Summary
In this conversation, the hosts discuss course growth in disc golf, focusing on the number of new courses and the efforts to save existing ones. They also talk about the rankings of the top disc golfers in the world and highlight Ricky Wysocki's impressive performance. Additionally, they mention the release of a new disc by Eagle McMahon and the achievements of Kristen Tatar in the women's division. The conversation concludes with news about PDGA approved discs and the efforts to grow the sport internationally.
Keywords
disc golf, course growth, new courses, conservation, rankings, Ricky Wysocki, Eagle McMahon, Kristen Tatar, PDGA approved discs, international growth
Takeaways
- Disc golf continues to experience course growth, with 31 new courses added recently.
- Efforts are being made to save existing courses, such as Stafford Woods in New Jersey.
- Ricky Wysocki is currently ranked as the top disc golfer in the world.
- Eagle McMahon released a highly acclaimed disc golf disc release video.
- Kristen Tatar has been performing exceptionally well in the women's division.
- New PDGA approved discs have been introduced by various manufacturers.
- Disc golf is growing internationally, with clinics and events being held in Japan.
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Chapters
00:00
Introduction and Saving Stafford's Woods
02:06
Ricky Wysocki's Bogey-Free Streak
03:44
PDGA Approved Discs
05:15
Growing Disc Golf in Japan
06:27
Course Growth and Expansion
07:46
Ranking the Best Disc Golfers
09:14
Eagle McMahon's Epic Disc Release Video
09:38
Top Women Disc Golfers
Music: Strange Bop by contreloup
(upbeat music) Hello, race fans, and welcome to Disc Golf Daily. We are the podcast that gets caught up with Disc Golf News and growth in about 10 minutes, saving you time and effort. If you wanna dive deeper into any story, links, as always, are in the show notes. Our number one story today, saving Stafford Woods. Voorhees Township wants to have their cake and eat it too. If Stafford Woods remains open, they may lose their New Jersey conservation funding. Rather than simply remove one of the most popular and beloved courses in central New Jersey, the town has decided to hear the complaints and put forward a plan to mitigate them. If they succeed, they can still provide a great service to the town through the existence of the course, while also staying in good standing with the Conservation Commission, allowing the money to continue to flow. They propose to plant 50 trees to replace the ones that were removed when building the course, as well as some that may have died from getting hit by discs repeatedly. They also propose to protect the trees that are still on the course that get hit most often, as well as mitigate ground compaction and limit the number of tournaments, presumably to reduce wear and tear. The proposal, eight pages all told, needs to be approved in order to save the course, and hopefully it will be. What I see here and wanna share is that someone had complaints and the people in charge actively listened and proposed solutions to those complaints. There is no need to get angry, no need to call people names, just listen and mitigate concerns. Long term, if we do this right, the Conservation Commission will hopefully see Disc Golf done right as a passive activity that can increase our outside time without destroying anything outside. But it has to be done right. Thank you, Voor, he's township. Hopefully this happens and hopefully Stafford Lakes can stay and the rest of us can learn a valuable lesson. Our number two news story, stats roundup from Crocal. Ricky Wysocki goes bogey free for the win. Wait, didn't I say that just a few weeks ago? That's right. He's done it twice in the last four events. And so you know how rare this is. He is the only player to do this more than once. And only three players, Ganon Burr, Mason Ford and James Conrad, have ever done it also. This is an amazing feat. It looks like Ricky is fully primed as we head into the European Open. He shot 1081 golf over the tournament. Only three players have shot a higher tournament rating, one of which was him in the history of Disc Golf. Keep smiling, Ricky, and then bring that A game to the beast. On the women's side, here's a list of the stats that Kristen Tatar led the field in. By the way, welcome back, Kristen. It's nice to see your smile again. Birdie rate, 43%. Bogey rate, just 15%. Double bogey rate, zero. Fairways hit, 80%, parked, 20%. Circle one in regulation, 44%. Circle two in regulation, 74%. C1X putting, 86%. Shots gained, T to green. This number's insane, 28%. Shots gained, putting, 7.7. Yeah, Kristen's pretty good. Just so you know, she moved off from 7th to 6th in the Tour Point standings. I expect we're gonna keep seeing that number go up, up, up. Welcome back. Our number three news story, PDGA approved discs. Lax is a distance driver from alpha discs, spelled A-L-F-A, and Lax is spelled L-A-K-S. And whatever. The mooring from King Dao Hippo Sport products is a beautiful putter that is PDGA approved. Sub-zero is a new mid-range, and air flight is a new fairway driver, both from Kestrel Outdoors. And the disc golf store has gotten a basket called the Grow the Sport Elite Basket PDGA approved at the basic basket level. Well done to everybody for submitting the paperwork writing, getting it done. Our number four news story. This comes to us from the end of a blog, Jeremy calling and Nate Sexton traveled to Japan to give clinics, play in events, and help grow the sport. This one comes to us, as I said, from the end of a blog. When young players find role models in the sport who they can look up to, quite literally in Jeremy's case, they delve deeper into disc golf. They find videos online. They begin to model their game after the best in the world. International ambassadors establish new scenes and make exciting scenes more motivated. The clinics. Led by Japanese legend, Kozo Shimbo, and his volunteers, Nate and Jeremy taught disc golf to hundreds of students in central Japan. With the help of translators, hand gestures, and the universal language of the sound of the chains, they were able to teach across the language barrier. They went to eight schools running clinics that lasted from one to two hours each. The students range from kindergartners to high school seniors and class sizes range from 15 up to 85 kids. Here's a fun quote from Nate Sexton. "A couple of kids hit ACEs in practice between 75 and 125 feet. Whenever those shots happen, everyone goes crazy. We brought the kids up and said, "What an amazing shot it was." They got to hear all those cheers and see everyone impressed. It's a great chance to let someone be a hero. They also got to play disc golf, the eighth Fuki Open. In addition to running clinics, Nate and Jeremy were able to compete in the eighth Fuki Open held in Sakashi, Japan. The course is one of Japan's best with epic holes that look out over the sea of Japan. It's stunning. Nate and Jeremy appropriately went one, two. Now it's time for some course growth and to figure out who the best players in the world are. Right, we're talking course growth now. Thank you to Eudis for these numbers. We had 31 new courses last week. That means we've got a total of 15,749 courses in the ground. One more, it would have been 15,750. Anyway, our yearly average courses per week continues to climb. We're up to 22.4 average courses per week. That's 3.2 courses a day. I estimate by the end of the year we will have 16,264 courses or an estimated new total new courses in 2024 of 1,164. That is an annual growth rate of 8.42%, fantastic. The number of courses in the ground continues to grow at an impressive rate. The US saw 11 new courses, Canada saw seven new courses, Sweden six, and that is your podium for new courses. Finland, Norway, they were right behind. But we got to give a shout out to Iceland who also got a new course. They've got over 100, they have close to 100 courses now. Very, very impressive numbers for Iceland. And now it is time for us to figure out who is the best disc golfer in the world. We go over our ranking system, which has Ricky as one, Gannon and two, and Calvin and three. That's basically, who did you beat? We have stat Mando's system, that's a black box. We have no idea what those guys are doing, but it's probably pretty reasonable. They have Gannon one, Calvin two, and Ricky three. We have the power rankings, which put Ricky on top appropriately enough. Gannon and two, and Anthony Barela in the number three spot. And then we have the Pro Tour standings, which have Gannon on first, Gannon in first, Ricky in second, and Niklas in third. So we mash all those together, and that gives us Gannon, Ricky, Calvin in that order with Anthony and Niklas also getting honorable mentions tied for fourth. But Gannon is beating Ricky by a whisker, 70 to 65. And we look at the men who improved the most in the rankings this year, this week. And obviously shout out to Juna Heinenen, who moved up 15 spots and is now ranked 25th in the world. Shout out to Eagle McMahon, who had a very good showing. And he moved up four spots. He's now ranked 29th in the world. And Niklas Ontala continues to climb. He gained two spots, and he is now ranked 5th. And I have to give a shout out to Eagle McMahon, who just released, in my opinion, the greatest disc golf disc release video ever created. He's singing to the clouds. If you haven't checked it out, go type in YouTube, go to, actually the link will be in the show notes. But seriously, MVP, disc sports, Eagle McMahon, Windragon, you'll find it. It's amazing. And on the women's side, our ranking system has Kristin on top, Kristin, Evelyna, and then own. The stat Mando ranking system has Kristin own, and then Missy. The power rankings have Holland, Missy, and then Kristin. Kristin's obviously about for a while, but good to see her popping up into the power rankings this quickly. And the Pro Tour standings have Missy, own, and Holland. And as I mentioned earlier, Kristin climbed from 7th to 6th. I would look for her to crack that Pro Tour standings podium soon. So that puts Kristin on top, own, and Missy are tied for second, and Holland and Evelyna are just, again, just barely outside the top three, finishing fourth and fifth. That does it for us today. It's a great day for Disc Golf, a great week for Disc Golf Daily. I hope you have fun, throw 'em straight, and hit the thin gap. And as always, if you have any thoughts, news, or opinions, shoot us an email, Disc Golf Daily, at aol.com. (upbeat music) Thank you so much for watching. Please like, subscribe, comment, and share. It really does help us grow. (upbeat music) (guitar music)
