star Teebird 6 9 JLS 6 8 Champ Teebird 2 7 Comet 3 4 Leopard 1 4 These numbers are quite insightful. On 18 holes, the Star Teebird resulted in 9 good drives. On a similar level were the JLS (8) and the Champ Teebird (7). Many times these three discs lead to similar results (if I didn't hit trees). The Comet was the disc to drive with on hole 5 (short straight hole). Most players drive with putters there, but it seems as if I can just drop the idea of putter-driving, because though I car- ried the Pure with me both rounds, I used the Comet (with suc- cess) for all those shots. -- Who needs a driving-putter if one has a Comet?! The Leo didn't add much to my game. On drives where it was good, other discs were good as well. Nor could I get it to fly farther than other discs. Only if I would need to throw a long anhyzer shot, the Leo would be my choice, but the Comet or a Teebird forehand could cover this line nearly as good. Clearly, the Leo- pard added the least to my game. I can omit it without scoring worse. I was much impressed by the 158g Star Teebird, which currently had no own spot in my bag. This has changed now. It proved so valuable. Similar the JLS, which lived up as I threw it low and nose-down. With it I shot the best drive of all: Parked it under the basket on hole 8, going the right route around the trees! Driving the Champion Teebird seldom resulted in the best lay, but it consitently was a good one. Still, this disc is the most over- stable I have. On one open hole I threw it 60m forehand, which is farther than I thought I would be able to throw forehand. Also I made some approaches with it forehand. Intresting that my fore- hand is more dependable than I think it is. The Comet is a corner stone of my bag anyway, not only in being my only midrange. I also had some good drives with it. I just love this disc! Then on to my putters: I used my two D-Line P2s interchangingly for all putting and short lay-ups. Only longer non jump-putts were a bit of a problem. Seems I should practice these long putts. The Pure for sure is out of the bag. I have given it several tries already, but it just doesn't add something the Comet does not already provide. On every driving-putter shot, I just pick the Comet and do well with it. So what?! One disc less; one deci- sion less! ;-) Hence, my bag for the course contains these discs now: - D-Line P2 (putting and short lay-ups) - ESP Comet (midrange everything plus some drives) - Star Teebird (main driver, more fade) - Quantum JLS (main driver, less fade) - Champion Teebird (more overstable driver, misc) This time on the course was much fun. The reason is probably re- lated to the fact that I improved a lot this time. (In April I had reached kind of a barrier.) Long courses would still be too much for me, but short courses attract me now. [0] http://youtu.be/vg3Dxd1Yvco http://marmaro.de/discgolf/ markus schnalke