Getting your girl to play DG

Jethoho

Newbie
Joined
Apr 21, 2017
Messages
47
Location
Nova Scotia, Canada
Has anyone had any luck getting their spouse/girlfriend into disc golf? I've been taking my fiance quite a bit now. There is a short 9 hole beginner/kids course nearby that is perfect for her to learn the ropes on. She's quite good for a beginner and I'd love for her to stick with it and compete if that's what she wants. She enjoys it so far, but doing field work, and playing the same beginner course over and over may get old. Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep her interested and not get frustrated or burned out? Thanks!
 
My wife has thrown with me for years now. Not so much since my son was born in 2011, but they still go with me a decent bit. She's fairly competitive so after she got over the fact that we're all just throwing frisbees at weird contraptions she was hooked. Keeping her interested wasn't hard since she's so competitive - she always wants to shoot well. There's also always an outside shot she could beat me (which she almost did on Sunday at our old home course)
 
Has anyone had any luck getting their spouse/girlfriend into disc golf? I've been taking my fiance quite a bit now. There is a short 9 hole beginner/kids course nearby that is perfect for her to learn the ropes on. She's quite good for a beginner and I'd love for her to stick with it and compete if that's what she wants. She enjoys it so far, but doing field work, and playing the same beginner course over and over may get old. Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep her interested and not get frustrated or burned out? Thanks!

Easy, take her to a new course. Bring her to a random doubles league. Play some glow rounds. I dont know what you're doing for field work but change it up. Use your bag or a soccer goal as a target for practicing upshots. Have a point system to make it a little competative. Practice putting for points - any metal hit is worth a point (pole=1, cage/belt=2, chain splash=3, make the putt=4, no metal= -2 or whatever you choose). Play to 21 without going over, winner moves back X amount of feet. Theres so many ways to change what you guys do, where you play, how you practice, that theres no reason to get bored with one thing. If she gets bored, do or go somewhere else. I think the doubles league would be a fantastic way to not only change things up, but put her around better players and be able to be on a team so its not just her.

Also, see if there are any "newcomer" tourneys local to you. Its a doubles tournament and you bring someone who has never played a tournament before.
 
Not everyone, men or woman will have the same passion for disc golf that we exhibit on this site. My wife has been playing since the mid 1990's but is perfectly content to just play short easy church/rec type courses. You have to figure out what her level of involvement will be and go with it. Who doesn't like a 9 hole ace run once in a while? If she does want to get more involved and play competitively that is a bonus.
 
One thing that worked for me while I was teaching mandabear. I played left handed (my off hand).

This was handy for a number of reasons.

1. I could face her, she could mirror me to mimic my movements.
2. We were on about the same learning curve - I was re-learning how to throw, and I would realize something that would help it click and we could share what was working with each other.
3. We were competitive, we could play a round together, and rather than me throwing 3x as far and beating her on every hole, she got to the point where she could keep up with me and beat me while I was really trying.
 
I introduced my wife to disc golf in small increments over a period of 6 years. It started with field work, which was slow going until she gained some consistency and confidence. Her interest started growing exponentially after that. An aspect she probably enjoys the most is traveling to throw new courses. Like most students of the game, whether they be male of female, players like being able to apply something they've been learning/practicing to unfamiliar fairways with successful results. We try to mix in some sight seeing or try a highly rated local restaurant after a day of throwing to keep it from turning into a course grind. We've established a handicap system with dire consequences (cat poop scooping related) for the loser that keeps things light, yet competitive.
 
It took me two years to finally get her to play. She played five holes. The 6th is over water so she balked at throwing it, and immediately lost interest after that.:doh:
 
My partner and I have been looking for those shared activities as well. I brought some discs along to Lake Geneva, and we hit up White River. Not the best course with how badly some of it is labeled, but we tried. We also had plenty of time to throw. So, the first four holes took over an hour of show and tell throws, and time on putting. It was great, then she had her fill of throwing and let me finish the round out while being my cheering section.
While she mentioned some soreness the day after. She also lamented about not finishing the course off because she also noticed how serious, yet casual and also fun playing was, in spite of the high margin for error and human folly in throwing and retrieving.
 
An effective way I've discovered to keep new women players engaged in playing is when they start learning with one or more other women so they can continue to play together.

Right on!
 
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One thing that worked for me while I was teaching mandabear. I played left handed (my off hand).

This was handy for a number of reasons.

1. I could face her, she could mirror me to mimic my movements.
2. We were on about the same learning curve - I was re-learning how to throw, and I would realize something that would help it click and we could share what was working with each other.
3. We were competitive, we could play a round together, and rather than me throwing 3x as far and beating her on every hole, she got to the point where she could keep up with me and beat me while I was really trying.

I like this! This is brilliant! I agreed to run an ultra-Ragnar with the wife, so now she has to give disc golf a try.

One thing she said that turns her off is the fact I've been playing ten years, and if we started together maybe it could work. Heck, playing lefty fixes all that AND I can maybe become ambidisctrous!
 
The best thing I've found is a league that has multiple women. We have a tag league and the women have separate tags from the men plus a men's tag too. So they can see how they compare with each other as well as the guys. We started having women only CTPs. I think we had 8 women last week out of 28 people. Not a bad ratio.
 
There are plenty of things you can do with your S/O other than playing disc golf.... Its good for couples to have an independent hobbies so you don't drive each other nuts!
 
No point in pushing the issue. If she likes it, she'll play. If not then it's a good escape from the wife.
 
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