Define "Professional" Disc Golfer

[Emoney]

I feel like there are 3 types of "pros" but I call the first 2 by a diff name...

We have local open players, traveling open players, and then touring pros.

Local open players typically have other jobs and are good enough to consistently place high at local courses. Usually have a high rating but don't do well outside of their local courses and can't afford to travel much.

Traveling open players either are chasing the "dream" living on pennies or have flexible other jobs that allow them to travel around, and play other states. While still supporting themselves.

Touring pro gets paid to disc golf. Doesn't rely on placing high to make an income. The ones we see consistently on YouTube coverage. Also, heavily sponsored.

 

[Hampstead]

Is Ohio Disc Golf Hall of Famer Brad Schick a professional disc golfer? He works a 9-5 job, so disc golf doesn't provide all of his income.

 

[aphilso1]

Is Ohio Disc Golf Hall of Famer Brad Schick a professional disc golfer? He works a 9-5 job, so disc golf doesn't provide all of his income.

"As I mentioned previously, disc golf was never a full time job for me but instead a hobby that could pay for the weekend expenses when I played well"

https://www.schickdiscgolf.com/about-me

Based on his own words, I'd say his profession is something other than disc golf. Could he have become a professional disc golfer instead? Sure. He clearly has always had the talent. But instead he made the decision to base his livelihood on something else, and keep disc golf as a hobby that he happens to be really, really good at.

 

[EarthRocker]

Seems to me it should be up to each individual to call themselves whatever the hell they want.

Who are we to argue? Lort.

 

[Hampstead]

"As I mentioned previously, disc golf was never a full time job for me but instead a hobby that could pay for the weekend expenses when I played well"

https://www.schickdiscgolf.com/about-me

Based on his own words, I'd say his profession is something other than disc golf. Could he have become a professional disc golfer instead? Sure. He clearly has always had the talent. But instead he made the decision to base his livelihood on something else, and keep disc golf as a hobby that he happens to be really, really good at.

I suppose if the 2021 Tim Selinske US Masters champion, who has been playing MPO since 1995 and has the following stats

Career Events: 597
Career Wins: 174
Career Earnings: $169,344.87

isn't considered a professional disc golfer, then the number of professional disc golfers in the history of professional disc golf must be less than two dozen.

 

[Nick Pacific]

Are they making a living at what they do? Yes? Then they are.

The problem with that definition is there have been very high level disc golfers over the years who never "made a living" playing disc golf and held jobs to support themselves while playing. By that very definition, Steve Brinster, former USDGC champion just a handful of years ago, never "made a living" playing disc golf and always had a job, despite winning the USDCG. But he's obviously a professional.

Joe Rovere and Andrew Fish also come to mind as well, both have always had full time jobs and never made a living off disc golf yet both are obviously professional level. Those are just two off the top of my head but I'm sure there have been more.

I like quantitative, objective standards. Give me numbers as markers and get rid of these subjective standards and labels like "make a living". What's a good standard? Perhaps cashing at an event isn't high enough. Maybe it's a 1000 level rating? Maybe it's when they get tour cards going? We shall see.

 

[Steve West]

https://www.pdga.com/announcements/changes-coming-pdga-premier-pros-list-2022

 

[TurnedOver]

"Part-time professional" is an appropriate name for someone that earns secondary income from disc golf.

 

[Central Scrutinizer]

I've been around since the late '80s. We've always called people who play and cash in open "pros." 970 is a damned good player too, only 2 or 3 strokes under a top 500 player in the whole world. That's a "pro" to me any day.

I guess since I come from the days when we were a fledgling activity we never considered whether or not they were doing this for a living. Nobody was as a player for sure for quite a long time. It was just reserved for people who took the leap from Amateurs and accepted cash at least once in the open division.

For a brief time back in about 1998 there was a division called "Pro 2" at least around here when they were trying to encourage good Am-1 players to take the next step. I don't remember it doing anything beyond a couple of years. It had just a few people in it at tourneys (I think I maybe remember Dave Feldberg being in that? Not sure if I remember right.) At the time I don't think you would've called them "pro" but then again there were so few of them it didn't matter. Am-1 was always a huge field in those days.

 

[txmxer]

This discussion isn't about what is and isn't a minor league.

I hope you've learned a valuable lesson in this thread. I know I have not.

 

[Three Putt]

I've been around since the late '80s. We've always called people who play and cash in open "pros." 970 is a damned good player too, only 2 or 3 strokes under a top 500 player in the whole world. That's a "pro" to me any day.

I guess since I come from the days when we were a fledgling activity we never considered whether or not they were doing this for a living. Nobody was as a player for sure for quite a long time. It was just reserved for people who took the leap from Amateurs and accepted cash at least once in the open division.

For a brief time back in about 1998 there was a division called "Pro 2" at least around here when they were trying to encourage good Am-1 players to take the next step. I don't remember it doing anything beyond a couple of years. It had just a few people in it at tourneys (I think I maybe remember Dave Feldberg being in that? Not sure if I remember right.) At the time I don't think you would've called them "pro" but then again there were so few of them it didn't matter. Am-1 was always a huge field in those days.

I forgot all about Pro 2. We just never offered it; it wasn't required and Dave McCormack hated the idea. He thought it was just another level of sandbagging for people to go through before they donated their money to him in Open. Disc golf was always a players sport and your best player alway had a huge voice in what you did, so Dave generally got his way in St. Louis.

To your larger comment; yeah, back in the day "Pros" were just good Open players. Dave McCormack didn't tour and he made his living off a construction company and made a little money with a disc wholesale company he started. He always said he wanted to make a living off disc golf and he put a lot of time into disc golf, installed courses, sold discs, eventually started making bags and such. In the mid-90's that was the viable route to take to make a living off disc golf because even Ken Climo wasn't making a living playing disc golf. I forget when Dave finally shut down the construction gig but it was late '00's; he was over 15 years with Gateway before Gateway was a viable way for him to make a living.

As a player? Yeah, we all considered Dave a Pro. He was good. His best days were before ratings, but dude could crush an Aviar. When you ran an event Dave would win, and if he didn't it took a Scott Martin or George Smith to beat him. Touring guys would come through and he could throw with those guys. That's really what "Pro" meant back then; Pro meant you were good. It had nothing to do with how much money you won. McCormack didn't tour. How much money could he have won? Who knows? It wouldn't have been as much money as he made in construction, that's for sure.

It's only recently that playing disc golf was a viable way to make a living for more than 5-6 players, so if you want to use that as the definition there are multiple World's winners that will not qualify as ever having been a professional disc golfer. That's just our history. We have been a painfully small group performing for peanuts for a long time.

The field thing shifted in the late 90's/early 00's. I moved to Chicago in 2000 and the Chicago guys complained about St. Louis guys who were no good playing Open; playing Advanced had boomed there and those events had shrinking Open fields and huge Adv fields. Pretty soon that was the norm. It wasn't until the PDGA defined the fields with ratings breaks that all those folks at the bottom of the Adv field realized they were actually Intermediate players.

 

[foxdawg10]

I hope you've learned a valuable lesson in this thread. I know I have not.

You seem to be trolling this thread now, lol.

If you actually read it, there is some pretty good stuff here about the evolution of the game, where it has been and where it is going.

 

[Three Putt]

You seem to be trolling this thread now, lol.

If you actually read it, there is some pretty good stuff here about the evolution of the game, where it has been and where it is going.

Basically you can't retroactively go back and apply today's standards on what we did 25 years ago.

When I joined the PDGA 25 years ago I called them. "Them" was a woman named Becky Powell. She was the PDGA Executive Director. The PDGA number was her house in Texas. She was the only paid employee of the PDGA. You sent your membership check to her; she processed it, deposited your check, stuffed your membership card in an envelope and sent it back to you. She described her job as largely secretarial.

The year Climo won 23 of 27 events and only won $19,240? Yeah, that was the PDGA when he did that; one employee working out of their house stuffing envelops.

The events and the sponsorship of those events were 100% on the backs of the players. It was a dream of a professional disc golf tour and guys keeping the dream alive.

Notice I'm not claiming that we were making the dream happen. We were keeping the dream alive. Honestly if there was never an Internet and everything had stayed in 1995-conditions, disc golf would not be where it is today. We were swimming upstream. The current changed and that made a lot of things possible that were not possible back in the day.

So was what we did back then "professional"? Lol, no. We knew back then it wasn't. We were just keeping the thing going until we could catch a break. The Internet was the break we needed, and even that took a long time to develop. Now that it has, trying to go back and compare what we did before the big break to what people are doing now after the big break is pointless. It took a really, really long time to catch a break. It took a lot of dedication by a lot of people to get from the mid 80's to 2021.

We got it there, though. What was the Delta Airlines tag..."We get you there"? Nobody likes flying Delta, but sometimes you just gotta get there. :|

 

[oldmandiscer]

The problem with that definition is there have been very high level disc golfers over the years who never "made a living" playing disc golf and held jobs to support themselves while playing. By that very definition, Steve Brinster, former USDGC champion just a handful of years ago, never "made a living" playing disc golf and always had a job, despite winning the USDCG. But he's obviously a professional.

Joe Rovere and Andrew Fish also come to mind as well, both have always had full time jobs and never made a living off disc golf yet both are obviously professional level. Those are just two off the top of my head but I'm sure there have been more.

I like quantitative, objective standards. Give me numbers as markers and get rid of these subjective standards and labels like "make a living". What's a good standard? Perhaps cashing at an event isn't high enough. Maybe it's a 1000 level rating? Maybe it's when they get tour cards going? We shall see.

You can call them semi-pro's as well. They don't do it full time to make money. Even many of the legends were really semi-pro's in that they did other things as well to earn money. That disc golf wasn't their primary full time profession.

If you disc golf competitively full time, likely have sponsors, maybe also do other disc golf related activities for income (sell discs, make videos, clinics run events,etc). That's a full time pro.

Semi-pro isn't a knock either, it just means part time.

 

[Three Putt]

Semi-pro isn't a knock either, it just means part time.

Semi-pro could be considered a knock if actually pro was a viable option.

If I had been a semi-pro baseball player in the 90's you could conclude that I wasn't good enough to play pro baseball and semi-pro could be considered a knock on my talent vs. the hundreds of players my age that were good enough to play pro ball.

If we want to retroactively declare that Ken Climo in 1995 was "semi-pro" because he won less than $20,000 doing it, that's just us being dumb. :| No knock on Ken Climo at all.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Competition reality, even if divisions not labeled this way, from a net cash/merch compensation and winnings perspective:
- Elite Pro 1025+ (Most/all income disc golf related)
- ThreeQuarter Pro 1000+ (supplemental part-time income, likely seasonal)
- Semi Pro 975+ (at least 50% of income from sources other than DG competition)
- Quarter Pro 700+ (Competition Ams, some sponsored. Flexible to fulltime jobs. Also win cash/merch in leagues and unsanctioned events)
- True Amateurs (Win/earn minimal tangible prize values if they compete at all)

Although focused on players under age 40, it probably holds up for those over 40, too.

 

[foxdawg10]

Basically you can't retroactively go back and apply today's standards on what we did 25 years ago.

When I joined the PDGA 25 years ago I called them. "Them" was a woman named Becky Powell. She was the PDGA Executive Director. The PDGA number was her house in Texas. She was the only paid employee of the PDGA. You sent your membership check to her; she processed it, deposited your check, stuffed your membership card in an envelope and sent it back to you. She described her job as largely secretarial.

The year Climo won 23 of 27 events and only won $19,240? Yeah, that was the PDGA when he did that; one employee working out of their house stuffing envelops.

The events and the sponsorship of those events were 100% on the backs of the players. It was a dream of a professional disc golf tour and guys keeping the dream alive.

Notice I'm not claiming that we were making the dream happen. We were keeping the dream alive. Honestly if there was never an Internet and everything had stayed in 1995-conditions, disc golf would not be where it is today. We were swimming upstream. The current changed and that made a lot of things possible that were not possible back in the day.

So was what we did back then "professional"? Lol, no. We knew back then it wasn't. We were just keeping the thing going until we could catch a break. The Internet was the break we needed, and even that took a long time to develop. Now that it has, trying to go back and compare what we did before the big break to what people are doing now after the big break is pointless. It took a really, really long time to catch a break. It took a lot of dedication by a lot of people to get from the mid 80's to 2021.

We got it there, though. What was the Delta Airlines tag..."We get you there"? Nobody likes flying Delta, but sometimes you just gotta get there. :|

That was right before I joined 23 years ago. At that time the PDGA office was on Toronto Island, and I would see "Guru" Hoeniger at the few Can Am tournaments I played. It took years to outgrow the image of disc golf being a hippy dippy sport, but can you blame me with that introduction, lol. It is striking to me watching the footage today compared to the 1999 World Championships video on Youtube. My form now more resembles the form folks used back then as opposed to the form people use today, lol.

 

[txmxer]

You seem to be trolling this thread now, lol.

Not my intent. Chris was making a point about professional designation versus open and I think it's completely valid. Then came along dictionary debate and then points about history to which Three Putt provided great context for the issue.

I truly dislike the PDGA division classifications. Neither of them is a pro. When I refer to MPO I refer to it as the Open Division. Someone calling a 970 golfer (or, at this point, a sub 1000 rated) a pro is a joke.

When I'm out in the pool world - I'm making cash from play in sanctioned leagues and tournaments but the last thing I'd ever do is embarrass myself by referring to myself as a pro pool player, and that's the accepted norm. I know tons of people like to say "dIscGolF dOesNT nEeD tO bE LiKE oThEr sPoRTs" but come on - someone rated below 1000 is only in the rarest of circumstances going to be someone who can refer to themselves as a "professional" disc golfer (circumstances such as: taking a year off due to financial constraints, injury, etc. - and these are people who would normally be over 1000 rated).

If you actually read it, there is some pretty good stuff here about the evolution of the game, where it has been and where it is going.

Agreed.

For the subject at hand some of the historical posts, this is relevant.

Basically you can't retroactively go back and apply today's standards on what we did 25 years ago.

And if today, you are 9xx rated playing MPO and want to call yourself a professional disc golfer, more power to you, but it's far from the same as the people on tour.

In moto we have the same thing. There are people I've always referred to as "local pros", that would dominate at smaller races, but if they enter an elite event, they are a lapper before the race is half over.

 

[DeanMoriarty]

A pro is someone who can toss their disc golf bag into the basket from a minimum of 20 feet outside circle 1

 

[Steve West]

A pro is someone who can toss their disc golf bag into the basket from a minimum of 20 feet outside circle 1

Just tried that with my cart. Finally figured out I needed to swing it around by the handle like an Olympic hammer throw.