Disc Golf Discs 101
A Beginners Guide to Understanding and Buying Disc Golf Discs
Buying disc golf discs can be extremely fun and even addictive! But… there are literally thousands of discs to choose from in varying shapes, sizes, types of plastics, special editions, and from different manufacturers😬!.. so how do you know what to buy and where to buy them?
Once you understand a little bit more about what you are looking for it is tons of fun to shop for the next perfect disc!
This page will quickly answer all of your disc golf disc buying questions and get you up to speed with disc terminology and the basics of how and why disc golf discs fly the way they do – as well as which discs to buy and where to buy them from.
How do I choose the right disc?
The page will teach you everything you need to know about building a complete disc golf bag, but if you are brand new to disc golf and just want to jump right in, my quick recommendation is to start with a putter or a disc golf starter set. You can play entire rounds of disc golf with only a putter (which is a ton of fun and great way to learn), or a starter set (which typically consists of these 3 disc golf discs: a putter, a midrange, and an understable fairway driver) will cover most of the shot types you will need during a round and therefore are my personal recommendation.
Yes, you can start with a putter only and play an entire round of disc golf with only a putter. This is because, unlike in regular ball golf, in disc golf you can throw putters off the tee and from the fairway (cough, cough… I mean rough).
DISC GOLF FLIGHT RATING NUMBERS EXPLAINED
Disc golf flight rating numbers are the numbers usually displayed on the front of a disc golf disc and are ratings for 4 characteristics of how that particular disc is intended to fly when brand new (speed, glide, turn, and fade).
Once you understand what these flight numbers mean, you can use them to shop for discs to fill different slots in your disc golf bag. They aren’t perfectly accurate in most cases, but they can at least give you an idea of how the disc is designed to fly.
Almost all companies today have adopted the 4-Number Flight Rating System invented by Innova. Although these are determined by the manufacturer, from my experience they tend to be somewhat similar across all brands. The reality is that two of the same frisbees can fly a lot different so flight rating numbers are rarely ever spot on. In fact, subtle things like what plastic, weight, and even what color the discs are can affect how the discs fly, so again please just use the flight numbers to point you in the right direction and not as law. Oh yeah, and you’ll learn that how much wear and tear the disc has a big affect on how your disc flies. Most of the time as your disc wears it becomes more understable. We will define what understable and other terms mean later in this article.
SPEED | (ranges from 1 to 14)
SPEED is the first number on the disc and is determined by how wide the rim of the disc is, and as you may have guessed, how fast the disc flies. The higher the number the wider the rim of the disc is and therefore the more aerodynamic the disc is. The more aerodynamic the disc is the more it will cut through the air with less drag. This number doesn’t only give you an estimate of how fast the disc is, but more importantly, this number indicates the speed at which you must throw the disc in order for it to fly properly. If you don’t match (or exceed) the speed rating of the disc then it will not fly properly. The lower the speed number the slower the disc and the narrower the rim.
CAUTION – If you are brand new to disc golf, don’t start out buying discs with too high of a speed rating! If you throw discs with faster speed ratings than your arm speed and spin you likely will not have much fun because the disc will quickly stall, curve to the side, and fall out of the sky. My tip for beginners is to start start playing with putters and midranges before progressing into the higher-speed discs as you learn to throw faster and farther. In other words, start playing with discs that have a lower speed rating than 7. This will accomplish two things. First, you will have more fun because the discs will fly better. Secondly, you will develop better throwing form because the wider the rim of the disc the quicker the gyroscopic nature of the disc will kick in and hide flaws in your throwing form. With putters and midranges you can easily tell if you are throwing the disc well or if it is wobbling drastically out of your hand. The wobble causes more drag and yields less accuracy and distance. To fix this you need more spin and a cleaner release.
GLIDE | (ranges from 1 to 7)
GLIDE is the second number on a disc golf disc, and it gives you an estimate of how long the disc will stay in the air (how far it will glide). Another way to think about glide is to think about how much lift the disc will create while flying through the air.
Discs with more dome typically have the most glide because their side profile when moving through the air creates a larger wing shape and more lift. Flatter discs, on the other hand, tend to have less glide but do tend to cut through the air well and usually feel better in your hand for forehand grips and throws. Theoretically, a disc with more glide will stay in the air longer and fly farther, but note this can be at the expense of speed because with more lift also comes more drag. Therefore, beginners with lower arm speeds may be able to get discs with high glide to fly farther than discs with high speed.
From my experience, this is the number that some manufacturers tend to like to over-estimate in hopes to get more sales so be careful not to be duped (like I have) and buy discs just because they have high glide ratings.
TURN | (ranges from -5 to 1)
TURN is the third number on a disc golf disc and indicates how much the disc will “turn” (or bank) during its initial flight at (or exceeding) the speed rating of the disc. This number ranges from -5 to 1 and this number correlates to the words understable, stable, and overstable. A high negative number indicates the disc is understable. A positive number indicates the disc is overstable. Neutral or stable discs tend to be when the TURN is equal or about equal to the FADE (the last number in the flight rating numbers).
Negative numbers, for a right handed back hand thrower (RHBH), will “turn” or bank to the right during its initial flight in the opposite direction of the “fade”. For a positive number aka 1, the disc will be fading the whole time… so for a RHBH thrower it will “turn” left the whole time and even fade left after it’s initial high-speed turn stage of flight. The opposite is true for a forehand throw or a left-handed thrower because the spin is in the opposite direction. This is because the spin of the disc and the lift force in combination are what make the disc turn and fade. So negative numbers for right-handed forehand throws will turn to the left initially. A turn number of 0 indicates that the disc should fly dead straight during the high-speed flight-stage of the disc.
LEFTIES – to save you time thinking about it, negative numbers for a backhand throw will have counter-clockwise spin therefore the initial turn of the disc will turn to the left and forehand throws for lefties will turn right when the turn number is negative.
FADE | (ranges 0 to 5)
The fourth and final disc golf number represents how much the disc will FADE out at the end of its flight when it slows and stalls. For the most common type of thrower, a RHBH thrower, discs will fade out to the left at the end of the flight. The higher the fade number the more to the left it will stall (or sometimes even skip). A 0 means it will try to keep pushing forward as it stalls and not stall out to the side.
Frequently Asked Questions (of Beginner Disc Golfers):