Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Disc Golf Instrument. I'm Bobby Cool Daddy, Slick Breeze and I'm this special disc golf answer man interview. I have Ron Converse Junior who just won won his fourth world title and this all together is your fifth major title. Is that correct, Ron? Yes, Sir.
Awesome. Well, I, as soon as I found out he, well, I saw the post, I was looking through Facebook and I was trying to figure out what was going on at worlds and I saw the post where you had the little hat hat salute on there and congratulate you. And I was like, that's awesome. And I was like, we got to get him on the show, find out what happened at the event and how you're feeling and stuff like that. So. So how are you feeling now that you have your 4th world title?
It's it's nice. I'd like to do it again at least two or three more times. But Oh yeah, yeah, you know how it is. You get to where you're playing well and you want to continue to play well and compete well and I love it. So I I'd very much like to go to the next worlds and repeat. So take us back to that moment though, when you put in the last putt and you just realized, you know, it just came to you or let's just the, the knowing that you just won your 4th world title.
Are you, are you in, are you in disbelief? Are you like, is there a lot of pride? Are you? You know what's going on through your mind in that moment. It was more I was really glad that it was over because I let me let me back up. So that round started. I was 7 strokes ahead walking into it. I stepped up and I back-to-back solo birdied 2 of the harder holes on the course, hole one and two. The rest of the group didn't get
any. And then it just sort of deteriorated and the wheels fell off and he was catching up. And I think it got down to where Tim only had a couple strokes to go. If I'd have missed a whole lot more than he'd have got me because he was playing very well and I was playing horribly. I couldn't seem to get my brain where it was supposed to be. Once I got to the point where I think I had the realization that I had one already.
And as soon as that happened, I went and you know, all, all the things I had been doing for the last week just sort of evaporated and it was just a matter of trying to tread water through great drives, didn't convert through bad drives and converted to get the par and a whole bunch. It seemed to me at the time as if there were a whole bunch of bogeys. Now looking at the scorecard it, it wasn't as bad as all that, but in my head I was like, Oh my God, I'm going to lose, you know.
And so I was. I was very, very happy when that last putt sank, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was over and the bloody had stopped. Now this the division you played in was MP 60 and so you've been around for a long time, disc golf. Remind me how long you've been playing disc golf? I started messing with it in 81. Oh wow, so quite a quite a long
time. Yeah. I'm sure this wasn't the first time you've been in a situation where it was stressing you out, like going toward the final, the final holes you were stressed out. How do you handle that? What? What kind of player are you when this when the stress is really there? Sometimes it doesn't matter at all. I mean, I've, I've been in big money situations where it was just another day playing disc
golf. And at the same time I've I've had occasions where the wheels have come all the way off and I have fallen back. USDGC good example, the final day after multiple days of hanging in with Kenny Climo and and playing pretty well, one stroke behind him and I get up the next morning and come out and I just could not do anything right to save my life. And I ended up falling all the way back to 10th place and shot. I, I can't even remember what it
was. If we hadn't been so far ahead, I would have definitely been way farther back than that. It was, it was a miserable round. But on the other hand, I've, I've had I've had the rounds where I was behind going in and managed to do the opposite and just totally blank out that what was going on and just work my way through it one shot at a time and, and just come out the other side way ahead. So I think that where your emotions are at any given moment makes a huge difference.
And for me wanting it, I wanted this too bad. And I think that if I had stopped thinking about wanting this and, and, you know, and just worried more about, well, OK, it's just another day in the park, walk out there and then do it, it, it, I wouldn't have had any of the problems I had. So you've won five major titles and I know from following your journey, you know, being with Dynamic Discs and you've been with Dynamic Discs a long, a long time.
But what does winning look like now in the MP 60 division compared to some of the because I know you've won other A tiers and other events that you play locally. What does winning look like now at this age compared to earlier ages? Well, it still feels just as good. Honestly. It's only been a couple years since I won a tier in the Open division, so it's not that far away. I set a course record, won a tier, shot a 1085 rated round at the oldest a tier concurrent in the US.
Which would be oh, I just went blank. Which anyway, I I play pretty well I've I've taken some time off because of work. Last year I was injured and I find that the injuries as I get older are harder to recover from. So I spent a lot of time on a 9 inch grinder and ended up with an elbow problem towards the end of last year and really struggled. Took about probably 5, probably about five months of where I
didn't play very much at all. Didn't practice through a few events but really didn't do anything and I still am not practicing as much as I probably should be. I've I've reduced it a lot because I'm I'm still doing a lot of work and it's a little rough. Yeah, how do you, how do you, so when you go on those long stretches of not being able to play or injury or having to work, how do you, how do you keep your mind in the game? How do you make sure that you are staying sharp and and your
game is not suffering? Well, I can still put and so I've got a number of baskets in the yard. It was just being able to throw drives and getting out to, to actually grip it and RIP it couldn't do that field work, really couldn't do that either. And that hurt my game quite a bit. So I know what I need to do to accomplish it and part of it is getting the reps in and making sure as I go into the larger events like this that I have
plenty of time on the course. And so I, I set up to play, I think I played four or five pretty good sized events in the Masters MP40 division and I won the last two of them. So I'm I was feeling pretty good about how I was playing and I know how I'm playing. Any given day I get out there and play with whoever. I still throw in excess of 400 feet. I still am able to putt pretty well normally and I haven't really.
I'm sure it's going to catch up with me one of these days soon, but as long as I maintain, I think the work, while it's kicking my ass right now, is also helping me to maintain my physicality and my ability to perform simply because I have to stay in good shape to to do the job. And that's a friend of mine, Jimmy Souter.
He's also been in a very physical work for a long time and we both play fairly even head to But he was we were talking about it and, and decided that the work what is what was keeping us in the game, even though it was sort of a a hassle to try and get around it. At the same time, it was maintaining our physical skills, athleticism. I don't know if I was retired if I would have the motivation to work as hard at staying in shape as as I do just simply by going to work. So you.
Know speaking on that have has there been any time leading up to this world's or maybe the whole maybe you're just not ready to give up if it has been every time you thought you know I just I just can't do this competition thing anymore. No. No. No, I, I, I've had when I've had physical problems, I haven't really. No, I don't think I've ever thought I'm ready to quit. It's always been what do I need to do to get back in the shape that I need to be in to compete.
And that's, I think that's more the mindset that I've got is I want to see how far I can take this. I, I would love to be able to continue to play at a fairly good level, as old as I can get. And that's really I, I'm, I'm, I'm very curious how, how far I can push it. So I'm, I'm going to keep trying until I can't.
And I, I've thought about it a lot and I, I think it's going to be the small things, arthritis or, you know, something, the inability to grip the disc properly is probably going to be what takes me out because I'll still be able to walk around and, and do the rest of it. And my arms and shoulders will probably be great. But I'm, I'm assuming that the, the grip is probably going to be the hard part.
So I've been thinking about that and trying to figure out how I can work around that as time goes by. So back in the day, like I said, when I would travel to a lot of the dynamic disk events, you know, you'd be the, the, the old guy playing in the, in the MPO division and you'd still be giving these kids a run for their money. What do you think is the secret to to that for you? What? How did you, how are you able to keep up with these guys that were throwing farther and
farther and farther? Well, really, I've always been able to throw fairly far and it really hasn't dropped a lot even with the older discs. I said a a second place behind crazy John Brooks throwing distance and it was, it was like 485 feet with 187g. I can't remember what it was, some big platter and then time goes by and I'm still throwing somewhere around 485 feet. My longest ace is from about 15 years ago. It was at 485 feet, but that obviously I'm not throwing it as far as I was.
I'm, I'm now I figure it's more like 4/15, 4:20 somewhere in there. But my putting skills have improved, I would say quite a bit and my ability to look at a shot and know what to do, well, that's that's improved dramatically. I'd get up there and I might throw the wrong shot or, or try and make something work in the past. And now I've I've been throwing for long enough now that I know what I should be doing. It's just trying to pull it off sometimes. Is the. Unpacked that for us.
Unpacked that for us a little bit. Like, what are you thinking when you walk up to the T pad and you're looking, you know, at the layout? I know you can't. It's, it's, it's hard to give a general answer, I'm assuming maybe because of so many different layouts that are out there. But what generally what's going through your mind?
What are you looking at first to kind of figure out what disk you're going to use, And then what how do you go through the whole process of knowing how you're going to throw that disk? Well, first place is going to be what's the trouble on this hole? What do I want to avoid? What do I want to accomplish if I'm in a larger event? It's more like, how can I not lose 2 strokes? You know? I don't want to throw OB no matter what. And so you shape your shot to avoid the problems and still try
and maximize the good stuff. So if I want to throw a straight shot and I have a cross wind and I'm afraid of going to the right, I'm going to throw something that's still going to break from right to left. When it finishes. If you know, even if the left is a little obstructed, I'm going to try and push it over and then have it break back if I have a
shot. I've also tried to get a little more, a little less aggressive because I do have a problem with I know I can make this shot and I can do it like 8 out of 10. That's not good enough. I mean, honestly, if you, if you fail to convert, then you just lost a stroke or you stuck it somewhere where you can't throw. And a lot of times it's as simple as trying to go through a window or not choosing to pitch out when you should just pitch out and take your lumps.
And that's the kind of thing that I, I think the pitching out thing has come a long ways in the last few years because I used to, I'd look ahead and I would go, OK, that little spot right there, it's thinner. I think I can get through that spot right there and if I do, I might be able to salvage this
hole. Well, no, no, it's way better for me now I've I've recognized that if I just throw it out into the middle of the fairway, throw it up to the basket and drop it in, I may take a four, but I won't take a 5 or a six or or whatever it takes to cut through that piece of forest. So. Do you watch much disc golf of the big disc golf tournaments? Do you watch on YouTube or anything? I watch some of them. I I like, I like watching the big boys play over in Europe.
I love the courses over there. They're truly beautiful and it's on my bucket list. I'd I'd like to get over there and have the opportunity to play while I still have the skills to maybe be able to do something with it. What are your thoughts on some of the progress you've seen from players as far as their their skill level from the time you
started up to up until now? Overall, it's part of it is the technology because the reason why I, I could throw 485 when I was young and with a fat ugly disk and now I can throw, you know, it just sort of followed me. I rode the wave of, of disk improvement and that's what kept
my distance going. And I've, I'm looking at the kids now who are coming into it with a knowledge of throwing discs and lots and lots and lots of practice and, and they're, yeah, I got to watch a lot of these guys at junior worlds in Emporia and Gannenberg. Great example. Holy crap, he throws far and he's very, very skilled and I love seeing it. It's, it's fun to watch. I can't duplicate it at this point in time, but I sure do love watching it. And it's, it's nice to see the,
the skill level still there. You know, people keep improving and I, I hope to, I don't know how much further they can push it, but I, I hope to, to see it continue to the point where the professional side is truly amazing. And I mean, it already is, but I mean, even more to where those guys are doing things that they're just dreaming about now. Yeah. So take us back to or take yourself back to, let's say not quite when you first started. Let's say you've been playing for 2-3 years.
What's what's some advice you'd give yourself back then? Wow, that's, that's a tough one because two or three years puts me at the first beveled edge disc. So honestly it was, I think I really started competing in the early 90s and in like 919293 and I I played a lot. Anytime I wasn't at home or with the kids, I was at the course or I was dragging the kids with me to the course. It it, it really, I would have spent more time practicing putting and focusing on the different.
Well, I right now, I, I putt different ways. I'll putt with a stagger stance, I'll putt with a straddle. And as I play more courses and and see more. Variations in crap around the basket. I'm really happy to see that it's no longer just a nice clean circle of, you know, 10 meters and they've actually started putting obstacles in around baskets and things. I think that really having to place your shot as you come to a hole really improves the game considerably.
But the other part is that if you know how to manipulate a round stuff with your putt and not just throw that straight putt every time, then you're ahead when you don't quite get it where you need it. And so you can maybe throw it around the tree or throw it over the rock or, you know, and you, you get better at finishing a hole. And I think that's, that's a big deal because nobody ever is
perfect. And especially on the more difficult courses, if you are off a little bit on your drive, that puts you in a, a rougher spot for your second shot. And with your second shot, you have to get to the basket usually and, or get in a position to throw in a putt. And so it, it just becomes much, much harder with the older courses. Approaches were simple. And I, I, I'm very good at simple approaches.
It's the, the ones that are more like another 400 foot Dr. followed by, you know, where I want to put it. That's a lot harder now, especially if you have a congested landing zone. Being able to putt around that stuff is very important. And I would have told myself that long ago. It's not going to stay like this, get the newest, hottest and, you know, continue to to run with it. To a certain extent I did anyway. But yeah.
So yeah, it seems like that's been a thing for the longest time is people want the newest and latest and hottest, you know, disk and you know, obviously, I mean, that's a yes, people love to do that. But and then another thing I was going to ask you is when you are practicing or I guess what advice would you give? I know a lot of people like to go out and they'll go play around and they consider that
practice. But how much of your practice is actually playing around a disc golf versus just getting out to a field and seeing what your discs do? Yeah, field work is so important and that's that's part of what I've been missing. So to make up for it, what I do is I'll go to a course and I'll throw six shots on each hole, you know, something like that. Instead of dumping the bag in the field, I'll dump the bag on the course. And it, I'm, I'm sure that in busier places that's hard to do.
I've, I've got enough courses around here that I can find one that's not got a lot of traffic and just spend some serious time working on trying to low ceiling or, you know, the different types of shots that I might have to do on top of just open field
shots. I, I think that working with obstructed fields and trying to bring it around trees and, and working less with the, the open field shots is really beneficial because it seems like course designs going more for tunnels and more for high difficulty, throw it to a certain area and then have to throw it from there. And I, I love those courses because I can score well on
them. And people that throw really, really far might have a little more trouble because, well, I remember when I was just learning to throw far and I can only throw like 300 feet. And it, it made a lot of my decisions really easy because I knew I couldn't throw any further than that. I would pick a spot at the farthest distance that had a good landing zone where I could continue from there to get to the next, you know, the next shot. And it, it, that was, I didn't
have a choice. Now these guys that throw, you know, 5-6 hundred feet, they have to figure out on those shorter holes that are constricted where they need to put it so they can get to the basket. I, I, I dislike watching courses where they're allowed to just throw a shot that's short of the general direction, but maybe 300
feet the wrong direction. You know, Las Vegas shows up every now and again, some of those open fields where they're not trapped by OB or by natural hazards, they can just throw a big spike and it doesn't matter. And so they'll get a three from
somewhere from wherever. Now as as course design improves and you end up with courses where you're not allowed to just throw random giant shot that direction and you actually have to pick a landing zone, I think you're going to see continued improvement in the the skills of all these guys. All right. I got one last question for you, but before I do, I'm going to tell you, have you think of a
question? What have you been doing with these last episodes that I was kind of switch seats with you And have you ask any question you want to ask just to bring up the conversation if you want to talk about. So I'll let you think about that. But before you do, we'll make you think more and ask you. So let's say you've got one round of disc off left your for your entire life, right? What course you playing? What 4 discs are you using? And then who are you playing it
with? Wow, this is sort of mean. Well, do I get to drag them all with me to wherever? Yes, we're going to Europe. OK. Yeah, and man, I'm not sure which one I'd pick. There's some beautiful courses over there. There's some. Beautiful courses over there, but I I would be in Europe and I will take, I would take an enforcer, a blister pro, an escape and a judge. Oh OK, no need for a mid range huh? That's I can throw my judges almost as far as I can throw
most of my mid ranges. There's a few exceptions, but I think I can do an escape. I don't know man, That's that's just something. I know, I know. The enforcer though that, I mean, that's a pretty well for me it is. It's a pretty overstable disc is that is that kind of your one of your distance driver like a go to distance or? No, no, it's not distance. It's well sort of is. It's about probably 350 overstable. If I throw it up in there, it's
going to spike. If I want to throw a skip around the corner, I can, I can hit the corner and have it fly and and
give me a good jump. There's there's a lot of tricks I can lean on it with a forehand and, and probably get it about 290 and that's about it. But it it would give me a little more flexibility in there is. That escape going to be a flippy escape for you or. Well, I, I've got some that are fairly straight and basically I'll put a, a tiny bit of hyzer on it and it'll just barely turn over and it'll, it's just, yeah, really darn straight. I I've enjoyed the escape
throughout the years. I don't think it's changed a lot. It's just a matter of putting a tiny bit of hyzer on it and throwing it, you know, level or however you need it. I don't want to go to product heavy, but it was interesting you, I had requested from the team to send me some throws of the Heist because we're having a heist release here pretty soon. And you actually had a kind of a different take than what you've seen people talk about on the Heist. Kind of tell me about that.
I've heard a lot of people say how under stable it's going to be and that's not my experience. I'm I'm finding it to be if I hit it hard it'll flatten out and go straight, very straight and it will finish with a nice predictable heiser finish. It's not, it's not flipping over. I think the video I sent you, I actually released it with an Anheuser and had it come all the way back over left of center of fairway. So it's it's still got quite a bit of strength in it even into a headwind.
I was finding a very straight flight. I I look forward to seeing maybe what the other plastics do. I wouldn't mind having one that was a little more unstable just to play with because it goes very far. It has good glide. And yeah, the only reason it's not one of the four is because I'm not used to it yet. But it's, I, I picked one up. Somebody had left one in Topeka. I was up playing Topeka and it was right after the glass blown and somebody had left one out on the field.
And so my group, everybody had thrown one. I hadn't thrown 1 yet. And so I, I picked it up and just launched it and it was a clear one and it went dead straight at about 443440. Very nice. Didn't really turn over, didn't really heiser a whole lot. Just was pretty straight. So we all signed it and turned it in. So somebody has a, you know, there was no signature or anything on it.
That's fine. Another thing before we jump to your question, I know and it's a project that you and I just could never get get off the ground. It felt like and I don't remember where we ended up with it what, but it was your big you had for when you were with this craft. You had written a very long but very well written post or blog post, whatever article about throwing in the wind. And then we transferred it over to dynamic Disks, but then we wanted to do more with it.
But tell us so because you played mostly in Kansas, right? Kansas is pretty much where you've been playing the majority of your. Oklahoma in Kansas. Oklahoma, no, Oklahoma, Omar, Oklahoma, yes. Oklahoma. And you, of course you've been down to the Texas tournament when dynamic just was in Texas. Tell us real quick, what's your what's your quick, quick down and dirty of playing in the wind?
Quick, down and dirty. I don't know if you can do that because it was it was a pretty extensive article. It had really good information. Yeah, the the simplest one would be don't allow the wind to hit the bottom of your disk unless you want to push. If it hits the top, it's going
to push it down. If it hits the bottom, it's going to lift it up and and may not let it go where you want it to. So it really depends on the effect you want, but if you want to be safe, you want to have the wind hitting the top of your disk. Interesting, that's the simplest. Yeah, we'll have to dig into that a little bit more as time goes by. The article, it was a magazine article that was called Mastering the Wind and it stayed on the disk Craft website for seven or eight years.
And then when I moved over to DDI, brought it over and obviously I've I've put it on several disks, the basics, the wind directional and last year I released one with a hot stamp again. So they're out there. That's awesome. All right. What? What question did you come up with to have a conversation about? Well, I'm curious what you think about the progress of you. You've been in doing media for this sport for some time.
And I, I think media was always sort of a catching point trying to get it in front of more people. And now it seems to have sort of made the corner. I, I, I saw it all over the place in places that I wouldn't expect to see it. But I'm still getting asked occasionally about you. You all go down there and you throw Frisbees at, at, at. What do you throw the Frisbees
at? So what are we going to to get to the point and and what needs to happen for the media to have a big enough effect that I don't get that question anymore? That's a great question. So what what I found interesting is that I've been listening to some podcasts, disc golf podcasts. One of them is the The Funsie podcast. And there's a couple young guys that create content. They're not pros, they play disc golf. They hang out with pros. Some of them do and they create disc golf content.
And I was listening to one particular episode and they were talking about how they felt disc golf was right on the cusp of just being mainstream. And they just like if we just get more money into the sport or if we just would end up on some big, you know, champ sport channel. And I'm thinking, my gosh, we've been saying that for how many years? I mean, I mean, literally word for word. I mean, we've been we've been on ESPN, of course, you know, was the lower, guess you could call
it lower level ESPN channels. We've been on CS, CBS Sports Center. Of course, as long as you had, oh, I don't know if you heard that Thunder. Wow. As long as you had the right amount of money, you could be on CBS Sports. So it feels like we've been on some major networks. We've had major celebrities play disc golf and put it out there. We just haven't. I don't know. I'm almost perplexed myself. I don't know why we haven't made the jump where it's just like more mainstream.
I mean, a lot of people can blame the whole, you know, people still think we're hippies. I mean, Jimmy Fallon and Brad Pitt just put, I don't know if you saw that video, but they're, yeah, they're wearing tie dye and they're throwing, they're they're throwing actual lids. They're not throwing disc off discs, but they'll throw it into a basket. You know, we recognize what a basket is, but they're being goofy and silly. Of course, they're comedians. That's what they do.
They make fun of things. But even that to the extent it's like, wow, they they that's still the persona put out there that just a bunch of hippies wearing tie dye, you know, throwing these big round pieces of plastic. I honestly think it will take it's to me, it's just going to it's never going to be a, a, a, a single moment. I don't think that we're going to go. That's the moment disc golf became mainstream.
It's the little things here and there, the appearance on Jimmy Fallon, whether it's how stupid it is, the guy from Game of Thrones out there posting stuff about playing disc golf, some celebrity getting into disc golf and playing it a little bit more. These young kids that are creating content that are just, they're just disc golf content creators. They're not necessarily have aspirations of being in a big tournament or winning any big title. They just want to create fun,
challenging videos. And disc golf is at the center of it. And it's just going to be a slow kind of a slow burn in my eyes unless something viral comes along. But even then, I mean, Brodie Smith was been viral how many times for Ultimate? And they're still not a huge sport. But there are I think they're the numbers are probably bigger than disc golf. Maybe I don't, I'm not 100% sure. But you know, I think it's going to be a lot of small moments that lead to the time where you
know, you won't have it asked. You won't it won't be asked of you quite as often. I mean, even in pickleball, pickleball's much more bigger, it feels like. And I still have people ask me, you know, what is the kitchen and what is this all about with pickleball? I don't know if it ever go away, but I don't know.
But I guess let me ask, let me come back to you and ask you when, when will you think is that kind of your, your littman's test of when disc golf is made it if people don't ask you about you throwing what at a what? Well, I, I get it less in different places. So I, it used to be even in the home courses area where we've, we've got 5, No 6 courses in Ponca City now, I would still have people say you, you play down there in the park and those are baskets. Those what, what do they do?
You, you throw, well, you throw it into the chains and it. Oh, OK, I see. And you'll have to sort of work them through it. And for a while it seemed like that had gone away. And then as I travelled more, I would run into it in other places. And a lot of the stigma has, has, has changed because, well, frankly, you know, the, the hippies are starting to become a dying breed. They've they've aged out and now you have, it's more like, it's more like bowling.
It's become a, a very serious blue collar sport to a certain extent, at least in this area. You'll find all the guys that are working the, the local just assemblers and, and people that are, are working all the factories. That's their blow off time. They'll go out there and they'll throw things at trees. And I, I understand that that's, that's there's not a whole lot better for your Peace of Mind than walking through a park, throwing things at trees.
And if you can do that with your friends and make fun of your friends at the same time, you're way ahead, you know, mentally and, and physically. And so I think it, it might possibly take the place of bowling in the long run that's in, in sort of that direction. But I was just, I was just curious, you know, if there was a media if if you thought perhaps the answer was in in your venue and media, maybe getting it out there. I remember the albatross.
We all thought, oh, wow, that made all sorts of news. Billy Angle the top ten. That was a big deal. James Conrad, the holy shot that I mean, that was huge. I had, I had people, I remember when that happened, I had people sending me the clip saying, Oh my God, I see your disc golf is now in, you know, on this channel, this channel, whatever.
So that was a big deal too. And part of that was timing as we get closer into COVID and all the the people that came along, there's a ton of people who have no idea who I am. And it's sort of fun. I almost want to do one of those like the other man dresses up and goes, and you know what I mean? The basketball player dresses up like an old man goes down to the corner.
I almost want to hop in and go down to one of the the, you know, like Charlotte or something and, and stop on one of the harder courses and, and ask for directions and how I play. You throw it like this. And I think that'd be that'd be tons of. Fun. That would be funny. But yeah, I just just wondered what you thought, Bobby. Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously if we were to, you know, all of a sudden be on, you know, mainstream ESPN or something like that, that would be beneficial.
But it it almost as though, like I said, I don't know that it'll be one big moment because what if we, I don't want to say that we've maybe maybe we have failed. You know, we had the moments, like you said, the albatross. We had the moments where James Conrad and the Holy shot and all that. Did we take advantage of that enough, You know, did we, you know, did we, you know, did we? I don't know what I can't answer the question as far as saying what should, what should we have done?
And I'm not saying nothing was done, but maybe not enough was done. I don't you know, I don't know. I do know that, you know, it is a it is a successful sport. I, I mean, there's still people commenting now I see. Why are you calling this a sport? You know, so there's still a lot of people making fun of it and stuff like that because there's people making fun of pickleball and pickleball keeps getting bigger and bigger. So I don't know, but I'm along for the ride.
I'm here to ride the waves and have a good time. And what's interesting is that, you know, I've been only, I've been gone for 4:00-ish years from disc golf, a summers change. Not a lot has changed. Some of it has just kind of progressed a little bit. But you know, even even the outfits that the the people are wearing on it and tournaments has changed over the years.
I feel not, not since the time I've left, but I can, I can say within the last probably 7 or 8 years, it feels like the even the outfits that they're wearing on camera has improved. Maybe that sounds hard to say improve, but I think you know what I'm saying. I mean, I, I remember seeing times like guys were just wearing performance T-shirts and basketball shorts and they didn't even match. And I'm like, I get it. I get it. I'm not saying I understand disc golf has its roots and just, you
know, casual. But, you know, presentation is something. So when you talk media, that's a thing. And it's like people are going to look at that and go, what is he wearing? But if you see someone, a nice polo, nice, you know, performance shorts, I think people will kind of take the sport a little more serious. So anyway, yeah, all right. Well, Ron, I appreciate you getting a coming on the show and talking about your experience. And again, a big congratulations
on your 4th world title. And yeah, like you, like us, like you said, I want, I'd love to see you keep going. It gives me hope as an old guy to see you keep going through everything. And I hope you win a lot more titles. I think it's going to be awesome. I got one more quick one. It's funny. Yeah, I went to sign up and I had the 5%, you know, the top 5% rating wise. You get to sign up early in, in your division at Masters Worlds. OK, well, I was qualified to play.
I've never played 60 before. I've never played 55 before. I've only ever played fifty. That's as old as I've ever gone. And so I tried to sign up for 55 and they wouldn't let me really because my native division, because I'll, I'll be 63 August. It was the 60s. They wouldn't let me even though I was in the top 5% of 55 year olds. Wow, that's interesting. All right, Ron, again, I appreciate you being on the show and I look forward to watching you out there playing playing more.
Thanks, Bobby. Have a good one, man. You too, man.