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- 🥇 Lobstah, chowdah, disc golf
🥇 Lobstah, chowdah, disc golf
#1 Disc golf city, Comeback kid, and Contract controversies
Hello and welcome to week 7 of the off-season. Is it time for a holiday round yet? In the meantime, let’s get it today.
Pay-to-play City
UDisc finished naming the Top 10 Disc Golf Cities - USA. And to some people’s surprise, Lewiston/Auburn, Maine came out as #1 beating out Charlotte, DFW, and other notables.
Maine is one of the only states where pay-to-play courses are the standard. The properties typically have several courses on location and are extremely well manicured. Even Simon Lizotte (current New England resident) believes it’s always worth the fee to play.
Are pay-to-play courses the future? Probably not, but both public and private courses can co-exist. It wouldn’t be surprising if many more private courses pop up in the next 5 years. And that would be beneficial for all players, no matter your preference.
So if you’re trying to figure out your next destination city or where you’d like to move… Any of the cities on UDisc’s Top 10 are disc golf meccas in their own way.
Comeback Kid
This week Brian Earhart dissects the 2nd coming of Austin Turner on The Flight Diary:A few years ago, Austin Turner burst onto the tour scene as a young, big-armed lefty from Charlotte, NC. This was a big deal for all the left-handed cheaters out there (đź‘‹).
Starting young and a Charlottean, he quickly rose in the local scene. The 18-year-old beats Ken Climo at Throw Down the Mountain 2016 and decides this was now his career.
In 2017, Turner made his name known and got promoted to the Discraft Elite Team. Back then Discraft was not the powerhouse it is today. The face of the company was Nate Doss, and Turner became runner up.
The pressure starts to weigh on the new star. He’s supposed to be the next face of Discraft and needs to perform consistently. 2018 was the opposite and ended with a back injury at USDGC. What followed was lots of pain, rehab, re-learning to throw, and finally he’s ended 2021 with his highest rating yet.
For those that didn’t forget about Turner, he promises to “get some wins for the lefties next year.”
Contracts Watch
🚨 NEW 🚨
Andrew Marwede posted a teaser on Instagram a week ago: “New plastic. Same drive to succeed.” Monday he announced his new 3-year deal with DGA (manufactured by Discraft).Marwede has been with Team Innova since 2018. He relied heavily on firebirds at different stages of wear. But due to DGA’s smaller line of discs, there’s not an exact Firebird clone for him. Marwede’s currently bagging a Glow Banzai and a Discraft Raptor for his main FH throwers. Although supposedly, he’ll be getting new DGA molds to fill any holes in his bag… Maybe being the big fish in a small pond does pay off.
Eric Oakley - Taking advantage of his open bag contract with Infinite Discs, he’s adding Thought Space Athletics to his lineup.
Matt Bell stacks on a putter sponsorship with EV-7 on top of his contract with TSA.
Cole Redalen follows Bell’s example and signs a 3-year putter deal with EV-7. There’s a pattern here… Earlier this year, Redalen was approached by Drew Gibson on partnering with EV-7. He received a great offer just for his putter spot and knew he could find an open bag sponsor without Discraft.
It seems like EV-7 went fishing this year and bagged a few pros, then Infinite/TSA (retailers) scooped them up as seconds. Open bag contracts = stacking sponsorships (bags & specific discs).
Mini marker collab between Marwede and Chips Ahoy next?
PREDICTIONS
Ricky Wysocki - Don’t worry, I’m also tired of the constant speculation everywhere you look. So let’s quickly knock these out…
What a week of hype centered around Wysocki’s eminent sponsor announcement:
Step aside DGPM, there’s a new agency in town. Shaffer Sports Management has become Wysocki’s accountant, tax manager, and agent. And there are definitely some things coming.
Hunter Thomas from Foundation DG tried to be a leak reporter but realized he didn’t want the bad press that followed.
New beef between Kevin Jones (America’s heart throb) and Drew Gibson (Outspoken self-starter) about players’ contracts. Tweets since deleted.
If the Wysocki news doesn’t drop by next week, I’ll summarize the leaked hints from the past two months. Or maybe we’ll see that Westside king’s throne occupied by “Raptor Legs” 8am EST on Thursday.
⏰ 1.5 WEEKS UNTIL THE 2022 SPONSOR IMPLOSION (JAN 1ST)
MOVES MADE
Matt Bell - From DGA to Thought Space Athletics (1 year)
Cole Redalen - From Discraft to Infinite Discs (1 year)
Matt Orum - From Prodigy to Westside Discs (2 years)
Eric Oakley - From Dynamic Discs to Infinite Discs (1 year)
Gavin Rathbun - From Discmania to Dynamic Discs (2 years)
New Plastic
Discraft just had a “modified overstable Raptor” approved by the PDGA called the “Captain’s Raptor.” Discraft is following Discmania’s example and creating a specific mold for their Captain Ulibarri. It will be released only once a year.
The Discmania Tactic received similar treatment when re-released exclusively for Eagle McMahon’s Razor Claw 2. There will be two different molds for the Tactic from now on: one for stock runs and one for the Razor Claw releases.
This strategy resembles Innova’s “3” series that slightly changes dome and profile of their most popular discs (Roc3, Teebird3, etc.). But creating a retooled mold specifically for a team member is a new trend.
The average player probably can’t see the major difference between the two versions… so maybe it’s a marketing tactic.
Speaking of McMahon, Discmania is squeezing in one last Mystery Box for 2021. It’ll feature a new Creator Series putter called the Rainmaker. Are they printing money yet?
Random Triples
For those tired of going through every online retailer trying to find the elusive max-weight Jawbreaker Zone (me), an amazing Redditor came up with a solution. Stacks-on-Stacks.com searches and filters through online retailers and aggregates in-stock plastic for you. It’s still in development, but shows huge promise and will certainly be my go-to when searching for backups.
Disc Golf Carts. Not the ones you pull.
WATCH the Fastest Par 5 ever played by Nikko Locastro, Luke Humphries, and Kat Mersch.
Meme of the Week
Thanks for reading today - Happy holidays! Get out and play with your family this weekend!
- Charlie