Off the rip - there is nothing new in this post that hasn't been talked about, ad nauseum, for years. This is 100% derivative. I'm only presenting YET ANOTHER way to internalize the concepts Sidewinder, Brychanus, Sheep, and others have been presenting over the years. If you don't want to read a regurgitation of these concepts again, feel free to skip. It won't hurt my feelings. I might be writing this more for me than anyone else.
Disclaimer/advisory/suggestion/whatever: I have a background in throwing sports, specifically baseball. This concept will probably be best suited for folks with similar, throwing-sports backgrounds. Proceed at your own risk.
On to the post:
I've been playing disc golf for about 20 years now, and like many folks have struggled with putting (and throwing, and well, disc golf). Over the past month, I've developed some sort of mental block and can't seem to find the basket. This is typical for me. I'll go several months at a time where I'm hitting everything from everywhere, and then I can't seem to get the disc out of my hand for another period of time. Frustrated, I did what every disc golfer does - go to YouTube and watch 1000 videos on putting tips
Fortunately, I only needed to watch one. Specifically, this one from Robbie C:
The TL;DW is that when (s)push putting, we should consider the motion as similar to tossing a tennis ball underhanded to a friend. The reason why this feels natural is that we instinctively throw the weight of the ball instead of the ball as an object... you can see where we're headed here. (The short version of the fix is to loosen your grip and focus on feeling and throwing the weight of the disc. The specific fix is less important to this post, but please watch this video; it's great stuff).
After playing around with this, I noticed a couple of things:
The first thing that popped in my head was a second baseman/shortstop flipping the ball backhand to the shortstop/second baseman on, say, a double play ball:
This doesn't really look much like a disc golf throw, maybe a putt, but let's play with this idea for a second. Pick up ahammer baseball, tennis ball, or even better, a lacrosse ball (nice and heavy as well as coated in rubber for safety), and find something safe to throw at like a fence, wall, or annoying child (just kidding about the fence, it can break).
First, let's start with Robbie C's concept of just throwing the ball underhand and bouncing it off the wall. If there's a spot you can aim at even better. Toss the ball (no need to throw particularly hard) at your aiming point a few times, note how "automatic" this is and take note about how you're not really throwing the ball, specifically, but you're throwing the ball's mass. If you can do this without getting in your head too much, also notice how your motion starts slow, and you kinda pop the ball at the end of the throw.
Simple enough, I think we got it, let's move on.
Next, get in a position where you can still throw the ball underhand but instead of your palm facing the target, backhand the ball like our second baseman friend in the picture above. Again, toss the ball at the aiming point several times. Tossing a ball backhanded like this a little unusual, but you know how to throw balls, so it shouldn't be too challenging. It should feel kinda similar to the first exercise just, well, backhanded.
At this point, between the first two exercises, you're probably doing something that adapts pretty quickly to a putt (if not almost exactly depending on your backhand throw stance). Pretty cool, huh?
Let's speed it up.
Staying in the backhand/underhand stance, toss the ball at your aiming point a little harder (this will probably work a bit better with a tennis ball - again, for safety). Keep increasing velocity as you throw more reps. Do this 10, 20, whatever number of times you want. After you get the feel of this, take note about how your body and arm are moving. If you're doing this correctly, at higher velocities, you might notice you're basically throwing a spike hyzer - we'll come back to this. For reference, you should be in a position similar to KJ here, just throwing a ball instead of swinging the blue disc. Be careful not to inverse the cause and effect here. Focus on throwing the ball. The result of that motion should look somewhat like KJ's swing (but not exactly; after all, you're throwing a ball, not swinging disc around).
Don't try to use KJ's swing to throw the ball! If it doesn't quite look the same, that's fine. We're all built a little differently
From the backhand/underhand position, let's a stand up a bit and use the same motion but now we're throwing sideways/across our chest. Go through the same process, start slow and just flip the ball to your aiming spot on the wall. Start increasing velocity. As you throw the ball harder, take note of what your body is doing (this is easier if you have a mirror or you take video).
Things you will probably notice:
Again, none of this is fundamentally different than throwing hammers, dingle arms, etc. However, if you have a strong background in throwing sports, hopefully this helps you leverage your existing muscle memory and throwing paradigms to build and improve your disc golf throw
Disclaimer/advisory/suggestion/whatever: I have a background in throwing sports, specifically baseball. This concept will probably be best suited for folks with similar, throwing-sports backgrounds. Proceed at your own risk.
On to the post:
I've been playing disc golf for about 20 years now, and like many folks have struggled with putting (and throwing, and well, disc golf). Over the past month, I've developed some sort of mental block and can't seem to find the basket. This is typical for me. I'll go several months at a time where I'm hitting everything from everywhere, and then I can't seem to get the disc out of my hand for another period of time. Frustrated, I did what every disc golfer does - go to YouTube and watch 1000 videos on putting tips
Fortunately, I only needed to watch one. Specifically, this one from Robbie C:
The TL;DW is that when (s)push putting, we should consider the motion as similar to tossing a tennis ball underhanded to a friend. The reason why this feels natural is that we instinctively throw the weight of the ball instead of the ball as an object... you can see where we're headed here. (The short version of the fix is to loosen your grip and focus on feeling and throwing the weight of the disc. The specific fix is less important to this post, but please watch this video; it's great stuff).
After playing around with this, I noticed a couple of things:
- When I'm having a cold streak, it's definitely related to me annihilating the disc with my grip and not being able to find a release point - cool
- More importantly, my body instinctively knows what to do when tossing a ball and my putting form naturally fixed itself in the process. My weight shift, arm motion, keeping my upper body still, etc.; all of this felt natural and practically automatic. I was able to stop thinking about throwing a disc and do what my body does naturally.
The first thing that popped in my head was a second baseman/shortstop flipping the ball backhand to the shortstop/second baseman on, say, a double play ball:
This doesn't really look much like a disc golf throw, maybe a putt, but let's play with this idea for a second. Pick up a
First, let's start with Robbie C's concept of just throwing the ball underhand and bouncing it off the wall. If there's a spot you can aim at even better. Toss the ball (no need to throw particularly hard) at your aiming point a few times, note how "automatic" this is and take note about how you're not really throwing the ball, specifically, but you're throwing the ball's mass. If you can do this without getting in your head too much, also notice how your motion starts slow, and you kinda pop the ball at the end of the throw.
Simple enough, I think we got it, let's move on.
Next, get in a position where you can still throw the ball underhand but instead of your palm facing the target, backhand the ball like our second baseman friend in the picture above. Again, toss the ball at the aiming point several times. Tossing a ball backhanded like this a little unusual, but you know how to throw balls, so it shouldn't be too challenging. It should feel kinda similar to the first exercise just, well, backhanded.
At this point, between the first two exercises, you're probably doing something that adapts pretty quickly to a putt (if not almost exactly depending on your backhand throw stance). Pretty cool, huh?
Let's speed it up.
Staying in the backhand/underhand stance, toss the ball at your aiming point a little harder (this will probably work a bit better with a tennis ball - again, for safety). Keep increasing velocity as you throw more reps. Do this 10, 20, whatever number of times you want. After you get the feel of this, take note about how your body and arm are moving. If you're doing this correctly, at higher velocities, you might notice you're basically throwing a spike hyzer - we'll come back to this. For reference, you should be in a position similar to KJ here, just throwing a ball instead of swinging the blue disc. Be careful not to inverse the cause and effect here. Focus on throwing the ball. The result of that motion should look somewhat like KJ's swing (but not exactly; after all, you're throwing a ball, not swinging disc around).
Don't try to use KJ's swing to throw the ball! If it doesn't quite look the same, that's fine. We're all built a little differently
From the backhand/underhand position, let's a stand up a bit and use the same motion but now we're throwing sideways/across our chest. Go through the same process, start slow and just flip the ball to your aiming spot on the wall. Start increasing velocity. As you throw the ball harder, take note of what your body is doing (this is easier if you have a mirror or you take video).
Things you will probably notice:
- You get a good amount of elbow bend
- Your elbow is out in front
- You're (probably) not over-rotating your shoulders
- Your wrist is doing exactly what it needs to do. Not too tight, not too floppy, and you're getting some good spring
- Your forearm is moving out away from your body
- You're starting slow and popping the ball out at the end
- You're probably shifting your weight pretty well
- You're probably bracing correctly
Again, none of this is fundamentally different than throwing hammers, dingle arms, etc. However, if you have a strong background in throwing sports, hopefully this helps you leverage your existing muscle memory and throwing paradigms to build and improve your disc golf throw
Last edited:
