Team Dynamic Discs Year In Review

Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Disc Golf Answer Man. I'm Bobby Cool daddy, Slick Breeze and I have a special team episode where I got a group of guys together so we can talk about kind of a 2025 year wrap up to see how how they're feeling about disc golf, about their disc golf game and just kind of get to know them kind of like a round table we got going on. So I got Ryan, Brent and Marshall. And first of all, we'll start off.

We'll start off with Ryan. Tell us a little bit about yourself, Ryan. Yeah, so my name is Ryan. I have been playing for about 7 years. I live in the northwest corner of Indiana. For those of you who may know, I'm about 10 minutes from Lemon Lake, which hosted 2010 and 2013 Worlds I believe. So I do a bunch of stuff there, play a bunch of tournaments there, and then I'm about an hour away from the canyons at Dellwood, so that's another one of my places I love to be and

love to play. Nice. Well, thanks for coming on. What about you, Brent? Tell us a little about yourself. Brent Ruder been playing for just about 8 years now. O run Co own Rock River Disc Golf with my wife Nora Ruder who is on team West side just building courses constantly trying to grow the sport in Mississippi Park. 1982 built by the great Terry Batten. That's kind of our home course, but to other than that EMAC came out in 2018, actually designed a course for us, Lowell Park.

So we have a nine hole designed EMAC course here in our local town. So that's kind of what really introduced me to disc golf, introduced me to dynamic disc and has kept me there since. So just happy to be here. Very cool. Thanks for joining us. And that beautiful beard from Marshall. Tell us about that beard and what what you got going on. All right. Thanks, Bobby, for having me. Yeah, this Marshall, I'm from Tallahassee, FL.

Not much going on here lately, but I am part of the Southeast disc golf events in Tallahassee, FL. We run all the tournaments in the Northwest, North Florida, South Georgia area that we can. So Tom Brown, everybody kind of knows Tom Brown Disc Golf Course. We have held a disc Golf Pro Tour event here in the last year and course team member Dave Mateen was the course designer. Very cool. Again, thank you guys for being on the show. Real quick, I thought about

this. I know this isn't one on the agenda that I sent you guys, but I know Brent, you were telling telling us about your little disc golf man cave you got going on there. Tell us what's going on because you definitely got a little man cave going on. Yeah, I mean, so my brother a few years ago he he essentially started vending tournaments while we were building courses and doing all the things. So he moved away about a year and a half two years ago, left me with about 1000 discs.

So I've I've got a lot behind me. But then also, you know, the brick and mortar that recently opened. But you know, something that I really like. Let me just show you this here because this is something I won these at a raffle points champion, some of these bobble heads. So this is Ricky. These are just, you know, but yeah, just essentially got to like I was saying earlier, I got a got a chance to kind of bust out some memorabilia and some other cool stuff that I kind of forgot I had.

So just happy to get it all kind of put out and and, and you know, just to get to go through it again was really cool so. Very cool. I'm not going to lie, at first I thought it was Mark Zuckerberg. I was like, why would you get Mark Zuckerberg? It looks nothing like Ricky and Paul. There's the Paul. Hold on. Let me show you Paul's. Just let me show you Paul's. Paul's is great. Paul Macbeth 2016 Tour champion. I mean, let's see if I can get a good like. Just.

There we go, hair. OK, maybe that air looks like them. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like, but they're just, they're great. They really are so. That's awesome. That's awesome. Now I knew. I know. Ryan, I can see you have a little bit of a man cave going on there too. Do you have any rare discs or any special finds? I mean I got like a lot of Rudus if I just turn my camera here I got 8 racks. Oh my. We saw the half of the one. Yeah, and then I got more. I got more. Down to my left you can see

another rack. Can you see it a little bit? Yeah. I got some. I got some sweet fines, actually. I'll show you my coolest one. Real. Quick Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you got? Actually, I'll show you my. We all know exactly where it is. So first one this was this is the first time I ever met Ricky. I got a nice slammer signed by him. This is at Ledgestone. Yeah, Yep. So that was kind of cool. I waited in line for two hours for that, actually. Well, I waited in line for like

30 minutes. My mom waited in line for two hours so. That's a good mom. That's a good mom, right? There and then I got another one. They sent us these proto distance drivers. I got that one signed too. So that's not sick. Those kind of just stay on my wall as like, just things to remember. You know, absolutely. Hi. Sorry, Marshall, I don't. I don't know that you have anything from your kitchen you want to show I. Have the kitchen if somebody would like to see something I

got in the refrigerator. I mean, that's about it, yeah. That's OK. No worries. Maybe we'll have you bring on some of some of your collection

from I mean. There is a beetle right there over my right shoulder. I mean, sitting on the counter. We can't go wrong with a beetle. That's hilarious. So all right, well, I had talked to the guys before we went on the show and told because I wanted to do this kind of a, you know, winding down the year, winding down 2025. And I wanted to see, you know what, what, what are some stuff that has changed for you as far as disc golf in 2025? Did you play last? Did you play more?

Let's start with you, Brent. What what what was going on for you in 2025 with in disc golf? Honestly, the biggest change for me in disc golf for my game this year was easily my son Huey last golf more diapers. Just you know, taking care of

him. He's, he's going to be 10 months old on Christmas, so got him his PDJ number first day he was born though, so he's ready to go. And but yeah, that's really what my 2025. I unfortunately didn't get to play as much golf as I wanted, but but looking forward to continuing to, like I said, grow the sport and, and as we get into the conversation more, I've got some more stuff, you know, that we got planned for 20/26 and, and continuing into 2020

sevens. Very cool. Now, Marshall, as far as like, because I, I came back to dynamic disc about six months ago, so I had to kind of relearn what was going on in the disc golf scene. So I was still kind of from the outside watching things happening as far as like recovering from the pandemic and people are like courses are slowing down. What did it? What was it like in 2025 in your area as far as courses and events? For Tallahassee, I mean, we we have had less people playing for

the most part. If we if we do a tournament, we don't have the numbers, but we're still running a lot of tournaments between Tallahassee. Our local clubs in Panama City, Marianna almost Feel, Valdosta, Tifton, Gainesville. Of course you have Chris Clark over there. I mean, we're still running a lot of tournaments. I mean, I think this year we ran 17 tournaments in the Tallahassee area, just us and you, you combine Mariana runs 9 or 10 a year, Panama City runs 3 or 4.

So I mean, there's a lot of tournaments that go on in this area. And we usually, I mean, we're anywhere from, you know, on AC tier, we'll get 70 to 80 a tier. We get 100 to 115 somewhere in there. So I mean, it's been pretty good. I mean, we've had still have a lot of people playing. I mean, it's nowhere near the the COVID numbers where, you know, a tournament filled up right away. I mean, we're still struggling at the end to get people to play in it. But other than that, it's been

pretty good. Do you find that the the average player that signs up now are still from like 5-6 seven years ago or are you getting people that are like been in disc golf for three years still getting the new people? It's probably it's, I still say we have a good mix of the old, I say the old guard that used to play all the time.

But we do have a lot, a lot of new people that show up that it may be their first tournament, maybe their fifth tournament, but they so it's been a pretty decent mix. Nice. Now, Ryan, let's talk a little bit more about your experience in what's going on in 2025. Anything as far as like your play, like things you worked on that you were able to, you know, accomplish in 2025? Yeah. So a big thing that I worked on just based on like my game was like distance in my forehand.

At least I'd say for the last like 3 years I've been stuck at like 320. And while that's like manageable, it can get like a little annoying at sometimes having to feel like back hands when you can still a forehand. But yeah, I, I mean, I could put about 380 now on forehand. So that's getting much better. And going off of what you're talking about with Marshall, especially around my area, like there's been an insane like growth of like amount of people

that are playing. I feel like the general like consensus around the sport right now is that it's kind of like trickling off. But I honestly don't think, I don't think that's true because like around my area, there used to be like not many people. I'd go to the course and I'd see no one sometimes. And now sometimes I go to the course and it takes 4 hours to play the short keys because

there's so many people. And so I don't know if that that might just be like an area thing, but I've seen like a crazy growth, especially at like local places. Yeah, I think it's that's an interesting point because it feels like we keep talking about and I even I don't know, when I say we, I mean, I I hear it in other podcasts where, you know, have we hit the bottom? Have we finally, you know, brushed off COVID or whatever, you know, you want to say in it.

And it is when I talk locally, it does seem like people are like, well, you know, we have we still have a nice size group of people show up to play disc golf. A lot of people discovering it. We still see a rise in certain areas. So yeah, I think it could maybe it could be something locally. What about you, Brent?

What are you kind of feeling as far as when you go to A? No, I'm glad we're talking about this because actually for us it, it's affected our area substantially because so we have a page park as an 18 hole kind of a shorter course in the middle of Dixon here in town. We had to pull all 18 baskets out July of this past year of 2025 because we have a $12 million walking bridge and multi purpose path getting built like literally in the middle of the course.

So it was very unsafe for the, you know, I mean, to the point where one basket was like 4 feet away from like a 20 foot drop off that they, you know, cut a path through the through the kind of landscape there. So we essentially pulled all 18 baskets and we're kind of waiting until we can kind of get let back in there. Now that course was right next to our high school, the heart of our town. It averaged almost 250 rounds of disc golf every single month.

And that's just you dis right. So when I'm showing those numbers to the park district into the community, you know, I like to say those are maybe half of what's truly representative of the people that are playing there. So that's kind of affected, I guess the growth of the sport specifically in our area because that course is is no longer there. So in our area, it's kind of died out where during COVID and kind of up until this past year, we've really grown it done a substantial job.

Stanford well job of of just growing other little nine holes in the area to introduce new disc golfers. And then providing, you know, some of those kind of tournament in a box scenarios so that they can come out and feel comfortable playing their first event, getting their PDJ, you know, maybe paying the extra 15 to get there, you know, pay that, that flex tier CT or what not. But yeah, the, the I, I'm very much looking forward to 2026.

The idea is to kind of ribbon cut, you know, a potentially new course and it kind of reopen it. So yeah, I mean, it's it, it really has affected our area just by simply pulling out the baskets just because of a of a project. But in due time, the projects going to be worth it. It's going to be beautiful for our city, for our community and then again runs the the course will essentially intersect directly with the path. So just looking.

Forward to that it does seem like and I know it seems like a simple or like a duh moment or a duh statement, but like the infrastructure really helps as far as the growth in your area. So if you got some, you know, if your courses are affected like yours were, it's getting, you know, changed because of, you know, the better good for the for the town or whatever is going on there. But it's really important to get

courses. And so that's my way of plugging our guy Eric McCabe and McCabe champion courses. So if you're if your town or in fact here in Broken Arrow, my wife showed me some survey they had sent out to the town and I think it was around 60. Some percent said either disc golf is very important, important or somewhat important to bring into our area. And I told Eric so he could

reach out. So like if you're in an area and you've heard something about maybe a disc golf course going in your area, that's what's going to help grow the sport is having more disc golf courses in your area for sure. So to that extent, as far as now that we're talking about kind of the growth, another topic that popped in my head is they just recently released the Disc Golf Pro Tour as far as like the the cost to actually go watch an event.

So I want you guys to think about, I'm going to start with you, Marshall. What, how important do you think do you feel in the in your local area, in your dealings, the people that you talk to, the events that you go to? How important is the Disc Golf Pro Tour when it comes to

helping grow the sport? That's a good one. I think it's it's kind of mixed. I mean, here in this area, I mean you have a lot of people that are watching it, but I don't know if we have a lot of people that are actually getting on the road and traveling for say, you know, for us that mean the closest one would be Brooksville and, and you're at a little over 4 hours to get there. And I know probably two or three people that will actually go and drive down there to watch the event.

I think we have more locally that are watching whether it's, you know, the tape delay or live. I know myself that's I'm watching live every weekend, but you know, I don't know. I mean, I think that's a that's a good, good question to to ponder on, to figure out. I mean it it what it is or if it's, you know, however honest. I know it's and it's hard to measure that. I mean, it's, it's obvious, it's important.

It's important for people to be able to watch the great guys of our they're great guys that the the guys that excel at our sports important to to be able to watch that and to get people hyped up and excited. So I think it's important. So I'm not trying to throw any shade on them or or say that they're not important. I think it is. But Ryan, how do you watch? Do you watch a lot of events? Do you watch a lot of the coverage?

Yeah, so I pretty much try to watch every event because one, I can learn things from that and I just get to see like really good players and a really good courses In terms of like I think the disc golf pro Tour honestly might be one of the most important things in like the way to grow the sport because media is like huge in terms of growing the sport because that's how you

reach the most people. And also going back to the ticket sales part of thing, I know that some people have complained in the past about like the price of tickets to go watch. And I think I almost had this like slight idea if you lower, like if you're paying like let's just say you're paying like $10 a person to get into a pro to event as opposed to like 25 or 30, which I think it was last year. I'm not 100% sure.

But if you're paying like $10 to get in someone who maybe doesn't know the sport or hasn't played before, they might be like, oh, $10, OK, cool. Like let's go watch that. Like that might be really awesome. And the other thing is like if you if your ticket. Price is low. Your budget of spending for like the vendors inside might go up, whereas if you pay like a high ticket price, you might just be like, oh, I don't want to buy this because I already paid so much to get in.

So I think that adjusting ticket price could grow like different parts. And I think there's an equal balance that they should definitely try to figure out. Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there's a lot trying to they go into as far as figuring out the balance between making it affordable and then obviously helping them bring the the event to that actual city and stuff like that. All right, let's let's kind of switch gears. I had this question.

I want to see if you guys, what you guys come up with. Brent, we'll start with you. What's the biggest lie you told

about yourself, about your game in 2025? That I'd finally practiced pudding spoiler. I didn't. We posted like I like to joke and when I tell people I'm like, I own too many baskets to be this bad at putty. And it's just, it's just funny because I just, you know, and I don't have the time. I'm, I'm very busy doing other things and, and I'm now to the point where I'm like, that's OK. You know, I'm when I'm, when I'm ready, I'll get there. But yeah, that's probably it.

I I really that was on my To Do List and it just didn't happen so. I'm assuming that probably showed up in your scores. Yeah, a little bit. Like I said though, I didn't have a whole lot of time to play

a lot of competitive. I did have time to put on some events, but that was kind of a whole different mindset there too because having a son and then, you know, he attended pretty much every event with us. So it was kind of, you know, not only planning the event, but planning what I needed for him for the day and things that. And so again, I didn't get to compete as much as I wanted, but you know. It's all right. What about you, Ryan? What's the biggest lie you told yourself in 2025?

I always tell myself that I can play well in the cold and I always prove myself wrong. For those of you who haven't played in 30° before, 1, it's awful. And two, I come in always thinking like, all right, it's fine, I can shoot well, and then I'm like 10 holes in and I'm like, why am I out here? So yeah, playing in the cold is not fun. And I always fool myself every time all. Right, Marshall, what'd you come

up with? Well, it's kind of like Brent I did was going to do a lot of putting and that kind of took the the back burner. But I really told myself that I was going to play in more events. I mean, as of last year, I was like, man, I'm, you know, I'm going to play in 12 or 15 events. I'm going to hit a couple of a tears next year. And our schedule got put together for what we were going

to run this year. And I think I ended up running 20 events this year and then of course, traveling to Emporia to do junior worlds. And it was then deciding that I was going to retire and move, downsize my house. A lot of things took the back burner that just didn't get to do want to do. So I mean, really it was just I was going to play more, but that didn't happen.

Yeah, I would say that's probably my biggest thing is that I tell myself I want to play more and then something always comes up, some family, something work. Even though I work in disc golf, which is funny, but I don't get, I don't necessarily get paid to play disc golf like top players do, but I get played to have fun on video and play some disc golf, but not not not every day all the time.

So I definitely want to try to place them more in 2026 because I did not do that in in 2025. S 1 of you had mentioned something about casual versus tournament. So I wanted to, that's something that I recently did a video where I talked about it's important to play a tournament, but that most people that I have spoken to like they, in fact, some of the comments on the post I made on the page said they

don't play tournaments. So I know you guys are more, you know, probably more on the competitive side, but like how

important is tournament play versus casual? What do you, what do you think, Brent? Yeah. So we do a weekly league on Mondays, we Co hosted on Wednesdays and then we do a Co host on Friday sometimes as well, just helping out AT and one's in our town, one's in Sterling and 1 is in Walnut. So we have a ton of people that come out to weekly play that I've never see play a single tournament. And that's what they enjoy doing.

They come out they they love throwing the disc around and they love the random draw, double S the the low cost and

all involved with that. But, but then just recently to another individual in our area hosted just an amateur only tournament and a lot of people signed up for it for it because it was just MA three MA 4. And, and, and, and you had a lot of people that didn't have their PDJ number that just wanted to play a tournament because it was at a small local 9 hole that they felt comfortable at. So that that was their first tournament, you know, kind of thing.

So I think they're both equally as important, but I think you just have to kind of hopefully in everybody's area, try to offer both. You know, I think, you know, kind of tournament in a box kind of what DD offers or what kind of, you know, your veterans or vets or your back in the day when they used to do what was like the the amateur double S, you know, or the match play tournament championships and

stuff like that. I just love those things because they're so easy for people to kind of come out and that be their first kind of introduction to tournament play, and then they get them, you know, the bug from there. Yeah. Now, Ryan, last year you played, it looks like you played about 23 tournaments, quite a few A A tiers, B tiers and and Disco Pro Tour Elite series.

So your mindset's a bit different I would assume as far as when you get out and play or, or do you, maybe you do you get out and just say I'm just going to play casually or most times you get out. Is it you practicing for a big tournament? Yeah. So the way I normally play is like practice rounds are like complete casual. Like there's nothing, there's nothing really I do in casual rounds to like besides like practice the course to like prepare for like a tournament

setting. I think that just getting as much practice in as possible is what's going to help you do well at tournaments. And yeah, I mean, everything I do outside of tournaments is pretty much just casual, which I think is really fun. And another thing I love about disc golf is that, like, you don't have to be at any certain skill level to be able to play a tournament. I feel like a lot of other sports, like you have to be like, good enough to like, play. But disc golf really offers

like, anything for anyone. And if you just want to play casually like, that's fine too. What's kind of your mindset going into or how would you explain to somebody the I guess what, what goes on in your mind when you're playing a tournament versus casual? I mean, I know every shot counts obviously, because in casual you can throw again if you messed up, but you know, in tournament you can't.

So how do you kind of work yourself through that mindset when it you know it's time to turn it on for tournament? Yeah, so one of the biggest things I do is just try to make the tournament feel like a practice round. Whenever I'm playing with like people I really know, I tend to play with much better because I can like, talk to them. I can like, interact outside of like the actual game, which I find fun. To me, it helps me play better.

But in terms of like focusing on every shot, most of my practice rounds, even though they're casual rounds, like I will only throw one shot per hole, like I'll keep my like actual score pretty much every round. So I think that helps a lot. And then in the end, it's just practice. I mean, the more you play, the more you'll get used to like every shot counting. I normally play worse at the beginning of the year just because I haven't done it in a while. And then eventually you just get

used to it, which is nice. Yeah, Let's move on to the next question I had for you guys, so we can kind of get a different discussion. The question was what course or hole taught you the most this year?

You got a story for us, Marshall. Well, by not getting to play a lot, I didn't didn't really have a hole that kind of, you know, our course that taught me. I did. I did learn a lot when I was out in Emporia getting to play Jones E. That was kind of fun getting to play a course where the wind blows and it was 100 and something degrees when we were

out there. But you had to learn to, you know, just to to fight through it when it was hot and just, you know, learning to play, you know, different shots that we don't have in North Florida that y'all have out there.

What about you, Brent? Kind of back to, well, first I'll say, I mean, I live an hour and a half just north of Northwood Black. So, you know, I go down there and get to play that every once in a while, try to go down and play a couple rounds and beat myself up or, you know, humble myself. I guess I was like, I had like a 45 footer on hole 12 for a birdie.

And I felt real good about that. That was like, you know, but it just taught me to be patient, taught me to, you know, really disc down, you know, and, and throw fairways, throw it straight, hit your gaps, hit your lines.

But but then back to Page Park too, and, and having to pull the baskets and, you know, seeing the impact that that had in our community as far as, you know, the foot traffic and disc golf and the rounds played and kind of just taught me resilience, patience, you know, how to adapt to change, just, you know, how to look forward to the future too.

And like you said, too, with the infrastructure and everything that's getting built, it's just going to add that much more, you know, added features to it that are just going to make it, you know, really set it apart from from other local courses in our area. So I'm looking forward to. That gotcha Ryan, do you have a blow up hole or anything like that? Taught you a big lesson. Oh, I've had plenty. My, my answer was literally exactly the same as Brent. Northwood Black is about 2 1/2

hours from my house. I probably play at least 20 to 25 rounds there a year. And it basically just, it teaches me every time. You don't, you don't have to go for the aggressive shot. There's no reason. Just keep it in the middle and you'll be all right. Yeah. 20/20/2024 Ledgestone I played Northwood Black pouring rain five hours. It was awful and I took a 10 on hole 14. First ever time I've taken double digits and that was an interesting experience for me.

What Did it teach you a lesson or did it just make you mad? It taught me a lesson in that Northwood Black in the pouring rain does not go well. I bet not. Yeah, very cool. All right, So what do you guys want to see change in disc golf for 2026? Is it, is it something with the gear? Is it the course design shift, maybe a tournament rule change?

What do you think, Brent? I I really like the way everything's kind of heading and continuing to head, but I think continuing with more bigger sponsors in 2026, but but more or less sponsors that respect the grassroots side of it too, or have, you know, similar values or similar missions. I thought LL Bean was a great kind of sponsor create kind of thing to see. And I know it's, you know, me the only being kind of around in the sport eight years or so.

It's, it's sometimes weird just like look back further than that and see, you know, some of those bigger name sponsors, Adidas and just, you know, and, and things like that that existed, but that meant more or less you don't see so much anymore. But I think just kind of some of that.

But again, like I said, remaining that with that grassroots kind of, you know, just feeling to it, because I think that's really what what matters at at the end of the day is just trying to, you know, community and and involving

everyone and, you know, doing our best to support every walk of life. What are you Marshall? Something you want to see change?

I would like to see a lot of the pros that maybe decide to not you know, play as many of the big event or I'm not saying big of it, to start playing more local A tier events to get out of. I understand that there's more money in the actual pro tour events, but I would love to see them get out, especially some of the larger names like they used to do prior to I'd say probably 20/22/21. They used to play a lot more of your local A tiers and I'd like to see I'd really like to see that.

I mean, I think that's really big for the areas. I mean it take for us, I'm not just Tooting our horn, but you know, in Tallahassee, I mean, I would you know it, we used to have some of the larger names that came through here. I mean, even we were AB tier and then now you're you know, we still have some some of the bigger guys and girls that come here, but we just don't have the larger names.

I think that's really needed for disc golf is, you know, even if the Tour had a couple of less stops and let the Tour players go and focus on playing some of the local 8 years. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, I do remember that that that was a thing back in the day was more the top names as they were traveling through towns to the next big, what we call them NTS. Back then, the national tour, the NTS, they would stop and play some local events.

What about you, Rhyme? What do you want to see change? One of the things I'd like to see change eventually. I don't know if it's going to happen this year, but I think there's some flaws in the rating system. I know it's a big topic of discussion right now, but I'm not saying it's bad. I think it's a great way to like put people into different skill levels and make sure they're

playing the right decision. But I think when it comes to like pro tour stuff, I think it can just be a little flawed. You've heard of like boosted ratings, like some ratings being terrible. And I just think, to my knowledge, I think the rating system's been pretty similar for a long time. And I'm not sure what that change could be. But I think there could definitely be a change in that. One other thing I'm excited for is just the way that discs are evolving.

I mean, there's so many. I think before like 2020, like the Halo orbit plastic didn't even like it was just stock plastic. Like every disc was just one color. Like that's just how it was. And now I mean there's so many types of plastics. And I know that disc craft recently just released that like was ring stuff on the new discs. And I'm interested to see if any other companies like not only change the plastic type, but also like the way a disk is made, and I think that could be

something cool. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure there's stuff that I don't even know about that I'm sure that Latitude's working on for us. But and then of course, I'm sure the other manufacturers have things going on in their research development. So it would be, it's, it'll be interesting to see if someone comes out with something new in 2026. Of course, Disk Media has that premiere they're they're making.

It's supposed to be really good. I actually got to throw a couple of disks and they do fly really nice. So it'll be interesting how that when they actually get them out there, how they perform in the wild for sure. What about you, Brent and Marshall? Do you have any thoughts on the rating system? Do you have a a way to solve it? No, I mean, I, I see it. I mean, kind of like Ryan said, I mean, it's, I think the pro Tour needs their own rating system period.

I mean, it really truly, I think they just needed to cut ties with the PDGA rating system and have their own specific ratings. I mean, and, and go with that. And I mean local players, it's tough. I mean, I was just having a conversation with Alexis Carmen because we're doing the college disc golf regional and trying to figure out layouts to help. You don't want to hurt, you know, especially certain people that are lower rated, they're going to play.

But you know, it's just, it's tough to try to figure out how to create layouts that don't, you know, hurt one and don't help the other. Or, you know, because especially you take Ryan, if he's playing in a round with somebody like myself, I mean, it would probably kill my rating because he would, he would play so much better than I would. So I mean, that's I think that's the hard thing to do is, I mean, ratings are just tough. I mean, it's just, you know,

it's a hard thing. Yeah, I I would agree as well. I mean, I, I actually love that idea though with the Disc Golf Pro Tour having their own rating system, I think that would be excellent, you know, just to keep that in its own. But but yeah, it's tough. It's a tough problem to solve and I think it's just going to continue. But hopefully, you know, there, I'm sure there's somebody qualified, much more qualified than I am out there thinking

about it and working on it too. So we can only wait and see. Oh, Chuck Kennedy, if you're listening, I don't know if you listen to the show, I know he's in the Facebook group, the disco management face group group, because anytime ratings come up in the group, he always chimes in. So maybe he's maybe he's working on something, I don't know. All right, well, we're going to shift gears quite a bit here. And I told you guys about some hot takes. I want to get your all's take on it.

And I kind of gave you a hint at what it was, but I'm going to

give you the give you the specific hot take. And then I want your input. So I want your reaction to an idea that challenges how many discs we think we need when we're out playing around in a maybe in a tournament or any, any round. So here's the actual hot hot take. Playing with only your favorite 3 discs will actually make you a better player. I agree. I. Agree. What about?

What about you, Ryan? I think it might make you a better player on certain courses, but I would have to argue that certain courses may need more than just those 3 discs. I'm a big fan of not carrying many discs. I don't carry that many, but I think around your local area I would definitely agree. But if you get to some of the bomber courses and don't pick the right discs, I think there could be a slight issue with

that. And I think the difference in that answer is probably because I would imagine you could probably out well, I know you can out throw me, but I would imagine he probably out throws all three of us, right. Brenton Marshall, I would bet he he probably. The punters. Yeah. Probably the 100. So I could see where your answer couldn't be just so. So maybe that was more of a warm take, but yeah, I got some people. From that, Bobby I I have found playing rounds with less discs,

my score has been better. Yeah. I mean, one of my best rounds I ever played at Tom Brown. I played with two discs, yeah. We Yeah. And I don't know, maybe Ryan, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm I know back in the day that was The thing is we would tell, you know, we would have players show up in their bag would be just packed full of discs. And I would always think, man, you've got way too many discs. But I don't know. Do you do the young people do? Do they still fill their bags

pretty full feel like. Yeah, I mean, I feel like, yeah. And I, I hate it when people come to courses with like more than like 20 discs. Like when you're stepping up to a Tpad and you have like 4 discs in your hand. Like that's just crazy. Like the good thing about having the good thing about playing rounds with like 3 discs is that you don't have to think anymore. Like you have one option to throw. You have to throw that shot. Like there's no like thought anymore, which is what I really

like. I think the less you think the better, the better that you'll shoot. Now who here has raise your hand or or tell me who has in their bag They have How do I say this? They have less molds but a few different beat in stages of those molds. Or do you have like a lot of different molds for different shots? Who has, who has less molds, mold? How am I? Do you know what I'm saying? How I said, you know what I'm saying, Ryan, right? You have multiple multiple.

Yeah. Which one do you have the most of them that are in multiples? Multiples right now I think I carry 4 felons. Yeah, that's just because I have anywhere from like insanely stable to like my one felon. My this is my this is my money felon. I've been throwing it for like 2 years. I could flick it and it'll just go dead straight. But I mean, I carry like 4 felons and then I think I throw like 3 or 4 generals and then I think I throw two or three

rives. And I think just the familiar feel of the disc being beat in different, different stages. I'm not saying that more molds is like bad, but I definitely like beating in discs. And then you have like your new one, you have like your middle one, and then you have like your old one. You kind of follow that same thing, Brent or a little different?

Yeah, so my favorite disc of all time is the evidence in the mid range from DD. And so I I carry 3I carry like a Lucid that's kind of newer and just kind of by cycle one in and out all the time really. And then I have, I actually have a lava plastic evidence from many years ago that I found out in Las Vegas a few years ago at Lucky Disc Golf. So, you know, it's already beaten in the used bin naturally found it was like, this is coming home with me. So yeah. And then I have a a fusion die

Max evidence in there too. So, but they all do different things and, and, but same with like kind of Ryan, I have, you know, 2 felons, I have, you know, 2-3 wardens, you know, that all kind of do different things and all that kind of different stages of being beaten and stuff. So yeah, I think playing with last discs is better.

That's why I love the Trilogy challenge since my, one of my favorite events that we host every year just because it really does force people you, hey, you get to play with those 3 discs and, and that's it. And, and and, yeah, I think it's just a great opportunity to learn and create, be creative, and also learn the discs and nose angles. What about you, Marshall? What are your multiple molds so? I'm I have very few. I carry two Saints and I carry two of the which I call them sinus.

I cannot say sinus that does not sound correct. I carry 2 very very old sinuses with a. Thumb Hey, hey, hey, you seen this? Have you seen this? Have you seen this? Seen this. That's right. Yeah. So I carry, that's the only two discs that I carry multiple of and I only carry 1:00. And basically my St. I have a, a gold St. and I have a, a, a lucid St. that that both do 2 totally different things. Other than that, I have single disc of everything.

And my favorite disc in my bag is about a night a 20/18/2017 Emac Truth. It is my I mean, I just can't find another one that throws like it, even his new one that he just came out with a retool. I mean, but that's the only, that's the only pairs that I multiples that I have. Yeah, I don't have, I have the multiple tresp, just a couple trespasses and now I have treasons, multiple 2 treasons right now. And then I'm trying to see how the lucid treasons going to work for my for me.

My problem is that because I'm at the warehouse, because we have to talk about all the new discs that come out, I have, I try a bunch and then I'm like, oh, this one's really good for this. So this one, like, wait, what about the other ones? That worked out really well for me too. I haven't escaped. It's a beautiful escape, but I always forget about it because I have all these other discs to throw. So all right, hot take #2 this one is about stability choices

that casual players make. All right, so think of casual players. Here's my hot take, and this might be hopefully. Well, let's see. Let's see what happens. Overstable discs are ruining casual players. Agree. I would agree as well, Ryan. I would agree to a certain extent, but. The guy they can throw. Far I'm always the one who's I'm always the one who's like

against this. No, I think I feel like it depends on how it like if you're like a guy that like missed your first round and you have one disc, then yes, I would agree. But if you have like 3 or 4, I think that having one stable one with you is a good option because you never know when you're going to have a bunch of wind, especially for beginners. Like forehand is way easier with stable stuff. So I think that stable this can ruin casual players if they use

them too much. But I think just having one for certain shots is what actually be a good thing. Yeah, I think it, and it could because just because my level of play, but it feels like people are starting to appreciate more of the stable neutral and under stable discs. Not it used to be a while back. It'd be like people just like I need a meat hook. I need a, you know, I need that meat hook and I just don't understand why.

I mean, I guess I did, but I I didn't understand why casual players wanted to meet hook so bad other than that's what they saw the Ricky throw and the Paul Macbeth throw and all those guys

throw and so they wanted that. But I think the, the biggest thing I always saw was that people, I would watch people throw high speed drivers or overstable drivers and then I would watch their form and I'd say that's the disc is working for it's it's working for you because your form is so way off you and you're throwing it at a weird at a crazy angle.

So yeah, I thought I'm of the opinion that I think overstable discs can ruin a casual players game because they're not really they're not really picking the right disk and they're they're trying, they're trying to do a lot of the work when the disk can really do the work for them for sure. OK, so maybe that was kind of a warm take since everybody agreed. Let's see what the next one is.

All right, The next one is this one has to do with the distance and ego. And this is kind of maybe this is, well, I guess this is more along the lines of what we just said. But the hot take is most people would play better rounds if they stopped throwing distance drivers if they just stick to fairway drivers slower. And so does people do do does the ego get in the way of people picking the right disc for their game?

I I think kind of like what you had said too, you know, it's a lot of the people see, you know, the, the big arms throwing now these discs. And so they go grab these discs and, you know, I think that they're going to hurt them more than they help them any in any scenario.

Because, you know, unless you have throwing the, you know, unless you're throwing the disks at the speed it needs to be thrown at the correct way with the right nose angle and everything necessary, it's just simply not going to fly as it should or as it does for some of these big arms. So I think, you know, and then they go out and and I hear it a lot, you know, every week at league, you know, oh, you know, I tried the the general and I wasn't a fan.

And it's like, well, yeah, because you know, you can only throw 200 feet and, you know, the generals just going to go up and come right down and, you know, that kind of thing. So I think that's where you get that discouragement away from some of some of those new players because they're like, you know, but then you put something like like maybe a St. like Marshall thrower, you know, or like a Maverick or an escape or, you know, something like that in their hands.

And most recently, the treason, I think, or the motive specifically, is another great one. Yeah, I put some of those in in people's hands and was like, here, just go throw this, go use it for this nine holes and bring it back to me when you're done. And and they're like, wow, like I threw this 8200 feet farther than my other discs. And I'm like, I know it's crazy, right.

So I, I just think that that kind of helps is, is just, yeah, get away from the distance drivers, learn how your nose angles, learn how to throw and control your bag. Don't let it control you. Real quick for you Ryan, how how fast how long did it take for you once you started playing disc golf to actually get into throwing more of the distance drivers I'm. Trying to think the first disc I ever got was a nine speed. I know that. But I, I mean, I think I'd agree with you.

I think that anyone, anyone that can't throw over like 300 feet, like there's just no reason because the way it's going to work is the 12 speed is going to be no going to go no farther than the seven speed. So at least for me, I'm trying to think, yeah, I'd say right about that 303 fifty mark is when I started to actually start experimenting with those

11/12/13 speeds. Even if you can't throw like that 1213 speed arm range, which my guess is that's about 400 to 450, I think it can still be useful. But I think if if your arm speeds definitely like much lower, then I think stick to the fairway driver set back. Yeah. Any input from you Marshall? Yeah, You know, I, you're not going to like this, neither are the companies. But I, I fault a lot of the disc

golf companies for this problem. I mean, if you go buy a starter set, what comes in the starter set, it's usually, I mean, in the old school it was usually an 11 or 12 speed, a mid range and a putter. And I, I really think that, you know, I think most of them should just be a mid range and a putter. I mean, my first distance driver was a disc craft distance X and that thing, I could never throw

it and it was so frustrating. And I'm like coming from a ball golf background, I'm like, well, why can't I throw this driver? I didn't understand what it takes like, like Brent said, you know, to get that and Ryan, they get that disc up to speed to actually make it fly. And until I back down, I mean, for the longest, my driver was a Maverick. I threw a maverick and then I slowly went up to A to a St. I can't throw an 11 speed there to the the rims are too wide for

me and my hand comfortably. So I don't throw them because I I throw, I've tried to throw the grace multiple times. I love the disc, love the way it looks. It's it doesn't go as far as as a nine. So I think, you know, I think that's just one of the things that and and disc golf is, you know, you get a lot of people that that's the first thing they do is run out and buy those high speed drivers because they they have the ball golf mentality.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Now I will to be fair, I did look it up real quick and I see that our one of our starter sets actually gives you for the driver an escape. Yeah. So but as you get big, as you get the bigger like a four pack 6 pack, it looks like they throw in the trespass and then they throw in like a warrant in a in a Maverick. So yeah, I would say a trespass probably a little too much for a brand new beginner for sure, for

sure. All right, well, I guess all of those were kindly kind of like lukewarm takes. I need they can get my hot take game up and maybe get some more controversial stuff to see if we can get some yeah debate going. Well, guys, I appreciate you again. Hopping on as we wrap things up. Let me know what you got going

on for 2026. We'll start with you, Marshall. So 2026, you know, I'm hoping we have two A tier back-to-back in Tallahassee and Bainbridge. We kick off 1st of February and Bainbridge is the first ever A tier. At Bainbridge we have 15 K added cash and then the following week we have Tallahassee which is Valentine's weekend with 10K

added cash. And then give us the pros a a week off before they go to Brooksville to take a throw down the mountain down there to see if they can, you know, beat that course or the course beat them. So that's about our where we're going to be at the beginning of the year, so. Cool and I guess they can just go to what disc golf scene or Facebook page get more info. Disc golf scene actually the women's right now or it's open on the Open at Tallahassee.

We have the women only open right now and then next the 15th opens up registration for Tallahassee and Bainbridge on the same day. Awesome. What about you, Ryan? What you got going? So for the first half of 2026, maybe a little more, I'm just going to continue to play a bunch of events like local and then some pro tours. And then what I'm really excited about is next year is going to be my first year of college. So I will be playing on a college team.

I haven't said where yet, but it's coming soon. But I will be playing on a college team and I think that's going to be a really cool experience because I think that's part of the sport that can grow like a ton right now. It is growing a ton right now and so I'm excited for that. I feel like I've never, besides like double S events, I feel like there's never been like a big team aspect in like tournaments of disc golf. So I'm really excited for that.

Very cool. And Brent you what you got going on 2026? Well, big stuff, but starting the year off with our Veterans for Vets event in January, it's our 7th year hosting it. Now this one, we're putting a little change on things. I know a big, the big focus is on, you know, getting people out in the cold that support the vets. They don't get to choose when they serve, so come out and place them, you know, in the

cold. But partnering with our local park district, we have a facility here in town. So we're doing an 18 hole indoor putting style event. So for 40 bucks you can come Ryan, you're like an hour a shower and a half probably away from us. You can come on out and you bring your dad. I know you guys come out and play, but just a couple different, yeah, couple different divisions we'll have. We're going to spread out nine holes, play it twice.

But yeah, first year doing that. So really hoping to increase the sign up numbers just by having it indoors, simply still get 2 discs, a bunch of other goodies with the player pack, all that fun stuff. So and then we just move right along into our first seat here in April in Walnut, IL Then we have a big focus for me in 2026, I really want to get a high school team. I want to get a high school club

in our high school. Ryan, I don't know if you have done anything with that or heard anything about that, but there's a bunch of guys that actually play, but also art teach in kind of Northern Illinois area that have gotten at about 5 or 6 schools clubs at each school and they all kind of compete on the weekends and stuff like that. So just really trying to get a team for our local school and then hopefully coach that.

But yeah, just continuing, we got a couple other events will host couple Foxes again, redeveloping that 18 hole in the middle of town, probably get another 9 hole built because we, I think we've averaged at least one 9 hole a year that we've installed and designed and and kind of put in for the last price 7 years now. So we're, we're up to about 92, I want to say veteran baskets we put in the ground here in Northern Illinois. I'm so really excited to hit

that like 100 mark. And then we're just big contributors to local organizations. Hopefully after this next year we'll be able to say that we've contributed over $25,000 to local organizations in our community. Very cool. Awesome. Well, again, thank you guys for hopping on the show. I want to do more of these where we have more team members come on and talk a little bit disc

off. So thank you so much and Brent, when you after you, if you can like take pictures and do some stuff so I can share that out on our Facebook page at the veterans for vet. So I appreciate that. All right, guys. Well, thanks again. Hop on on the show. I appreciate it. We'll talk to you another time, all. Right. Thanks for having us. Thank you.