What's Holding Disc Golf Back

[vslaugh]

Generally, I'm not too concerned with the sport's national exposure as I'm more interested in disc golf as a fun, affordable, accessible outdoor recreation asset for a community, but for the purposes of this thread...

I think course quality is a major issue. Both the art (landscape aesthetics) and science (Chuck Kennedy stuff) need to advance and multiply so that a higher percentage of the population is exposed to courses that better exhibit the sport's potential beauty in the way it relates to nature and offer an engaging golf challenge. Once there's a little sense of awe surrounding the courses, the sport becomes a lot more engaging and watching really good players becomes a lot more interesting.

 

[Dave242]

Here's something else to think about... MLB, NFL, PGA, And whatever the sanctioned Tennis association is have been around for going on a century now, in some cases longer. It will get there, it just may take some time. If bowling and table tennis are on ESPN, disc golf will be.

How many cameras does it take to produce a compelling bowling or ping pong broadcast? Two? Three? It takes at least that many per hole spread out over a 30-50 acres to produce a compelling DG broadcast (plus there is weather that comes into play).

Bowling and ping pong are good shows to be used as filler material in otherwise dead spots in a line up since they are so cheap to produce. And, pretty much everyone has tried them......and can easily get drawn into the "wow, those guys are good!" thing. DG is not nearly as cheaply a produced product......but as more people get some familiarity at least we'll have the wow thing going for us.

Plus another huge factor is that DG is boring to watch. The really cool and exciting part of DG is the big drives with cool flight patterns. This is very hard to capture on camera. The short game in DG is very boring. Conversely, BG's big alure is the short game (approach, chipping, putting). The driving is OK, but without them showing the animated flight path it is extremely hard to be inspired by the TV coverage of the drive.

Bottom line, it takes some really really rose colored spectacles to have much hope that DG will ever make it "big time".