The Intentional Disc Golfer
Unleash your disc golf potential with The Intentional Disc Golfer podcast! Join us as we dive deep into the physical and mental aspects of this incredible sport, helping you become the player you've always dreamed of being. We're here to elevate your game, share expert insights, and inspire intentional growth on and off the course. Support our mission by becoming a part of our avid listener community. Together, let's take your disc golf journey to new heights! Email us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com to support or be featured on our show. Let's tee off towards greatness!
The Intentional Disc Golfer
Sidearm Mastery: Sarah Hokom's Disc Golf Journey
Sarah Hokom, 2012 World Champion and four-time major winner, takes us on a captivating journey through her remarkable disc golf career. From her first round in 2007 where she witnessed an ace that hooked her into the sport, to developing her signature sidearm dominance that set her apart in competition, Sarah shares the honest reality of professional disc golf with refreshing authenticity.
The mental game takes center stage as Sarah reveals how Bob Rotella's sports psychology principles transformed her competitive performance overnight. "That's how I started winning immediately," she explains, detailing the shift from outcome-focused anxiety to process-oriented confidence. Her insights on handling tournament pressure, recovering from mistakes, and maintaining perspective when everything feels like life-or-death on the course offer practical wisdom for players at any level.
Life on tour comes alive through Sarah's colorful stories – from sleeping in tents behind Walmart with a knife for protection, to her heartbreaking car accident while leading the 2015 World Championships by seven strokes. Beyond competition, she provides valuable perspectives on women's participation in disc golf, highlighting how creating supportive female-focused environments can foster sustainable love for the sport. Looking forward, her vision to develop courses serving the 99% of recreational players rather than just the competitive 1% demonstrates her commitment to growing disc golf's accessibility and community impact.
Whether you're fascinated by the professional tour, struggling with your mental game, or interested in disc golf's future in collegiate sports and the Olympics, this conversation offers thoughtful insights that will enhance your appreciation for this rapidly evolving sport. Subscribe now and join our community of intentional disc golfers committed to playing with purpose!
Disc Golf Changes Lives <3
To support this podcast or arrange for an interview please contact us at theintentionaldiscgolfer@gmail.com
Welcome to the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast, the show dedicated to helping you elevate your disc golf game with purpose and strategy. Whether you're stepping up to the tee for the first time or you're a seasoned pro chasing that perfect round, this podcast is your guide to playing smarter, training better and building confidence on the course. We are, Brandon and Jenny Saprinsky, passionate disc golfers, here to explore everything from technique, course management, mental focus and gear selection. Grab your favorite disc, settle in and let's take your game to the next level, Intentionally, Intentionally.
Speaker 3:And thank you so much for being here at the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast. I am one of your hosts. My name is Brandon.
Speaker 2:And I am Jennifer, Jenny, and I don't prefer Jen. I've been asked that a lot lately. It depends on the level of how much in trouble I'm in.
Speaker 3:It does. It does. At least they're not using your middle name.
Speaker 2:I had to throw you off your game.
Speaker 3:You are, you do. Thank you, dude.
Speaker 2:You're welcome.
Speaker 3:All right, and we would like to first of all thank our fans for sticking with us supporting the show. And if we would like to first of all thank our fans for sticking with us supporting the show and if you would like to support our show, please like, follow, subscribe, share, tell all of your friends. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram if you just search the Intentional Disc Golfer. That is the Intentional Disc Golfer. Also, we have our family's Facebook, which is Saprinsky disc golf. You can also find us on X.
Speaker 3:We now have a tech talk and a YouTube. It is at the IDG podcast. That is at the IDG podcast. A quick note about YouTube it is down right now as we are getting ready to integrate video here in the near future, so that is coming. You can also visit our website on buzzsprouts and you can text us right from there. Send us a fan mail through your phone and we will receive that, or get a hold of us directly at our email at the intentional disc golfer at gmailcom. That is the intentional disc golfer at gmailcom. And as the show matures and we get a little more content and a little bit more special content behind the scenes, you can access that through our Patreon at patreoncom backslash theintentionaldiscgolfer, patreoncom backslash theintentionaldiscgolfer, and at the end of each episode we try to include some bloopers and some outtakes, and so please do stay tuned. After the outro music and you can listen to some of those. Get a good laugh. Jenny, what is on our?
Speaker 2:community calendar. We are doing what's it called Soapbox Hill.
Speaker 3:The Soapbox Hill Work Party. Soapbox.
Speaker 2:Hill Work Party on Saturday February 22nd, from like 9 am until we're done, to support Team Grit City. Go, grit City, grit City. We have Team Golf on Sunday February 23rd at White River. Sunday February 23rd at White River, and then you are taking me to shiver at the river at White River. On March 2nd. We have team golf on March 9th in Olympia.
Speaker 2:At Delphi, I have the Evergreen Women's Series Fierce Flight Showdown at Maple Valley, gaffney's Grove, on March 15th. You are doing the West Zone Invitational on Saturday, march 15th. Team Golf 7 at Shelton on March 16th, the fourth annual Christopher Reeves Memorial and Fundraiser for Autism Speaks, sponsored by Dynamic Discs. On March 22nd. We're debating about doing Flood Warning on March 29th Haven't signed up for that one yet and then Washington Team Golf Championship on March 30th. Then we're signed up for Discing at the Depot on April 5th and a few more things. And then let's talk about our tournaments. So we have Sirens of the Springs, part of the Evergreen Women's Series, at Shelton Springs on May 3rd, and Tritons of the Timbers, which is going to be a mixed event for men and women, at Shelton Springs on Sunday, may 4th.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So Saturday and Sunday, two back-to-back tournaments one for the Evergreen Women's Series promoting women in disc golf. So, ladies, come on out and have a good time and then the next day you can have your caddies play on this very same course that you got to play on the day before. And we would like to announce that we got a very, very cool sponsor for this tournament Both the tournaments, actually. We'd like to thank TechDisc for being our sponsor. They're going to be at the tournament. Well, we're going to be demoing their products at the tournament so that you can try out a TechDisc and see what that's all about. So thank you very much, techdisc. We really appreciate that. And those places that jenny listed off are all the tournaments that you can come see us at. So if you want to come and make a new friend or talk disc golf, uh, that's where we will be and when we will be there.
Speaker 3:So, jenny, we have been on a hot streak lately. We have been in a hot streak lately with having exceptional special guests on our podcast. We had scott stokely. You're still using special, I know, but we've been on a hot streak lately. We have had multiple guests come on the podcast. We had scott stokely. That was really exciting. What a sweetheart I don't have any other word for him. He's just a really kind, kind person. And then we just had Ryan Scaife talking about the Hope in Tanzania project with the Paul Macbeth Foundation. So that's really exciting, bringing the sport of disc golf to Tanzania, africa some of the oldest land in the world where human beings actually got their start. So that's really really cool. And now this episode.
Speaker 2:One of the best, as one of our fans posted an OG female player, which we will tell you in a few minutes. All right, let's talk about a brand that's bringing some serious fun and personality to disc golf Salty Unicorns Apparel. That's right, salty Unicorns Apparel. They started because disc golf fashion was seriously lacking in style, especially for women. What began as a simple search for better apparel turned into something bigger, and in just a few weeks they were outfitting own Scoggins, and now they've got Jessica Oleski, lucas Carmichael and Trinity Bryant rocking their gear too. Salty Unicorns is different because they actually prioritize women's apparel, something most brands don't. And they're not stopping there. Pretty soon they're launching their own Salty Unicorn bags, bringing that same energy and creativity to the gear you carry. So if you want to stand out on the course and support a brand that's shaking things up, check out Salty Unicorns apparel, because disc golf should be fun and so should what you wear. Find them online, follow them on social media and bring some color to your game. Use the code SALTY10 for a 10% discount.
Speaker 2:Big news disc golf fans, treasures of the Forest, just dropped something special their Mile Marker 63 Minis. These unique pieces were crafted from materials collected with the help of Simon Lizotte, straight from the course he designed. That means you're not just getting a mini, you're holding a piece of Disc Golf history. And guess what? They're hitting the road. The Treasures of the Forest tour starts this week. You can find them at a Florida event or the next month at a Texas event. Stop by, say hi, grab your Mile Marker 63 Mini before they're gone.
Speaker 3:So, jenny, we have another awesome guest for you guys today. Would you please go ahead and introduce yourself for our listeners.
Speaker 1:What's up everybody. This is Sarah Holcomb. I'm the single 2012 world champion, but I am a four-time major champion and I'm super stoked to be here with you guys. I've been doing this since about 2007 and been on the road doing it since 2012 as a professional and been on the road doing it since 2012 as a professional.
Speaker 3:Very cool, very cool. So, to get us started, sarah, how?
Speaker 1:did you get started playing disc golf? You know, kind of like everybody else, really. Just some buddies invited me to play and I came out, met them out there at Quail Ridge Park Shout out to the Ridge Runners, most of which don't actually live there anymore, but it's in Wentzville, missouri. It was you know so long, 2007,. We're talking, so this was a lot almost 20 years ago. But yeah, invited me to play and then he hit an ace by ricocheting off of a tree on hole seven of this round, my very first round, wow, and I was just like dumbfounded.
Speaker 1:And then I met a group of hoodlums in the woods, invited me to play the local league, and these are my kind of hoodlums. So I obliged and joined them the next week for doubles bring your own partner doubles. And unfortunately I was still terrible after a week, of course, as everyone is, and so I resolved to get out and get better for myself and for my partner, poor guy. And so then I started playing like every day after work, and that was kind of the beginning for for me so when you first started playing because you're known for being a sidearm player did you sidearm at first?
Speaker 2:did you try him backhand, like what was your first round? Like?
Speaker 1:yeah, I was.
Speaker 1:I tried both, you know um, just like trying to throw it like you would throw a frisbee, and then I also tried to throw it like you would throw well forisbee, and then I also tried to throw it like you would throw well for me it was like throwing softball, because I had played softball as a kid so that was kind of a natural throw for me and because of the softball throwing, I was an infielder so shortstop was my main place and I would, you know, field the ball from low and fire it to first base and throwing a sidearm felt a lot like that. So when I could naturally just do that really well, for the first couple of years I did not really focus on the backhand off the tee. Now, from short distances for sure, I would throw backhands within like a hundred feet or something, but otherwise it was all sidearms and yeah, that's's been a. It's been an interesting journey being so sidearm dominant for for a long time why don't you just share us a bit about that journey?
Speaker 2:so I'm I'm a predominantly backhand player and I I was not athletic as a kid. I I did bowling like, and I did bowling and I did band, so doing like a sidearm. It's hard for me to do a sidearm, so, like, what was, what was your journey like? Share?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I mean, there was always this. Well, it's kind of weird being a female in the sport also, right, so I'm kind of going against the grain a bit as just my even in just my gender. You know, I mean as much as people are welcoming, uh, you know, just like being like yay, you know I, I mean as much as people are welcoming, uh, you know, just like being like yay, you know, I'm glad you're here. Um, it does feel a little bit alienating as a woman, um, because you are. There's not other people like you out there so often.
Speaker 1:So that was that part of it. But then I also was throwing sidearms, which is, you know, not the traditional throw. So, um, I think I kind of leaned into the otherness of my persona as a disc golfer and I just continued to foster that. And, you know, with it came a lot of having to kind of silence haters or silence people who are trying to, you know, tell me how to do something, and that was, you know, in some ways it was good, in some ways it was good, in some ways it was bad.
Speaker 1:I was able to really develop my own style, and in the bad ways, you know, I didn't develop a backhand for many, many years until, you know, so many years after I started and I still, I still don't have a very good one. Really, you know, it's coming along, but it actually has, and I guess I'll just kind of jump to now. It's actually been the thing that keeps driving me, it's my motivator right now as a player. You know, after many, many years of touring, it's like how much more can you really do? What else can you really do out there? And developing that final shot, figuring out how to throw all the angles, backhand has been kind of the thing that keeps me on the practice field.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very cool. I wish I could throw a backhand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Same, same. Yeah, well, we can all throw them, it just doesn't really go where we're aiming. That's a really good point we can. So just to get off topic a little bit, you, when we were in science and I did some research in food science right after college Until I decided that I really enjoyed. I actually got brought into teaching as a coach. I was a volleyball player in college and I had developed some coaching strategies throughout that time and had inquired about coaching in the area where I lived in the St Louis area and found a good job coaching some junior Olympic club teams and was really enjoying that. And so I thought that, you know, instead of doing research science where I'm away from the education system, I would love to get into education so I can coach, which is kind of backwards reason to get an education. But I really did enjoy the teaching part of it, just developing the lesson plans and trying to get kids excited about science, which is kind of a hard, difficult thing.
Speaker 1:A lot of kids don't like science turns out. I didn't realize that, but I did enjoy that part of it. I only lasted about three years. The industry is really tough.
Speaker 2:You'll love this. Last year at the school I was at, our science teacher was teaching kids about aerodynamics and so they had they're building paper airplanes. Well, since we had gotten the disc golf course by the Paul Macbeth Foundation at our school, some of the kids were like can I make a disc out of paper? So they were trying to build paper discs and they weren't flying right. And I'm like well, what's missing? They're like the rim. So once they put a rim on that sheet of paper, it was flying pretty good. So getting the kids out there. What a great lesson.
Speaker 2:Yeah, doing some science and then throwing the making paper discs and actually getting them into the basket. It was a fun lesson.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3:That is really cool yeah.
Speaker 2:Kids are fun.
Speaker 2:They, they are getting that aha moment oh yeah, anytime you can get that aha moment. I think that's one of the things I actually love about disc golf is when something actually does click or connect or make sense, like I can, all of a sudden, you know, do this turnover shot. Or I'm still at a point in my growth where it's like, wow, my disc just did a full, like flex flight, like I'm so excited about that because it wasn't doing that before. So being able to see those results out there, I think that helps us.
Speaker 1:You know, stick with the game yeah, man, that's absolutely a lot of the educational strategies that teachers can employ to try to continue to motivate and get growth from kids are the same things that work in coaching disc golf.
Speaker 3:So what happened out there on the course when you started out driving the guys and out playing the guys? What was that reaction like?
Speaker 1:Let's see, I guess, I guess I'm pretty. I guess in some ways I'm pretty good at not comparing myself to the guys. So I would say I just I discouraged it from the beginning. When it comes to my friend groups, um, we didn't get, I didn't get competitive with with them, I'm like we're not the same. This has been kind of enduring my whole life. I had two older brothers, so I learned about competing against males at a young age and I think that my competition against my brothers who were older and obviously stronger I think that that's what kind of fueled a lot of my athletic passions. And so once I got older I kind of realized how inappropriate it really is to compare myself to men in a sport like this. Right, that's a heck of an answer.
Speaker 3:That's really good.
Speaker 1:Now I think that there is utility where comparing yourself is totally fine, you know, like in a casual setting, when you're playing some doubles and you know whatever. That's the kind of competition where I really like, where it's really random, you know you don't have this where the course can be stacked for you or against you, your partners, your skill sets, combination can be a whole. You know that's the kind of really fun golf that I really enjoy. When there's really no expectations and we're not like it's not, you know, we're not playing for all this tons of money. I think it's totally appropriate to compete within genders and stuff there. But when we're talking about high level golf, um, I just I don't, even I don't. I don't get any joy from beating men and I don't expect them to get any from beating me.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, I'm not like ah, you got beat by a girl.
Speaker 3:You know I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't think I don't think that at all. You know that does not cross my mind. However, some men will say, ah, they'll feel butthurt if they get beat by me or something. And I don't feel any kind of way about it, but feel some way about it and I think that says more about them than me jenny's getting to the point where we're playing pretty neck and neck, so there's a friendly family rivalry going on.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, those rivalries are super fun. Um, actually, me and my boyfriend kind of have a bit of a rivalry going on. We do a couple little rounds here and there. Well, we'll keep score and you know it's pretty funny yeah, I'm gonna. He usually, uh, he usually messes up down the stretch and then I catch him right at the end so I was wondering.
Speaker 2:So you've had these experiences where, like you're talking about, you're the only woman there on the course. Like, what advice do you have out there for the women who maybe want to come out and play for a first time, or they're really nervous about getting out there? Like, what advice do you have?
Speaker 1:Well, I think I would. Normally I'd just be like I think in the past I might have just, you know, just get out there, just do it, you can do it, you know it's fine. But you know, I think now I realize that there's a lot of nuance to people and personalities. One thing that made me okay with the situation is is I have brothers. I'm used to playing against boys and men and I've been around a lot of boys and men my whole life playing sports and I'm not as worried about. I know that I'm athletic right, I have this persona, this identity, um. So I know that I'm going to be able to pick up this thing that's happening. And disc golf is enough. There's enough touch and finesse. You know that. You know I can keep up with the average dudes. So I knew I had the confidence already going into it as an athlete that I could do it. So it didn't bother me so much to be the only female and I could handle that. But that's because of my past.
Speaker 1:I think that if you put yourself in that situation as a woman, you're really, really uncomfortable. You're going to get in there, you're going to panic. High anxiety, performance anxiety starts to pump in there You're really worried about people watching you, you don't feel like you're athletic, you're nervous. It could be a disaster, to be honest, to jump into a double situation. It could be the thing that makes honest to jump into like a double situation, you know. It could be the thing that makes you never want to play again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think, depending on you know your personality type, I think a lot of women will thrive in a situation where there's other women learning for the first time or other women just playing and playing normal women's games. That maybe isn't an overly developed drive. Um, you know, maybe uncompletely, you know, maybe they have never worked on form, you know, and um, so we're getting like shorter distances. Um, there's, people are seeing a more uh, I think if women see a more realistic version of what it feels like or what it looks like to come up in the game, then what they're going to see from their male counterparts, I think that it'll be a more welcoming environment for most women. I would say upwards of like 80% of women are going to thrive in that kind of environment and maybe only 20-30% are going to thrive in this all-male dominated environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're pretty blessed up here that we've got an Evergreen Women's Series that runs this year. I think we're having eight or nine events specifically for women, women tournament directors, and you know, I'm scrolling on social media and I'm seeing more and more of these series pop up. I'm seeing that groups are doing like tag series where women and juniors are free to join in. So I'm really seeing that. I think that push to you know, honor women in the sport and say, hey, ok, you can play the same sport as us, but we need to make a few of these changes. I think that's. You know. It seems like we have that momentum.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I think we're all getting there. I love to see the progression and I hope that they're allowing the kids and the women to play on cards with all women or all kids Maybe there's an adult, I'm not sure but just being able to play golf amongst their peers, uh, is the best, I think well, and I'll just plug it and say we're.
Speaker 3:you know, I have a bunch of daughters and uh and jenny and I, we have a bunch of daughters, like four of them. So we really, really like to pump up and encourage women's disc golf. So, ladies, come on out, play, play and I think we take a page out of Scott Stokely's book. Here is get on out there. Disc golfers are some of the most gentle, humble, coolest people you'll ever meet, and you will be adopted by the people on the course. So you'll be protected, you will be looked after. There's a lot of caring, wonderful people out there that just are happy to see you there. So come on out, it's a safe place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean as much as women may feel like they're holding you up. If you're your first time and you're not throwing as far, you may feel like you're holding people up or you know you don't feel like you're any good or just can, can't do it. The people out there are not feeling held up. They want you there more so than they want to finish a round quicker.
Speaker 3:They're probably just enjoying watching you yeah.
Speaker 1:Which, honestly, I'm telling you, from a female perspective, that can even be more anxiety-inducing.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true, oh, for sure.
Speaker 1:The fact that even some of this over-excitement the hey, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:some friends I play with that are like you guys all need to turn around.
Speaker 1:I uh, yeah, yeah, no, for real it's. It's, it's very, very, very common, um, and I think that we, I think we really need to try to break that down and make sure that kind of normalize, that kind of those kinds of feelings. Um, amongst women trying to do something athletic in front of a bunch of dudes, like it's, it's really common to feel like oh my gosh, this is. Some women might be like oh, watch this, check this out. Other women, I think, are going to be like oh my gosh, please don't watch me and I don't know, maybe I've got user user bias here.
Speaker 2:I think more of the latter. Yeah, I think there is a lot more of of the women that are like, don't, look, I'm not at that point yet. Like, um, yeah, it, it like I've been playing for five years now and I am finally to the point where you know if we're, if just the two of us are playing, and we're coming up on a card of like six or seven people out there and they're like, oh, go ahead and play through. Like I'm finally to the point where I can calm my nerves enough to, okay, I need to throw so we can move on like we can do this.
Speaker 3:She's actually the one that smashes it.
Speaker 2:And then I go up there and choke I know, but that's because I'm working on my mental game especially if there's a throw off for a basket in front of 60 people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, way to go.
Speaker 1:Thanks, oh yeah, yeah, totally no. These are all the situations.
Speaker 3:I got to give her a little bit of guff for it.
Speaker 1:It always makes me think about, like how do we become? And I'm always asking myself this question is how do I get comfortable shanking a shot sideways in front of perfect strangers? Well, let's unpack that. Are you comfortable enough in your game that you can shank a shot in front of strangers and not be embarrassed and not let it affect the rest of your game? These are the places we're trying to get to.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So one of the things I was thinking about when coming up with you know, hey, I get to interview you. I was thinking about how, when I watch you on tv or or you know, I've I've seen you play, you know, through the tv. Hopefully I'll get to see you when you're up here for cascade challenge, so excited for that on it.
Speaker 2:So you're not one of those players that I see really you know has a bad shot, really throw off your game. So can you share with us? You know what that learning has been like and how you've gotten to this point. Not saying that you're perfect at it we can always improve but you know how did you get to this point, what were your steps, what was your journey like? How did you get to this point, what were your steps?
Speaker 1:What was your journey like? It's a long and complicated and convoluted process with lots of highs and lows. You know mountains and valleys. I would say mentally in order to avoid allowing yourself to get totally worked up by that shot. I think my first started learning about that with Bob Rotella. Golf is not a game of perfect. Probably read that in 2011 for the first time and that's how I started winning immediately. Wow, which is amazing.
Speaker 3:I had won a big Bob Rotella who is that Bob Rotella?
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, you don't know who Bob Rotella is. Is that Bob Rotella? Oh my gosh, you don't know who Bob Rotella is. No, I don't, Well I'm going to avoid shaming you right now. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:No, go for it. This is going to come out on the course somewhere.
Speaker 1:I didn't mean to be so shocked that you hadn't heard his name. Go for it.
Speaker 1:Okay, Mr Robert. Yeah, Bob Rotella, Go for it. Okay, Mr Robert, yeah, Bob Rotella, he's probably written about a dozen books. His most famous work is Golf is Not a Game of Perfect, and the beauty of Bob Rotella's stuff is that he has worked with so many like championship golfers, ball golfers.
Speaker 1:But the works that he writes about don't apply just to ball golf. They apply completely to disc golf, unlike um, like harvey pennock's little red book of secrets and some of the other golf works um that are. They help you with golf and the mental game. But they talk a lot about things in the golf game like the you know the tension in your grip and the you know the angle of your hips and some of these things that do apply to disc golf, but not as much physically. But Bob Rotella really focuses on the mental side of the game and it's he has, like I said, he has about a dozen.
Speaker 1:Probably has more, I don't know. I've read about three of them, but they they always have the similar point, similar points, but they say it in a totally different way. So I would highly recommend picking up and you can just kind of read his stuff, one book after another. It's one of those things we forget, so many things that we already know. So rereading his books is really helpful, even if you've read them already. But his stuff really focuses on the process versus the outcome stuff. He gives tips about not keeping score, focusing on keeping a correct level of tension in the body, enough focus that you're focused and not so much that you're tense. Like the process versus the outcome goals, focusing on everything that you can control in the middle of your routine and using the things you can control as your guide to success, rather than a podium finish or a score that you may want to achieve on a course. Those kind of goals are not helpful to your game.
Speaker 3:So kind of focus more on the journey rather than the result.
Speaker 1:Yeah, enjoying the process. So you're enjoying the journey of what it means to throw a disc and what you're trying to do on the course. Basically, if you hit the shot off off the tee, you know, you, you're like envisioning this turnover coming through these trees and so it hits. It hits the shot, it turns over, and then it maybe hits a tree and kicks left really hard into some stuff. You're actually kind of okay with that, because you, you, you, the process was to hit this turnover and you actually just this, read the disc, you, you threw the wrong disc. You're pretty happy with the shot, though, so you can take some kind of satisfaction in that. And you're, and now you're going to go, and so then he would say you're not worried about the result, that it kicked into the woods.
Speaker 1:You're really happy and and satisfied with that shot because you hit the line and next time you come to that hole you're going to switch discs because you realize that the, you know the process was correct. You just missed, you misread the, the, the disc, um, and then you're going to go to that next shot and you're going to look at that shot with fresh eyes. You know you're like, okay, now what am I trying to do from here? You know you're not going to be like, oh, you're not going to dwell on that last shot because you did the thing. And even if you didn't do the thing, you're going to realize, oh I should have thrown it flat, not, anheuser. Okay, next time I you're not really worried that it kicked you to the woods. Now you're just gonna go with a clean, fresh slate and go try to execute a shot from that next lie, one shot at a time. You know that, that kind of that style of mental game and it just kind of occurred to me.
Speaker 3:More of a rhetorical question is that you know, percentage wise, for any golfer out there, how many times do you go up to throw and release that disc? And it does exactly the way you had it drawn up in your mind.
Speaker 1:I would say, if I had to guess, probably not very often um, well, I guess it depends on what exactly it means to you. Um, I would say I hit my lines probably uh, 75, three quarters of the time, three out of four. I'm gonna hit the line I'm aiming for, mm-hmm. Now is it gonna exactly? You know, after I release it, you know, three quarters down the fairway is it gonna exactly flip up? And you know, give me this little bit of fade or stall at this spot, maybe, maybe not, but the initial part of the line is going to be pretty consistently executed. I would say like seven out of ten. You know you really can't get already on tour without throwing most of the time where you're trying to do. Now you might choose certain lines based upon your ability to execute them. You know, like I'm only probably three out of ten on some of the backhand lines I choose. So when I'm when I'm trying to choose that line, you know I'm expecting a higher rate of spray gotcha, gotcha, no, no, that that makes sense.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you're on tour playing at that level, I mean you have to be able to hit your lines more consistently. I'm kind of talking more so about like the overall from front to back, you know from the time it, you know you do your wind up and you reach back to the time it hits the ground yeah I would say.
Speaker 1:I would say well, I guess, when we're talking like a, now you're kind of getting into birdie rates, I guess is that's probably the best thing. They have, like birdie rates on par threes, okay, you know. Um, that's probably. I mean minus own scoggins, she doesn't count because she'll just throw a mediocre shot to 50 and bang it from there.
Speaker 1:The rest of us have to throw it inside the circle to get birdies mostly, myself included I need to get that 15-foot circle in order to guarantee a birdie. My birdie rate is probably closer to 35%, 30% to 40% on a good day, somewhere between 30% and 80% is where you're going to find all of the stats, probably. I'm very stats, I'm very analytical and stats based, so, despite, I like to look at them, even though I don't like to keep my own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I the Cascade Challenge. Two years ago I got to be a scorekeeper and I remember walking around with Niklas and he kept coming over to me and talking about his stats and, as a math teacher myself, I was like, oh, a stats person, like I'm excited to talk to you about these things. Yeah, I agree with this. It was, it was fun, it is a blessing and a curse, unfortunately yeah um, like because stats stats is very bad for mental game.
Speaker 1:Like it's great for analyzing your game afterwards and checking out, like what you need to focus on where you're losing strokes, but it is absolutely terrible for your game in the moment right or at least mine.
Speaker 1:I mean, I suppose I shouldn't speak so in absolutes like that, but, um, I think a lot of people I don't think there's very many people that manage stats very well with their mental game, because now you're always trying to like, you're always trying to make up for something, or you're now you're concerned about maybe where your, where your competitors, where their score is, or you're trying to like hit a particular target that you know on a day with 30 mile an hour winds and, you know, rain, your putting stats are going to be terrible. You can't, you know you can't really expect to hit numbers, specific numbers. You know you can't be expecting to go, you know, five down or 10 down on a in a round like that, or you know. Or or to even hit a podium, like hitting podiums or top fives or top tens. All of that depends on what everybody else does too. You can't control that. So the stat stuff in some ways is really really good, but mentally I don't think it's very helpful.
Speaker 2:So my perspective on the stats is so, being a woman playing a lot of male dominated events, a lot of times I'm the only one in my division or in the event or the only woman at the event, and so I've been frustrating. It's frustrating, but it's also like I don't have to worry about trying for the podium. I don't have to like I actually get to go out to the course and try and beat myself and beat the course.
Speaker 1:So it it alleviates some of that stress the purest form. Yeah, you get to kind of play the purest form of the game where you're just playing to play and enjoy it and try to do the better than you did last time.
Speaker 3:I love that I'm glad that we're you brought that up and that we're talking about this because, for example, circle putting I had an experience recently where I was in a tournament and it was clear day, nice day, and I can usually hit 80%, 85% from within 25 feet. And so it's like I come up with this expectation of, hey, I can usually knock out, you know, out of 18 putts, I can usually knock out what 12 out of the 18 or so, and then if I fall below that, it really gets into my psyche and then there goes my putting all together ah yes, so you bring up a very, very difficult, difficult part of the game that even the most the best professionals out there struggle with.
Speaker 1:I watch it happen the expectation that you're going to play how you did in practice, putts that make the kind of putts you do in your backyard, that you do in the court on the course in the tournament.
Speaker 1:The fact that people want to pretend that they're impervious to the pressures of tournaments, whether they're a professional or they're an amateur, whether they say, oh, I don't even care about this stuff, or they're a professional, and they're like, oh, I'm, I'm well trained, I know how to do all of this, but then yet complain when they don't shoot up to their expectations because they set these expectations in a practice round, um, where they shot a six down, and so now, oh yeah, I shot a six in practice, and then they shoot a four and or a two in the tournament and they're like I don't know what happened. They're like I did all this in practice and use that as like a reason why they should do it in a tournament. And it is, it is, it's baff me, um, that we put so much effort into these tournaments but then yet don't give them the respect that they deserve mentally. Uh, you know on the psychological impact Hilarious, it's such a weird combination.
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting because when I used to be in a, in a band, I used to tell my guys I said, look, the only way to get good at playing on stage is to play on stage. You can practice all you want in your basement, but to play in front of people and work off those nerves and really understand that environment, you, you have to do that.
Speaker 1:Now you have to be prepared. Yeah, I think you have to slowly prepare yourself for that, in increments. I don't think, if you know if you're, if you've never played in front of people, I'm not sure getting yourself in front of 600 people in an auditorium is the answer. You know, what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, like I would say, now it's time to play on the street for strangers for a little while, and then you know, and then maybe get yourself a small gig at a coffee shop, and then, you know, work your way into a um, a small, you know wedding band or whatever. Uh, you know what I mean. Like I think, I think that that that those, um, those have to be tested in incremental ways.
Speaker 2:So, since you're talking about the progression of, you know, any sort of project, what was your experience like? Going from you know playing casually, being introduced to the sport already being athletic yourself, and then deciding to go pro. What was that experience like?
Speaker 1:um, man, it happened really fast. I was also, you know, I was in my mid-20s at the time and you know, doing a lot of things mid-20 year olds do, um, which is, you know, having a lot of fun. I was uh enjoying, uh like, my career. Um, you know, trying to work through friend relationships.
Speaker 1:My own personal relationships were kind of a mess here and there, as they are at a 20-year-old, so a lot of changes were happening for me and disc golf was kind of my escape and it ended up being the thing that I clung to through all the turmoil, being the thing that I clung to through all the turmoil. So I started playing with friends and then I started to play local leagues and then I started to play local tournaments. And then, about six months later, some of my friends and I, who I was playing tournaments with, we decided to go to drive down to Bowling Green to play the biggest amateur event in the spring. It was my first big tournament outside of my home area and we went there and there was a field of 18 FA1s. Wow.
Speaker 1:Now wow, right, yeah, that's a good tournament.
Speaker 2:In 2007.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh no, it was 2008. Excuse me, but 18. I was like what, Anyway? I had never played against. I played against one other woman in St Louis one time, so I was like oh my gosh. And then we played. I played with other women the whole time I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I won a playoff to get into the final nine, and then we go into the final nine and there's a whole bunch of people watching and then we go into the final nine, and there's a whole bunch of people watching.
Speaker 1:And then we go into the final nine and I am as nervous as I have ever been in my life. I played college sports, team sports, though I was a pitcher also in softball. I also played basketball, so free throw shooting as a also in softball I also played like basketball, so free throw shooting. And then like serving in volleyball I was an OK server, but I was definitely not necessarily the person they were going to put in to win the game in the serving position, right, whatever, I didn't have it. I didn't have that many opportunities like as a. You know, I was clutch as a reactive player but I didn't have as many opportunities. I was clutch as a reactive player, but I didn't have as many opportunities.
Speaker 1:It wasn't like golf, where you start the motion and then you're able to do the thing at whatever time you want, versus a reactive sport that I had always played. So, with disc golf, being able to think a lot before your shot really messed with me. It was something that I really had to work through. So I was super nervous in this final nine. Like, seriously, nothing in my sports background really helped me for this, um, and I played okay, okay I I don't know how I managed. I was just so nervous. I mean, I don't know it's.
Speaker 4:it's actually as far as I can tell well, the. Thing the thing about team sports.
Speaker 3:The thing about team sports is that you have that safety net of the other people on the court or on the on the field with you and it's absolutely you. You're just kind of in this separate environment where you're able to, kind of you'll block it all out, because the fans are up there in the stands and you're down there on the field. So you kind of got this bubble around you. Now golf, oh, absolutely like golf. I mean we were at cascade challenge last year and vino uh hit a tree and went off into the woods and he was lining up to take a second shot and everybody's like five feet from him and I'm like guys, give him some room, like come on, you know what I mean. And he's just there and like you could reach out your arm and touch the guy and it was like get away from him, like give him some space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, for real. Yeah, so golf is a little different monster that way.
Speaker 1:It really is. So we come down, we finish this final nine and I'm in fourth place to start and I actually tie it up on the last hole for the leader. Wow, so we're tied, I bet, but it's dark, it's dark, so yeah. And so the only reason I caught this lady um sandra frazier, one of the frazier part of the frazier family well known from the midwest. Rebecca, michelle, uh, nicole, are the three daughters that played their. Their father also plays. Shout out to the fraziers very cool uh, but sandra and I are tied.
Speaker 1:I only got. I only caught her, cause I threw farther than her, um, and this was a big course. We were playing on the final nine, so I caught her because of that Not because I'm a short game, mind you, um, and I didn't know anything about the sport at the time or any of the rule. I mean, I know the basic rules, but I didn't understand. I didn't have very much experience. So the TD decides that we're going to do the playoff because we can't play any more holes. We're going to do a putt-off in the gym in front of 350 people oh gosh, oh gosh who are all patiently or not so patiently waiting for their payout, which they're not going to get until this is over oh, arms are crossed, they're tapping their foot like let's go, come on, we've been here all day.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't know, I couldn't look at I, I couldn't look at any of them in the eyeballs. I'm trying to pretend they're not there, I don't know how, but the vibe people are just like eyeballs and everybody's watching and oh my gosh, can this please be over sooner than later? So we go, they start us. They start us at like 30 feet. We don't make putts for like five putts or something we fight. She finally makes a putt from 20 and I miss it. She wins, we're over.
Speaker 1:But I was like this is the dumbest thing, this is not disc golf. I can't believe I, you know. Later I look back and I think, man, I should never have agreed to that as a playoff because that is not disc golf. I can't believe I, you know. Later I look back and I think, man, I should never have agreed to that as a playoff because that is not disc golf. But that's how it worked out and that was a really important lesson for me. You know to to just you know to realize how scary that can be to be putting in front of that many people at once, and so that was kind of that was definitely a thing that affected me, and I had to figure out how to get through that in the coming years. So that's kind of what drove me some of just read some of this, some of the Bob Rotella, and then also I've got a couple other authors that I kind of rely on to get me through kind of this mental, these mental struggles.
Speaker 3:I can't even imagine what it's like nowadays with the camera guys running around and all that I mean. How do you, how do you deal with that?
Speaker 1:Man same ways. I just try to work through it. You know it's it's not easy, um, um. I'm not one of those people that really, um, thrives in that kind of environment. So it's been, you know, I've had to kind of run counter to it, to my personality, to try to find ways to mitigate the effects of those types of pressures. So, yeah, I think it really is interesting the way the personality differences apply in this golf for this particular thing. You know, I know women that play way better when they have a camera on them, um, and then, like me, I, if I play good when I have a camera on me, I'm like, oh my gosh, I did it. Yes.
Speaker 2:You know, it's like a it's like an anomaly almost you know it's like, oh great, you know they.
Speaker 1:When, the when the TJ calls me and says, hey, we want to put you on a feature card, half the time I think, oh no, nope, don't do that, that's not going to help, I'll earn my way, yeah, I mean, I've definitely said no before, so they actually call you and ask if you want to be on the feature card Like I don't know how any of that part runs, so the pro tour has.
Speaker 1:So there's different entities, right? The pro tour has their method where they pick the feature cards based upon these different criteria at each week. Um, it's usually like previous winner, um, maybe somebody who won, so the person who won this tournament the year before, the person who just won the last tournament, a sponsor player, maybe two sponsor players, and then they're going to do like, sometimes the media gets a pick, sometimes they try to add a local player to the feature cards. There's like this whole criteria, but the PDGA does a little bit different and I think there's something. I could be wrong about this, but I think that there's something in the rules that say that the players have to agree to be on the feature cards.
Speaker 1:Okay, um, for the first round, because they don't pick them like after that. You know, you don't really have a choice. If you're on the lead card, you're going to get filmed, but the first round they. They allow players to to decline if they don't want to be on it. And that's from that's players, that's my players' requests. In the past They've asked hey, I don't want to play on the feature card. Can you please not put me on that?
Speaker 3:That's really neat. Actually, that's really neat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they're trying to be player-centric there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so now you played this big out of town tournament and you came in second. If I'm following this right was was that the turning?
Speaker 1:correct yeah was?
Speaker 3:was that the turning point where you thought, hey, let's go on tour, that's, that's a good idea?
Speaker 1:not, quite not quite um.
Speaker 3:I was still working my whole time I was still not quite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, with almost winning. An amateur event was not going to be it for me. Yeah, that wouldn't have been enough, for sure, but it was enough for me to realize that, you know, I probably shouldn't play FA1 for too much longer, if at all anymore. Right, because I just played against 18 women who've been playing way longer than me, and I beat all of them except for the one lady who has been playing for like 20 years, and I was outdriving them all you know. So, like it was clear, you know, but I also hadn't played against any pro women. I had no idea what pro women could even do. I'd never even seen a pro woman throw. So the St Louis Open, so this tournament happened in April and the St Louis Open was in May, and so that's how I began here.
Speaker 3:About what year is this? This is 2008.
Speaker 1:2008. It's about six months after I picked up the Frisbee for the first time, and so then we're playing the St Louis Open. I'm signed up in FA1 by myself because there's no other women, and Barrett White and Tavish Sanders are signed up in pro, and so Barrett's from Chicago area and Tavish is from Kansas City, so like five hours and four hours away. So they travel all the way here because they're friends at the TD too. They're Barrett's ultimate. Tavish is friends with Barrett.
Speaker 1:I find out that there's this whole crew of women who play Actually, team penetration is probably the best description of that but there's a whole group of women that try to meet up and play. So these two women converge on St Louis to play against each other, and so the St Louis TD paid the difference in my entry fee to play FPO with them. Oh, that's cool. So it kind of sponsored me into the pro division, right, and I was like, oh okay, because I was going to play by myself. I didn't know what the heck was the. I just thought this was what I was supposed to do.
Speaker 3:So you got kind of volatile.
Speaker 1:Well, they kind of yeah, maybe that's what their purpose was. I think they were just trying to encourage me to like, hey, you should just move up to pro these girls, you know this is where you belong, so pay the extra entry fee for me. I said, oh, thank you, you know, and I did. And then I ended up getting second out of three. Um, I, the winner, barrett, she beat me by 25 strokes or something over three rounds, and I beat Tavish by one or something like that. It was like it came down to it Um, and I didn't cash. They only cashed out one of three then, or whatever, and but, but I did beat one woman and so I felt like, even though I got beat by 20 plus strokes by the winner, I felt like there's space for me. If this lady's playing, if this lady Tavish is playing pro and I was competitive with her, then this is probably where I belong.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, through that time I became friends with her, and I became friends with Barrett, and then I learned about this whole group in Iowa women who played, and so then I started that summer. I was a teacher, right, so I had a month and a half off before I had to get back for volleyball. And so I spent that summer playing a bunch of tournaments within like six hours of my home area and played a bunch of tournaments and won some of them but met a bunch of the women that year. Um, and then the end of the year rolls around and I still have like a week and a half before I have to be back for volleyball and I see that there's this tournament called the vibram open. It's all the way on the other side of the country. I, I'm in the middle of the country, this is all the way in Massachusetts, at this place called Maple Hill. Oh.
Speaker 1:And there was this one, I think. They had spots for 18 women and there were 17 spots filled and at this time, the Vibram Open was the first year that it wasn't called MSDDC. So the Massachusetts State Disc Golf Championships, which is a really, really popular event in the Northeast back in the day, it's like some of the first video rounds are from the MSDDC, which is what Steve and Todd Dodge kind of made happen. They're the original media. This is great. It's great. If you watch that stuff, it's crazy. Anyway, um, this was the first year that it wasn't called mscbc. They had changed it to the vibram open and it was happening, uh, exclusively at maple hill, I believe, even though the pyramids course was also. Um, we were, we were also camping at the pyramids course, which is a quarter mile or eighth of a mile away from maple hill. Um, it wasn't part of the mscbc. The Pyramids course, which is a quarter mile or eighth of a mile away from Maple Hill, it wasn't part of the MSCDC, the Vibram Open, for the first time ever.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I get this idea that I'm going to go fly out to play this tournament. I call the TD, which is Steve Dodge, and I say hey, steve, I'm Sarah. I saw that there's a spot open in this tournament, but I see that you're supposed to have to qualify for it. I haven't qualified, but the tournament's almost happening. Are you going to fill that spot or can I have it? He says you can have it and I said, okay, cool. So I said do you know anybody? I can stay with there.
Speaker 1:This is definitely the time where we're sleeping on couches and floors. So he said, oh, you can stay with me. He said, oh, you can stay with me. So I was like oh, okay, cool. So I get in the tournament, I sign up, I book a flight to Massachusetts. This is the first time I've ever even tried to fly, but I'm just trying to do this last little thing. I'm super into it, I'm super stoked. So I get a flight, I take the flight out there, I take the subway to the bus station, I take a Greyhound out to Worcester and then I take a cab to Steve Dodge's front door and there was my disc golf bag and everything and I knock on the door and he's like hey.
Speaker 1:I'm Steve who's this lady. I was like hey, I'm Sarah.
Speaker 1:I was like you said I could stay here. And he's like hey, I'm Steve. I was like hey, I'm Sarah. I was like you said. You said I could stay here. And he's like oh, oh, yeah, sure, he's like. And he, he takes me upstairs to this. He takes me upstairs and I don't know you probably don't know the name. You may not know the name Um, angela, um, chick-free.
Speaker 1:Her name is spelled very, very weird, but you say it chick-free. Um, she was a us champion at that time and she was one of the top ballers. And he takes me upstairs. I, I know of her. I do not know her, I just know of her. I maybe played against her, like, but not on the same card and whatever. She's super intense, I ain't messing around with her. She scared me actually at this point. So we walk upstairs and she's laying in this twin bed reading and Steve introduces me to her and says, hey, I figured you guys could share this room and there's one bed in it. And I'm like, and then he leaves and I look at Angela and I go, hey, I'll just sleep on the couch. And so I went down. I slept on the couch in his living room that week and not tried to share a twin bed with Angela Chick-fil-A.
Speaker 3:Welcome to disc golf.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yep, yep. Well, I end up getting ninth in that tournament, which is the last cash, and so I beat. Now I just beat nine FPOs. So I'm like, okay, here we go, this is. And then, and also, more importantly, so I've, I've been, I've been validated that I just cashed at a pro event. I may have, I just cashed at a pro event. I probably cashed at regional events before that I'd won, like the Mid-America Open. I'd won a couple events, cashed at other events, but now I had just gone to one of the big events and I cashed. So that told me that, like, okay, I can do this. And I see these 18 other women doing it too, or so I think they're doing it.
Speaker 2:That's a key right there.
Speaker 1:So anyway, that kind of solidifies that, that vibrant experience, it solidifies it. For you know my physical abilities, I think I'm able to do that. But then it also I meet the tour. You know we play double discord until the wee hours of the night. There's a keg on Saturday night we're playing beer pong and flip cup and doing keg stands and like it is a party. It's not how that is now.
Speaker 1:It used to be a lot more uh like evening activities. So anyway, um, so I I knew these are my people, this is what I want to do. I'm, I think I could be successful in it. So I've kind of resolved at this point that this is what I'm gonna do, but I'm still teaching. So I go back, I go back um to st lou after that and I teach for a full another year.
Speaker 3:So the Vibram thing at Maple Hill, that was the one that was like, yeah, you know what I could do this Like this is my life.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that was it 2008,. It was basically one year, almost to the day after I had picked the Frisbee up.
Speaker 3:Wow, you know, almost to the day after I had picked the frisbee up. So what did you do to practice and prepare for the tour? And and like, what was your training routine like? Did you get really serious about it and do focus training or did you just keep playing on a regular basis?
Speaker 1:at that point I was still working full-time, so I was still playing on a regular basis, um, and not and not necessarily doing field work or, you know, doing a lot of extra training outside of just playing casual rounds and playing tournaments and leagues and stuff like that. Yeah, probably did that for another full year and then that summer, that next summer of 2009, I went on the road and I played the tour the entire.
Speaker 3:Thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, once I got to the fall, I came back and taught for one more year. But that year I came back and taught 2009 to 2010. That year I stopped coaching volleyball, actually. So that you could so I gave up that after actually, so that you could play more after work. Yes, that's right, because that year where I was coaching and I had discovered that I loved disc golf, that year was I was also finishing my master's degree, oh goodness. So that was just a lot, yeah.
Speaker 3:We kind of know what that's like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would also kind of play a little bit of volleyball doubles. I still was like I had, you know, a bunch of like my age friends that we'd play doubles, sometimes like grass doubles, on the weekends, or I go play like a big indoor tournament, uh, like in chicago, um yeah, so I was still even playing competitive volleyball a little bit at that point. It was just too many things. And so then that after I went on tour for that whole summer of 2009, I gave up really playing volleyball and coaching volleyball to focus more on playing disc golf every day at that point. So then I could play disc golf almost every day, except for when I had class. Or I'd just go play disc golf for like 45 minutes and then I'd rush to class, whatever it was, or I'd just go play disc golf for like 45 minutes and then I'd rush to class.
Speaker 3:Whatever it was, it's so addicting because even now we'll play three rounds in a day for a tournament and Jenny will be like I want to keep playing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, me too, Totally. I remember those days. They don't exist in my life anymore, but I do remember those days. It's a beautiful thing. So that year that I really focused up and then I went on tour. I quit my job at the end of 2010, that spring, but actually I had the full intention of I quit my job and moved to Charlotte because I wanted to live in a Mecca of disc golf. That's important and I wanted my winters.
Speaker 1:I hadn't actually decided I wasn't going to teach anymore at that point. I was actually just going to move areas because I didn't want to be in St Louis anymore. It's too cold in the winter. I needed to still be able to train in the winter. So I wanted to live in an area that had great courses and good weather. So I moved there and I did that over that summer with the intention of coming back in the fall and getting a teaching job in North Carolina.
Speaker 1:Well, that year, on the road in 2010, I had started having some success and so I stayed on the road that fall and didn't come back to go get a teaching job. And then I was like, oh, you know, okay, I'll just sub. So I was like trying to get into the sub. Like, once that winter happened, I was back in Charlotte and I was like thinking, okay, maybe I'll just like have a sub job. But then, you know, I was so far into the school year at that point I had to do these. I missed all the sub training. Um, so then I just got a job waiting tables. So that winter I waited tables.
Speaker 1:And then, 2011, I went on tour earlier cause I didn't have to wait for the school year to end and I was able to hit the early season stuff. And then I won my first national tour that year and I won like two more that same year. So then I was like, oh, I'm not going to teach anymore, I'm not going to get a job teaching in the off season, because you know you had to be there from March until October and the school season you know school was, you know you had. You only got two and a half months or something. So I decided, well, I guess I'm not going to do that and then. So then I found other jobs in the wintertime, just random stuff, whether it was waiting tables or I did Christmas.
Speaker 3:I put up Christmas lights for many years, yeah, so it was only it's only been these last couple of years that I haven't actually taken a job in the off season to cover those expenses of just like existing. So now that you're able to focus on disc golf full time, what's your training like? What's your work schedule like? What kind of things do you do on a regular basis? Tell us about the behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, in an ideal world, you know, usually we're competing Friday, Saturday, sunday, sometimes Thursday, friday, saturday, sunday, sometimes four days, um, and most of the time it's back to back weeks. You know, I have started to take uh try to take at least one week and off in the month so that my body has time to recover and so then I have time to kind of catch up on things that just get kind of pushed to the wayside throughout the busy weeks. So, anyway, you're coming from just competing. I usually take Monday off but usually get a good gym session in. So I do a lot of rowing like the erg machine. So it works like 85% of your muscles. It's a really efficient way. I just get on there and sprint for 15, 20 minutes On the rowing machine. That usually gets my cardiovascular up really good. Also. It's really good.
Speaker 1:All the muscles involved are really great for disc golf. It's like upper back and then glutes and legs really heavy. Also you're getting a lot of core stability also. I really like to do that. Then I usually do a shoulder circuit to keep my rotator cuff healthy. Then I get a massage. That's my hard training schedule.
Speaker 1:I do that like three, four times a week, pretty much every other day. But otherwise I don't really throw a lot on Monday. Maybe if I'm traveling through, if it's a long drive, like let's see, it's like six to eight hours halfway through I'll stop at a short course and maybe play an all backhand round just to kind of move my body. But otherwise I try to take Monday off and then Tuesday, wednesday, thursday assuming it's a three-day tournament I'm going to get up early in the morning, play my round, probably between 9 and 1, 9 and noon, noon, have some lunch and then in the afternoon I'm probably either doing some work on like in the field if I need to work on a shot or I might be doing some putting, I might be doing some approach, I might be doing some administrative work, um yeah, and then just kind of normal evenings. I make, make food, you know, um kind of relax in the evenings and get up and do it all again the next morning.
Speaker 3:So you're in the gym Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then playing tournaments.
Speaker 1:Actually I do. It's usually like Monday, wednesday, friday, Sunday.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:I actually I work because of the way my workouts go. I don't worry about it being a tournament day. I do it also after, because I play all my rounds in the morning. Friday, after my round, I'll go to the gym and hit a nice little workout. Depending on how I feel, I might tone it down because I have control on the erg. If I'm not feeling great, I might do a lighter row.
Speaker 1:Control on the erg, you know, if I'm not feeling great, I might do a lighter row. If I'm feeling like I have a lot of energy, especially on a Sunday or a Monday because of like I don't have to be, I can work out a little bit extra Um, then I'll kind of I'll gas myself. There's also, you know, I'm I'm trying to work in a few more things, but right now, realistically, it's really just the erg and then a shoulder circuits. I'm trying to work in some other stuff, like I need to work in some balance stuff. But I need to work in a few other things. This year I think, as I'm getting older, it takes a lot more maintenance to keep my body healthy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're learning that too. Yeah, it's like when you're young, you go to the gym to get better, and then, when you're older, you go to the gym, just so you don't die young.
Speaker 1:you go to the gym to get better, and then when you're older, you go to the gym just so you don't die. Yeah, yes, correct. Yeah, yep, you can. Just to try to maybe, maybe, maintain a bit of what you used to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah so losing battle, but that is this what it is, what it is so what?
Speaker 3:that first year on tour, like, what was that like for you? Like when you, when you fully committed to it and said I'm hitting the road, jack, what's that like?
Speaker 1:well it's. It's pretty scary, um, but it's kind of exciting too. You know, for me I think I think it can be a lot of different things for different people, again, like nuance and personality. I think there's a lot of things there. Um, for me it was exciting, um, I was just stoked to get out there. I had, I had already had some experience with you know what practice rounds should look like and what it takes to train and stuff like that, from just knowing all the tour players and having spent other the other couple summers out there doing it, both regionally and then nationally the year before.
Speaker 1:So you know it was a bit lonely at first. Probably it's hard to find your friend groups and try to figure that out. But you know, you kind of settle in and find the people who are your people and kind of rely on them a little bit to play practice rounds with and you know, just to create a community with out there on the road, which is really important. And it is kind of hard sometimes to establish yourself. I know some of the Masters. I've noticed a lot of the Masters players seem to struggle to establish community groups out on the road. There's a lot of that happening right now with the Masters Tour that we're trying to kind of create opportunities for masters players to get out there and compete a lot, and I think that that has been a real challenge that we're trying to solve this year freaking awesome.
Speaker 3:Sorry, kind of went on a tangent there.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, I I'm just, I'm like yeah, for me yeah, I'm just like.
Speaker 3:so, like you know, captivated by you know the thingsated by, you know the things that you're saying. Cause, like in our age, like going on tour, like that's like fantasy land, like it'd be nice to happen, but I don't know if we're going to have the time to get to that level. So it's, it's kind of cool to hear a war stories.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's it's, it's got its own set of challenges. Yes, I mean it does seem it's very, it's a very sexy way to like live your life right now, I think, and especially when covid happened and like van life, van lifers like exploded. Disc golfers were van lifers before. Van lifers were cool yep and you know it was a it's. It's just, it's a necessary, necessary way to live because of just the. You know the way that we have to be in different places all the time.
Speaker 1:You know, every week we're in a different city. So to have some kind of semblance of stability, you know, having a van that is somewhat like a home is the only way, the only way you can. I mean it I. I first toured in my uh 19. It was like it was actually like a 2001 lexus es 300 that I got after it had been wrecked out after an accident.
Speaker 1:I think I got it for a couple thousand. I got it for a couple thousand bucks from a friend of mine and it had a lot of miles on it. I think it probably had like 200 000 miles on it when I got it um, but it was it was a tank man.
Speaker 1:It ran good and I just stuffed that thing full all my stuff and I had a tent and air mattresses, an air mattress and uh like all my bedding and just stuff, like you know, even like coloring books and like dumb stuff. You're like I want my hobbies with me or whatever. Um, and like my, actually one of my first nights out on the road, I only made I didn't make it as far as I wanted to get to and I I was going to sleep in in my car. I was going to sleep in my car at at the Walmart and I like started I didn't have a really great way of sleeping in my car at the time, um, so I just tried to put the seat back and I'm like trying to sleep and I tried for like hours and I just cannot fall asleep, even though I'm exhausted, right, I just cannot fall asleep. So I say, screw it.
Speaker 1:I go and I put, I set my tent up behind the Walmart at like midnight and like I just set it up in some grass behind the Walmart and I like I finally fall asleep and then, like I don't know what time it was, but there's this flashlight flies. It was like. Then somebody's yelling at me like, hey, what are you doing? I wake up, I got my. I got a knife in my hand too, cause I'm a little bit, I too. Because I'm a little bit, I mean I have to have a knife with me right? I'm like a, like a vulnerable female camping in a tent behind the walmart. Now, in 2000 uh, whatever year this is 2010 it is not that normal to see tents randomly behind a walmart.
Speaker 1:I know, now nobody would question it. Um, but at that time that was kind of weird, um. So, anyway, this like worker came out and was like hey, you can't be here. And I like poked my head out.
Speaker 1:It was like I'm like, it's like oh, sorry I was just trying to get some sleep, like I was like I'll be gone in the morning. I promise he's like all right, well, you like my boss comes in at seven or something, I don't know what it was. Anyway, I got a few more hours of sleep after that interaction and then packed my stuff up and got out of there that early. That was great knife in hand.
Speaker 1:Look out, I'm a disc golfer well, I wasn't going to, you know, but I was going to be able to protect myself if I needed to. Anyway, yeah, that's a great story.
Speaker 3:Mostly we're sleeping on couches, but having that space like my vehicle if I needed to.
Speaker 1:Anyway, yeah, that's a great story. Mostly we're sleeping on couches, but having that space like my vehicle, it was so like, after doing that for a couple of years in that vehicle, it had become very tiresome to move in and out of my host's house every single week. You know, I'd like bring in all this stuff and then repack them, repack the um the vehicle every monday and then, you know, drive into the next spot, get to their house, unpack. You know, sometimes we're like I set up in their living room. You know like, uh, so, and eventually I like I had a queen bed and I had a mattress, topper and a full, full duvet, a full setup. Oh yeah, eventually I like had like a whole nice bed set up.
Speaker 1:Um, that would take up a full, clean space in my host, my poor host, um, they were so kind, uh, let us disrupt their lives for an entire week, so that. But that got really tiresome, you know. And so the prospect of being able to just drive somewhere and then just like get out of the vehicle and go play, then just get back in the vehicle and sleep without having to do a bunch of stuff, moving in and out all the time and even if you know, uh, hotel rooms would be the same, you know, moving in and out of a hotel room every once in a while we would splurge or we'd have to get a hotel room because we couldn't find a host. And you get one of those like extended stay joints where you know you've got crackheads as neighbor neighbors and you have to pay 20 bucks for the coffee maker whatever my gosh the coffee maker's extra yeah it doesn't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, if you want plates, it's gonna be ten dollars or whatever you know, so I actually started carrying around, like you know, things to cook with and like my own pots and pans or like just trying to figure out how to live on the road with the resources that we had. Um, but then I was able to. Eventually I got out of that car because my parents actually made me. They were like you're not driving that thing around anymore it got up to like 300 and I think it was like 350 000 miles.
Speaker 1:After a couple of after I don't know however many years I had it, but my dad was like you're not driving that thing around the country anymore and I was like, okay, like, but I'm gonna need you to go sign on the loan, so, so anyway that's awesome yeah, so, anyway.
Speaker 1:So I ended up getting into like a little suv. But I loved a little peppy little thing, had a little hatchback so I could sit in it after tournaments under the rain and not get all rained on, we could hang out. You know it was a sweet little car, um, but I had I probably paid too much for it, um, and after like three or four years I realized that I really wanted a van. This SUV wasn't cutting it.
Speaker 3:Like a big van or like a minivan type of thing.
Speaker 1:Like well, I was actually thinking like so, nate and Val Doss, they were still on the road, I think about that time, and they had had the big blue. It was a tall Mercedes Spr, a sprinter van, oh and um, and at this time like so we're talking, this is like 2013, 2014, something like that I've been on the road now for four or five years, um, in these other two vehicles. Well, I really wanted a van and so I went to the like, and also ford and um Ram had just started marketing these vans that they were going to make, that were going to be a competitor to the Mercedes ones. So I was like stoked. I was like, ah, well, I tried the. I had tested the Ram and I didn't really like how it felt. And I was like I want the Ford, the Ford's, coming out.
Speaker 1:I had done all the research. The Ford is the one to get. I'm going to get the Ford. Well, I go to try to get the Ford. And I'm upside down on my loan because I put so many dang miles on this Hyundai, on this little Tucson, that I was driving around. This is the last UV, so I'm like dang it All right, well, I just I'm going to drive this longer until I can afford, cause I was going to have to put ten thousand dollars more down on this van to try to get it and that was like that was outside my budget, so I was gonna wait and whatever. So then that year was 2015 and I'm playing pretty good, coming up to the world championships and my car gets totaled on the way to the world's the final round the final round, the van the hyundai.
Speaker 1:I don't have the van yet. I wanted to get into the van but I couldn't get into the van because I didn't have the money and I was upside down on my lonesome. I put so many miles on my car driving around the country. So, yeah, so I, uh, I'm actually leading the world championships in 2015. I have like a. I'm like I'm like seven strokes ahead. I'm way ahead, actually surprisingly, for like we're only like three rounds in. I'm headed to the course. Um, I'm stopped in this construction traffic. I don't really know what's stopping us, but we're just this line of traffic and so I'm just stopped there, looking ahead, like what the heck's going on? Am I gonna be late to my tea time? I had left in plenty of time, but you know, I didn't know what this was hold up was. Well, I'm looking ahead. All of a sudden I just get. I get rear-ended. The guy's going like 40 miles an hour or something oh man I don't know how I yeah, dude smoked me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he pushes me, so he pushes me so hard. Um, I end up getting pushed into oncoming traffic and I get hit by this huge construction vehicle. So I get rear-ended, my airbags go off, I kind of like get flung forwards and then I get hit by this construction vehicle and my car. I hit my head on the. That's when I hit my head on the car and then I like the car spins in traffic like I don't know eight times or something, and then my car is just totaled and I'm still trying to get to worlds, yeah, so like I and I like it was dude, it was crazy.
Speaker 3:It's all for the cause.
Speaker 1:So I, um, I can't even get out of the car and it's smoking. I'm like scared because I think the car is going to like something like somebody's on fire. Then I realized that it's so. I'm like panic. I can't get out the doors because they're locked, they're shut from the, from being smashed, and I'm like the smoke. I'm like, ah, there's like night, there's like nightmare stuff happening right now. Um, eventually somebody gets the door open. I climb out. I'm sitting on the side of the road. The cops come, do all the evaluations.
Speaker 1:The other dude is really messed up. He is groaning, he's like crawling out of the vehicle, laying on the ground. The ambulance takes him away immediately. Um, I'm getting checked out by the ambulance. I have like this gash on my head, um, from hitting from that second hit, um, and I'm telling them I gotta go win a world title. He's like ma'am, you got to go win a world title. He's like ma'am, you need to go to the hospital. I'm like I'm not going to go to the hospital, I need to. I got to.
Speaker 1:I had on the side of the road I found Sean Sinclair's phone number, who is one of the officials for Worlds, and they send, and the PDGA sends Steve Gans to come pick me up. I don't know how I was able to tell him where I was. I found some cross streets and got him, and so Steve Gans is on his way to come pick me up. I'm trying to talk the ambulance into letting me go. I'm like dude, I'm fine, like you know. I just, yeah, it's a little gash, it's fine, you know. Whatever you know, I'm on my body, where my body works, fine. So I have to sign this like waiver, like you refuse medical attention, um, and then Steve gets, finally, gets there and picks me up and we're headed to the course. I'm still I'm probably going to be late, but I still haven't quite. They still haven't teed off yet. So I'm going going.
Speaker 1:He's like, and he's like, you know, we can just go to the hospital if you need to, you know. And I'm looking at him like what, like no, like oh, oh, and then, and then it dawns on me, like, then I have a slight moment of clarity. I'm like, oh, I just got into a major accident. Maybe I should be going to the hospital, um, but then I'm just like no, you know, I'm like you know, and then I'm kind of playing to like dude, I don't even know now, because I just I just talked all these people into like the fact I've got to go win a world title, I'm just like the Olympics of Frisbee, I've got to get to this course and yeah, so we end up going to the course, even though he kind of brings that little question into my head like, oh yeah, am I being really stupid right now by not going to get my head checked out right now? That's the whole reason you showed up is because Probably.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, this is why I'm even doing this, because my head is not good anyway. No, so we get there. I have missed. I've taken par plus four on two holes. I missed two of the first holes, so I'm now eight strokes worse and I'm whatever. I end up playing around and playing pretty good. I'm still on the lead card. We end up playing the end up. You know, the tournament continues on.
Speaker 1:I'm like losing it mentally. Every time I see one of my friends, like they see me on the course and they like come up to give me a hug, and then I just start bawling. You know, it's like really emotional. Um, but I ended up, um, like you know, doing okay, these next couple of rounds we go into the finals. I'm, I'm backed by a couple or something, uh, I'm, I don't even know, I don't remember how it was, but I ended up losing by two strokes in the end and for what would have been my second world title. And Paige Pearson ends up winning and she gives me their trophy. At the end she's like, oh, you should have won. Blah, blah, blah. Really heart-wrenching moment, but that's the one that got away.
Speaker 3:If that's the one that's got away, I feel like you have a fairly based reason for it, Like holy cow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I had opportunities throughout those couple rounds after the accident to take hold and to still win, and I didn't you know.
Speaker 2:Did you ever? Go to the doctor and get checked. I'm just wondering.
Speaker 1:I actually did go that night. Um, I I promised somebody I would, so I did and I got and they didn't do anything. They, they, the wound had already kind of started healing so they didn't want to reopen it to stitch it. So I have kind of a weird scar right there from that. Um. But yeah, they checked out, like they, they checked my head and stuff and they said that I should be all right.
Speaker 3:So yeah, I should be all right. Yep, she's a disc golfer they didn't.
Speaker 1:They didn't have, like I guess, the signs of concussion or whatever that you need to watch out for so that's good.
Speaker 3:So being out there on tour, uh, how do you first kind of double-faceted question. First of all, competition wise, how do you take care of your mental state and what kind of things do you do to stay up with that and also with being on tour? It can be very how do you deal with the isolation?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I think the isolation for sure is a thing. It's a hard thing to deal with. You know, I find solace in my friends, my partner, chris. He's on the road with me so he also caddies for me. So it's really. I think it'd be really really hard to be out here by yourself. I did it for some periods of my touring, periods of time, but a lot of times I've had a partner in the vehicle with me, because that's how to deal with it and I think people who really go by themselves, they really have to have a support system of touring players that they hang out with. If you're just trying to do this by yourself alone, I don't think it's going to work.
Speaker 3:So I imagine as you travel around with the tour you start to become a little bit of a family.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, 100% yeah, and there's a lot of different people kind of want to act like it's like high school, you know, like all these little cliques, so cliquey, you know, especially if you're not in whatever clique you think you should be in or whatever, or the clique you wish you were in. I think people kind of go like, oh, it's so high school, and I think in some ways it definitely is, especially when you've got a bunch of late teens, early 20s folks who aren't too far removed from some of those environments. Uh yeah, I think it does kind of it does. It could get a little bit clicky, but that's also just human nature, you know, to find people who are like you and be friends with them, and you can only have so much capacity to be friends with so many people, you know you can only your circle can only be so big to really take care of those that are in it. So I think you know that's just finding your tribe, and if you don't have one, I think that that could be really hard.
Speaker 3:So and then, on the other side of that competition wise, how? How do you take care of your mental state and your emotional state? Like to maximize performance and, you know, stay confident out there while you're going through the stresses of having to be in a different place each week, you never know where you know. Sometimes you might not know where you're sleeping, who you're going to be with, like, what's that like?
Speaker 1:yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard. It's probably the hardest part about the game being on tour. I would say it's one of those things. Don't fix it unless it's broke, right.
Speaker 1:So if you're in a good spot, I think just go with it. You know, continue just to do what you're doing and try to keep yourself in that mental state. But you know everything that we do affects it. You know whether it's a win or a lose, or whether we win, win a tournament, or we almost win it, or we play really, really bad or play mediocre, you know all of that is factored into, kind of our subconscious um, and whether we like it or not, you know it has an effect. So, um, I think it's just a constant. It's a constant battle to try to put yourself back into a position where you can be at peace with what's going on around you.
Speaker 1:And I think I will just go ahead and say this when it comes to being a female, you know our mental state is variable.
Speaker 1:The way our hormones change throughout our menstrual cycle has um had a huge effect on our levels, our confidence, our uh, our emotional state, our ability to um self-soothe, our abilities to manage, um, you know, high stress situations.
Speaker 1:That is one of the really, really difficult on the female side of things. Um, you know cause, because you know it's just constantly changing. So I'm always aware I hate playing a tournament right before my period, I hate playing a turn on my period, um, but you don't really have a choice, you know. I mean you kind of do I could say up, nope, not playing it bleeding um, but I, you figure, you know I've played sometimes I've played OK and decent on my period. Most of the time it's not that way. Usually it's a struggle and that's just part of you know the mental state. I mean, you know we, our hormones, affect so much of our mood that even if you're aware of and I have been well aware of it for many years um, the way my mood is affected by my hormones, and even though you know it's happening, it's still really hard to mitigate.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I do a lot of reading, a lot of reading. Try to figure out how to put myself. A lot of reading podcasts I listen to. Modern wisdom is probably one of my favorites, outside of this one, of course. You're a fan of the show.
Speaker 2:Now she is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. Actually, I will be listening to some of your past episodes now, now that we've made a connection, Because I think it's really interesting to hear from some of the other my contemporaries as well. I'm going to definitely check out the Scott Stokely one. He's a really interesting character. Oh, he was wonderful Anyway so yeah, yeah, no, I've had a lot of conversations with him, but I also love to hear him talk about his experiences.
Speaker 3:Off topic. We have a really awesome one coming up that we haven't released yet with Ryan Scaife. Really awesome one coming up that we haven't released yet with, uh, ryan scaife. He's a espn correspondent that well, former espn correspondent that uh founded the hope in tanzania uh organization and he talks all about bringing disc golf to tanzania and making it a national recognized sport and, like all these amazing things and uh, we could, we can actually help connect you with him if you want, if you were interested.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you say he's a broadcaster? Oh, my gosh, so I do some broadcasting myself. Um, and I would really love a mentor for that. Oh yeah.
Speaker 3:He'd be, he'd be great, and he's. He's also like next door neighbors with colin from discraptor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he moved over to oregon.
Speaker 1:So yeah, let's, let's get you guys connected, so I'll make a note here yeah, I would love to pick his brain, if he has, if he would be willing our heart was full after we did that episode, so that was cool.
Speaker 3:Another one you might be interested in is um, the next interview we have is, uh, joel turner from shot iq, and so yeah, he was on, joe what's his deal? Well, he was a sniper instructor and he, yeah, and he is big in the archery world and he came up with this training method of how to it's basically kind of how to get over the yips, but like blueprinted it really really really well in a very comprehensive way, so that like Can you come out with that episode before this next Friday?
Speaker 3:Well, we record on thursday. So no, he's on a, he's on joe.
Speaker 2:There's a joe rogan episode. That, um, we could probably send you the link. But if you look up joel turner from joe rogan, you'll get his uh, okay, yeah, I'll find it yeah, and then he's got new information that he's going to be sharing on our podcast, so you'll get his. Okay, yeah, I'll find it. Yeah, and then he's got new information that he's going to be sharing on our podcast, so you'll get a pretty good idea of what he's about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sweet, I heard it the first time and I'm like, this is a game changer, I'm like. And then we emailed him yeah, I know, we emailed him and we're like, hey, what do you think about disc golf?
Speaker 1:And he's like let's do it. Wow, that's awesome, dude. I'm so glad for you guys. You're getting like those are some really good, good uh, guests, yeah, good information.
Speaker 3:Well, we, we want to do this for a living eventually, so it's disc golf and podcast that'd be great yeah. So if you know if you know anybody? No, I'm just kidding, right, we should get back on topic here.
Speaker 2:Hey, while we're off topic, our team disc golf captain is a huge fan. Can I have you give a quick shout out to Josh Larson?
Speaker 1:And he's your team.
Speaker 3:He's our Washington team disc golf and he's your team he's our uh washington team disc golf and he's our team captain and when I told him we were gonna have you on the show, he's like she's the one that I based my entire game off of. Like that's how I learned how to throw side on is by watching sarah hokum.
Speaker 2:Can I come on your, your podcast?
Speaker 3:he was trying to get on. Say hi.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Okay, well, I can do that. Huge shout out to Josh. Yeah, huge shout out to Josh Larson, team Capitan Also. I heard he has a really good sidearm.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 3:Sarah we're going to be laughing about that for a while, all right, so let's, uh, let's jump back on topic here. Um so, yeah so women in disc golf is is big with us because of our involvement with the evergreen women's series. What advice do you have for, uh, a woman just starting out or maybe looking to advance her position or direction in disc golf? What advice can you give?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would really. I think finding the right environment for you to compete in, so kind of being diligent about that, like reaching out to other women or reaching out to the club and to look for other women to play with, right I think. I think women playing with other women is one of the biggest keys to women being, uh, finding sustainable love in the sport, right, I think you can kind of get into it and get into it hard and then kind of fall off. If you don't have that right, that foundational support system Now, along with that, though I think it's sometimes you can get, it can be difficult for women to get along. Sometimes there's like the egos involved kind of get in the way of the fun of the sport. I mean it can happen in men and women, but I think women have a few less opportunities throughout their life to kind of foster those skills of being, you know, a competitive person and not taking that personal or making it personal between other women to play where?
Speaker 1:you're playing with other women. I think it's also fostering those like positive relationships with other women and working at that and really understanding. Like, if you have a weird feeling because of something somebody said, is that coming from you or is that coming from them? Is it because you felt offended because of something, because of your own internal struggles, or were they being offensive or they saying something you know like? So, finding your group and then learning how to get along with other women in a competitive environment Um, too often I see, you know.
Speaker 1:Um, sometimes I see women who there's it depends on the area in um in Texas, the the group of women that runs that women's series has been really, really successful because they're so welcoming and they really have their emotional IQ.
Speaker 1:Their EQ is very high amongst the leaders there, and then they have the women in there that are sometimes problematic, but overall it's a really good vibe.
Speaker 1:In other places, though, I've seen the person who takes up leadership in the area the woman that does that maybe doesn't have the EQ that she needs for that role, and it actually turns women off and can kind of be a toxic environment in some ways. So I think that that's just something that we as women have to learn to really learn how to get along and be and be competitive with each other, but also be supportive, and that is really where the beauty of this community comes in. It's one of the few sports where you can literally play alongside someone and play your best and watch them play their best and be happy that they beat you. There's not very many sports around that have that kind of spirit of a game when you can actually literally enjoy and get beat as well and lose. You can be a joyful loser. It's not the easiest mentality to adopt, but I think it's really powerful and it's a beautiful thing to be able to do, and I personally am able to do it sometimes. Sometimes.
Speaker 1:I'm not able to do it, unfortunately. Yeah, it is. People want to like, I think. As someone who's been in the game for so long, I think people think that the mental game is kind of an upward track, that as you figure this thing out, check it off the list and then I'm going to get here and then slowly just build your way up this beautiful mountainscape and at the top you can finally look out over the valley and know that you've achieved. That's not how it works. No, it's not the mental game. As soon as you figure one little thing out and you've achieved, you check that off. Then you know the valley drops out the mountain, there's a cave in, you know, and you got to go find a new challenge. You got to find a new method to deal with another challenge.
Speaker 3:Or even a bigger mountain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe there's a bigger one on the other side of that one. Yeah, um, that you didn't even know was there and then and then then there's also the the challenge of remembering all the things that you've learned through the beginning part of the struggles. You know we forget so much as much as we learn all the time that you know. That's kind of why I love the bob rotella method, because he says the same thing but but he says it 13 different ways.
Speaker 3:Well, and I imagine that's why routine is so important is because even now, being a fairly I consider myself kind of a developed player, at least more mature than I was when I started out out I still am making rookie mistakes that I did my first year, especially early in the season, and I have to retrain myself on those every single year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, both on a mental side and then also, you know, the physical side. The more like as I'm developing more of a backhand game now, I have more shots to maintain. Yeah, you know, like they don't just automatically just because you learned how to throw it one time doesn't mean you're going to be able to hit it at that at the click. You need to. You know, especially for approach shots and stuff. I mean, you got to hit those like that's gotta be like 80, 90%.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and it it also one. Whatever you don't practice that week or kind of neglect, that week always tends to show up on the course in a big way.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I'm focusing really heavily on the mental aspect of the game and just trying to maintain that positive attitude where Brandon's focusing more on the physicality of the game. And so it's interesting to see how our games are progressing this year because of we're focusing on the different aspects of the game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. And yeah, the physical parts is, you know, learning how to do all the shots and then maintaining it Right. I mean, that is the whole task in itself, and then the mental parts of it is like you know, just, I think the biggest trick, or the biggest thing that it makes a difference for me, is how quickly I recover from the issue. You know certain issues, you know. I mean, I had the yips in 2014 and you know that took me. It took me like six months to a year to work through, and then there's still residual, you know, there's residual stuff from that still in my mental game, you know now, even a decade later. So, yeah, it's. It's unlearning too.
Speaker 3:Yes, well, one of the things we always tell our kids and we tell each other is that preparation doesn't necessarily, uh, reduce the trauma.
Speaker 1:It speeds recovery sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's I mean. And there's the whole mental side of that, like where can you put your brain? Where can you, where can you put your thoughts in order to try to get yourself out of whatever just happened? But then there's the whole physical side of things too, you know, like yeah deep breathing, splash, you know, splash your face with water.
Speaker 1:um, how do you? You know, how do you de-escalate that flight or fight moment? Yeah, I've. And actually, how do you get to yourself where you're seeing it, where you actually don't go into that fight or flight thing and you're able to just see this as a challenge to be overcome and not a threat on your life, like our bodies sometimes want to think it is? It's a threat on your life, like like our bodies sometimes want to think it is.
Speaker 3:It's a threat on my life. Yeah so I, our bodies, do that.
Speaker 1:I've had those rounds obviously you haven't experienced this, but, but we have yeah it's like we live our body, even though we know that it's just frisbee, it's just a game. Our bodies literally think that we're gonna die if we don't do something about this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get to a point where my heart rate's up and it's like I need to get my heart rate down because I know I'm in that response. So I've come to recognize that and how do I then calm down from having my heart rate up so high?
Speaker 3:The way I relate to that is I've been in highly competitive collision sports at high levels during my young life, so you know you're thinking that you're going to get rocked or get your bell rung constantly, and so it's weird how that translates into a game like golf where you're not under those threats but still my body and my brain like clicks into that, uh, that place where it's like, oh you know, the defenseman is coming over the line, I'm going to get rung.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, and then for your and that's also the beauty the difference in the sports right, like in in that contact sport, that is, it's actually important that your body reacts that way, that is, that you need to react, that way it keeps you safe. But then for disc golf it's actually a hindrance for our bodies to go into that mode. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's one of the ways that disc golf has helped me is to kind of calm that urge down, and it doesn't always work the way it's supposed to, you know the therapeutic aspect, to kind of take that edge off. And on that note I was going to ask you do you have some common practices or some favorite things that you do to kind of deal with the mental thing? Like do you meditate you said you did deep breathing, maybe grounding exercises, like what does that look like for you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I'm really going through it, especially in the middle of a route, I do a lot of breathing. I will try to. If I can recognize what's happening. I will try to start like just observing nature and start kind of telling myself about, talking to myself, about how you know, this doesn't actually matter. My dog loves me, my mom loves me, my boyfriend loves me, I've got everything I need. No matter what happens here, the world is, it's just fine. I'm going to go make myself a nice dinner and enjoy my evening, regardless of whether this putt goes in or not, you know, or whatever it is. I'll just try to kind of deescalate in my mind and then I do a lot of deep breathing and observe nature. That's probably my three things that I work through when I'm going through it.
Speaker 2:So one of the things you know as part of the community of playing with other women. So my first year there was this group of women that I ended up playing with a lot, and so we tried to take a lot of the negatives and make them positive. So we said that you know, if something happens, we're like we'll do the Taylor Swift and shake it off. So we would all take like a 10 second dance party and like all try and shake it off and try and move on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was Kayla who started the 10 second dance party and then, if you're you know, you went from being like top of the box to bottom of the box. Well, now you have snack time, so you get to take a snack break.
Speaker 2:And then something I did at my tournament last year Sirens of the Springs, which was a huge hit, was the first round of the springs which was a huge hit was the first round of the tournament. We did a bingo where you had a lot of those negatives like so you hit a tree, uh, landed in the hazard, the wind took your disc, some of those things that would normally be negatives it was. It turned it into a positive of hey, I got another thing on my bingo card.
Speaker 1:So finding ways to actually physically have. Oh, yeah, yeah, did you actually physically have bingo cards? Yep, we had bingo cards. So finding ways you actually physically have, oh yeah, yeah, did you actually physically have bingo?
Speaker 3:cards yep, we had bingo cards and we're gonna do it again this year what one of the biggest hits, one of the. I love that. One of the biggest things that she did and it was absolutely hilarious is she let people sponsor trees oh yeah and so you get, yeah, for five bucks you could sponsor a tree or whatever. And they get a little sign and you can put a little quote on it or like a funny picture or something, and it's like usually it went on like first available or like that one right in front of the basket that has a lot of like pockmarks in it.
Speaker 2:So at Shelton Springs you'll get to see it. You won't be on the red pad, but on hole 15 there's this one tree and it was the first one that my friend, tony morgan she's like. I want this tree. I always hit this tree, this is my tree, and so it was just funny that she's like I'm gonna sponsor that tree, yeah, so finding ways yeah, do you get anything if you hit that tree?
Speaker 1:no, the tree you sponsor. No, we didn't do that, it was just encouragement.
Speaker 2:And then people were like hey, tony, I hit your tree.
Speaker 3:So it kind of yeah, made some camaraderie and, yeah, you know, added some of the good fundraising.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the fun good fundraising for the tournament. And uh, something else I've been working on is intentionally being like, okay, I had a bad shot, okay, I need to come up with three positives to get back on the positive side of things. So, um, like, oh, I made a good drive, so there's one. I made a good recovery, there's two, I made a good putt, so there's three. And trying to say that to myself and try and get myself back on that positive track. So I'm I'm really focusing on that aspect of the disc golf game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Two things. Number one I love the bingo card one. In my early years especially, I would get thrown by really bad things that would happen. You know, like I OB, you know get the can't get up and down for a double or something. Whatever it was I would also have. I would didn't have an actual list that I had physically but if, like, I missed a 10 footer, I'd be like, oh, check that one off the list Missed the 10 footer for the round. Oh well, lost a disc in the water check. And it would help me also like, oh, this is just, these are just things that happen and like, just get over it, because they were, it was just going to happen anyway at some point.
Speaker 4:Um, I love that um, and then also in the right, exactly.
Speaker 1:So then you kind of kind of move forward to help me, but I think in a similar way as this bingo card thing, which I like your method way better I'm gonna have to. I may have to play with that a little bit. I really love that. I might steal that from you. Pdga approved bingo codes.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, the other thing we would do at a bunch of women's events in California we play the dot game. Oh yep, which you know it's controversial, whether it's like good dots or bad dots. There's a couple pro women that hate the dot game. You know I don't want to dot for missing a 10-footer, okay, whatever, but there's good dots and bad dots. You know, at least if you hit metal, you know like at some points when you're putting, like hitting metal is a positive thing, even if it doesn't go in. You know it depends on where you're at with your putting game or whatever. And even from distance, you know. You know hitting metal from 60 feet is pretty good, yeah, you know, even if it didn't go in. So you know finding those little things. But anyway, the dot game would give people like encouragement, I got six dots or like. You know you'd be like I got an eight, but I got, I got a dot or whatever, and then you could win the dot game, which would be some silly prize that nobody maybe wanted.
Speaker 3:But there you go. That yeah, the, it's gonna happen now.
Speaker 2:Well, the few women I've played the dot game with is there's always the one it's like. I know I got a dot, don't talk to me about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it's kind of funny. People's reaction to it is not always positive, I guess, but I liked it yeah it's um but what?
Speaker 2:what I really what?
Speaker 1:I really wanted to like actually get to, though, is to touch on what you said earlier about how you try to find those positive things after a negative thing.
Speaker 1:Well, one of the things that I found, so Bob Rotello is like my first author, that I really enjoyed reading, but then I found this book called fearless golf, and it's from it's by Gio Valiente, and I really liked this one, particularly because it had a lot of the stuff that Bob Rotella has. But he really talked about the slider fight, fight, response, um, and really kind of took the neurobiology part of it, brought that out to the surface, which was really interesting to me as a science person, um, but then like also really talked about like keeping um, like a, either a net positive um mind frame by like taking a mastery approach to the mental side, which is different than a kind of a, I guess I think he did. He call it I can't remember what the other thing. I think it might was an ego centric or an ego approach, but what he really talks about is trying to just either, um, either celebrate what you did or learn from what you did. So if you, if you, throw a bad shot and you react emotionally to it like ah, then you've already put yourself into a negative like a fight or flight reaction. But if you throw a bad shot and you go oh, what happened there? And you take curiosity, you bring curiosity into the equation. That that really mitigates your ability to be emotional about it yeah right.
Speaker 1:So every shot is is either a positive, like oh, you feel good because you threw a good shot, or it's a net, a net zero, a zero sum, where you're just learning okay, I need to throw that a little bit differently, or oh, I just you know I needed it to fall through, or I missed this part of my run up, or whatever it is. So that was. I really enjoyed this mastery mind frame that, you know, helped me either learn or feel good.
Speaker 2:So it's always either zero or one, not negative one teacher to teacher of you know, this is what we strive for as teachers is to teach our students to continue to want to learn and to have that open mindset and become lifelong learners, and I think that's one aspect of this game that you know draws us to it so much is that we can become lifelong learners of ourselves, how we react, and you know how we connect physically in the game too, and then there's a community aspect.
Speaker 3:So you're you're making some connections for me that I hadn't made before oh, cool yeah well, I think it was one of my favorite quotes out there and I'm gonna butcher it. I think it was aristotle or something, but it was to have knowledge is easy, to know yourself is difficult so sure, yeah, know thyself.
Speaker 1:That is also like something I constantly repeat to myself in tournaments, um, and I think that, yeah, that's really helpful for people, because you like knowing what you can do versus what everybody else is doing. To separate your game from everybody else's game is really important, yeah, and and to spin off of what you were do versus what everybody else is doing.
Speaker 3:To separate your game from everybody else's game is really important, yeah, and to spin off of what you were just saying, one thing that I've been doing lately that's really helped me and maybe it'll help our listeners and help you is, you know, if I find myself doing the same mistake out there on the course repeatedly, like I'm pulling to the right or something like that, I just kind of say to myself, like I'm pulling to the right or something like that, I just kind of say to myself you know, this is the lesson that I need to learn today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that, frame it. Frame it in a way that like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to. This is actually now guiding my work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, this is why I'm here today is to learn this.
Speaker 2:I think that's what we talked to Eric Oakley about, too, in one of our previous episodes. I think that was something that Eric said to suggested to us is uh, he was talking about how he was working on his mental game a couple years ago, and that was something that he suggested as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was super lovely to us as well yeah, can't wait to see him at cascade challenge too yeah, yeah, I know, and he's been one of the few that has been kind of more forthright with some of his mental struggles. I think A lot of the pros we don't really talk online about it as much.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a deeply personal aspect of who you are. You know like your mental health is definitely part of your identity. So it's really difficult to wear yourself out there in the world like that, because it's a vulnerability and people don't like to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and also just the way the internet works. Everyone wants to be idealistic about the way that they are compared to the way someone else is, and so people get really judgy about. If you get real personal about yourself and you know it's just really that whole part of you know finding sharing and being authentic online and finding you know getting followers and sharing as much as you can. That's a whole other aspect that I think has a really negative impact on the mental side of the sport, if you let it.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Disc golf is rapidly evolving. I mean, every day it seems like there's something new, some new techniques, some new, you know. So what changes are you making to keep up with the pace, and what are you excited about?
Speaker 1:well, you know, I'm always trying to keep up with the what's required. Uh, as far as uh skills, skill set, you know, like what different shots there, you know, are we. Are we really expecting the women to throw backhand rollers? You know, is that really where we're at Like, trying to keep up with what the uh, the FPO division is. You know what the courses are requiring of us, um, which, uh, that is one part awesome and one part extremely frustrating. That is one part awesome and one part extremely frustrating. It's really awesome to see the skill set increase on the women's side of things, but it's also really sad and depressing that I am kind of closer to the end of my physical abilities and that I can only do so much.
Speaker 3:You want to play the game forever. You know. The reality is that nobody can yes, I'm very realistic about that.
Speaker 1:Um. So, yeah, these. Uh, last year was pretty tough because of my. I had ankle surgery, um semi-unsuccessful ankle surgery at that, unfortunately. Um. So that took my most of my season out um the middle of the season and then I kind of was recovering on the way back at the end of the season. And now this year, you know we're coming into it and the talent level has once again increased over over time and the requirements on distance or scoring in the FBO side has also continued to get pushed to the next level. So, yeah, so for me personally that is a huge struggle in order to like, enjoy the game when I'm still maybe not able to score as often, and also that, you know, it puts me behind a little bit when it comes to my ability to get into those podium spots just because I don't have access to birdies. So that's been a real struggle and I it's going to continue to be so, I think, for the next couple of years.
Speaker 3:Well, and it's. It's an interesting time we live in too, because you're starting to see the first generation of disc golfers come through that have been playing since they've been in diapers, as where some of the some of the older generations were back when there was pole golf, and we're throwing pie pans and and things like that yeah, like I would say, when I first came into the sport, almost everybody with the exception of maybe val but I think val doesn't even count because she didn't like to play when she was a kid anyway, I think everybody was an adult when they learned to play.
Speaker 1:And then Paige Pierce came in. Right, she was the first on the FBO side that had played her whole life and it showed yeah, and still shows yeah. And now we're getting guess. If we think about, we still have some adult crossovers. For sure, most of the successful women are adult crossovers, but the cadence burges of the world we've got who's come at. Rebecca cox has been in it her whole life, um, you know. And then some of these younger like like Evelina Hena Silva, the Europeans who grew up in it a little bit too. So, yeah, it is pretty amazing to watch the progression when you can just get into the sport young. But that, I'm sure, also comes with challenges. We've seen Paige in her era of dominance and now people question her motivations, and she's only in her early 30s.
Speaker 3:I never thought of it like that. Now it all changes.
Speaker 1:I mean it's, you know, the intrinsic versus the extrinsic nature of motivation. You know, I think that these players coming up in it have had that extrinsic from their parents. You know the pushing, and so if they can develop, that intrinsic. I think that they could have a long career, but if they don't, that'll dry up.
Speaker 2:Well, and part of it, too, could be. You know, if you're used to being successful and then you find yourself not being successful, that struggle of how do you all of a sudden, now what's motivating you to now become successful when you're not used to?
Speaker 1:you know, when you're not used to failing, yeah, the equation you used to get to where you are is not going to work from here on out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to adapt as your mental state and your and your physical state changes over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I'll tell you straight straight up, like after I won in 2012, um that next year, I remember des reading comes up to me and she goes hey, you're playing pretty good, even though you just won, you know I was like huh, I didn't even I.
Speaker 1:I didn't even know what she was talking about. You know I? I was like what are you talking about? And then, I think years later, I realized I was like, oh, because once you win, now you have to deal with this expectation, not only of yourself, but also from other people. And now you go from a challenge of like can I do this? I wonder if I can do this. Nobody knows if I can do it. I don't even know. I'm the underdog. You're usually the underdog until you're not. And then, once you become the person, then your identity has changed. And now, instead of being a challenge and like, ooh, can I just do this thing? All of a sudden, now you're protecting this identity that you've built, and now you're playing scared, you're playing not to lose instead of playing to win, um, and that is a whole thing to try to work through.
Speaker 3:Well, I imagine it's to bring things full circle. It's kind of like the stat thing, like, where it's like oh, I'm supposed to be a 90 putter from circle one and today I'm only hitting 60 like, and then you freak out and you're in and I imagine like a win, a W is just a stat, and now there's that expectation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it, it. It affects it. To make I think to, to stay in a state that you were when you win what you, when you win this last time or whatever it was, to try to bring that into your next win. I think is, I think that's really difficult. To try to bring that into your next win, I think is I think that's really difficult.
Speaker 1:Um, I know, like you know, some people have like, there's some, um, there's some personalities that have had found techniques to do it. Um, I'm not going to mention their name, but there's a, I don't know a world champion in disc golf. I don't know if it's okay If I say this about him. That's why I'm not going to say who it was. Um, that's why I'm not going to say who it was.
Speaker 1:But he once told me that the only way he could really play good is if he got himself mad. He made himself angry. He had to play angry in order to play good, so he would like work himself up on purpose. But you know, it was like that was his personality and I remember once I heard that I thought, oh no, I'm never doing that. I don't want to play this game if I have to play mad to play good. Um, but that is some people's personality, I mean michael jordan. He would talk trash to to everybody. He was so competitive and he started, he made it, he made it, he would win because he made everything personal. Oh yeah, that's how he would, that's how he did it and that was part of his personality. He needed that high state of arousal in order to perform, so he really had to make it personal, you know. But man, losing must have really hurt him hard oh, I bet it did well.
Speaker 3:I think for anybody at a high level, I mean, it has to, you have to take it. You take it pretty hard well, and that's the thing.
Speaker 1:That's the challenge with disc golf, though, and golf in general, is you win very few times and you're a loser all the time we lose almost every week. 150 people lose every week. One person wins yeah, two people win. You know like it is a game of becoming, of not letting a being a loser make you think you're a loser yep it's definitely a sport of failure, that's for sure yeah, so that is um, and to say that you know that doesn't affect you, it's like you know, I think it's that's naive.
Speaker 1:I think it definitely affects people absolutely so yeah, um, anyway, it's, yeah, yeah, crazy game. I don't, I don't, I don't like to exist in a place where I have to be mad. I really, I really want and I'm still obviously working on it um, trying to find that place every week. That puts me in a good mental state to enjoy my golf and do my best out there without getting in my own way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and that's, that's the toughest part. I mean the game you said it earlier so much like ball golf, you know, in the psychology of it, you know it's really the same game in its entirety, just a different medium.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Entirety, just a different medium. Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, so it's really great to have that, those resources to try to help you work through the mental side of it, because obviously we don't have dedicated sports psychologists on the pro tour. Uh, I would love one, though you find a good sports psychologist you gotta go talk to Seth Muncy oh, he's, he's great. No, he is great. I talk to him all the time and he has absolutely offered a lot of psychological tricks and tips to try to get us through these things.
Speaker 3:For sure, he's where I get all my breathing from, for sure, oh yeah is he still with the tour this year or is he doing the coach at Idaho thing?
Speaker 1:I believe he's doing both. So he has been part-time. He was kind of part-time tour last year and hit like six events and I think he's doing the same thing again. So he's not going to be on tour full-time. That's a full-time. He'll fly out to some of the big ones and then he'll still do his own training stuff in Meridian or wherever he's at in Boise.
Speaker 3:That's very cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually cool that he now lives like 30 minutes from my parents.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome Because I'm from Idaho originally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he moved to my home valley, treasure Valley, nice.
Speaker 3:There you go. Speaking of which, what do you think of disc golf breaking into the college sports scene? I mean, it's looking as if it's going to be NCAA, it's looking like it's going to be an Olympic sport here pretty soon, and I've even heard of some colleges having programs where they're offering full scholarships to come play disc golf.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am aware of that. There are definitely full scholarships for disc golf right now. Um, I think it's really going to be interesting to see how the sport changes once college really does get up to speed. Because right now, um, they're like the organization of it is starting to come around, but the talent level is just not there. We don't see all of the. We have all these 16, 17, 18-year-olds on tour as pros who would beat all those college kids handily. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, fair, and if you have the ability, you want to go to a tour.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a sad. I mean I don't mean to, I'm not trying to knock on the college folks at all but right now there is a direct pro track from high school to pro. We don't have this like stop in at college and develop your skills thing and then go play pro. You know, we don't have that progression in the sport right now. Right now, if you're progressing as most of these kids coming up in the pro side right now, if they went to college they would be kind of dropping back down and then having to come back on the pro scene. Yeah, they'd be missing out. They would be maybe. I mean they would be developing a whole other set of skills that would probably be helpful for them in their life and maybe in their career.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:But it's not like it doesn't make sense right now for you know this really talented 17-year-old to go to college when he can play on the Pro Tour and make like you know. Look at Gannon yeah, he should be in college right now. Emily Weatherman she should be in college right now. Paige Pierce should have been in college then you know. So I think that you know other sports have things like this. You know this program that you go progress from high school, then you're going to go play for a college team and then you're going to go play pro. That's not how it works right now and I don't know how we get there.
Speaker 2:So that's what I'm concerned about is that we have this great this organizational thing happening right now, which is awesome and I want that. But then how do we meld that with the pro scene into later in life, into college? I could see it even be along those lines where kids go pro for however many years and then it's like, okay, I'm not performing the way I want to or I'm ready to move on to something else, and then at that point they go in as an older student and maybe they're able to do it at that point.
Speaker 3:And that's their ticket to go to college. Yeah, no, that's interesting, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:But I wonder point, and that's their ticket to go. Yeah, no, that's interesting, that's interesting, but I wonder if, because they've already played pro, if they're ineligible for ncaa sports.
Speaker 3:That's a good point well, yes and no, I was just going to bring that up. It's an interesting aspect that the ncaa lifted the ban on amateur athletes having sponsorships and, uh, modeling careers and that type of thing, uh, and it all stems from. It all stems from, like, the ncaa football games because they had used all the players names and jerseys and stuff, and you know ea sports who does all those games. They never paid the players and they just wanted the players, want a big lawsuit saying that they need to pay them for using their face and likeness. Well, and also, those athletes can carry sponsorships now, from you know, marketing deals such as like nike or like adidas or something like that, and and so that's working its way into the NCAA now as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, there's a whole lot. I mean, I know when I played you couldn't earn it over a certain amount of money and you definitely couldn't have played pro and then go play college. So it changed a lot of those things and maybe that would allow for, you know, a later in life college uh Avenue, um, where we could have these 30 year old-old dudes playing college disc golf. I don't know if that's the ticket either, but I like the idea.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then, kind of along these same lines, what's the temperature and the atmosphere of? Just in your personal anecdotal opinion, what's the prospect of getting disc golf into the Olympics very soon?
Speaker 1:I don't think soon is the right word, but I definitely think it'll happen eventually. I do think so. We have a lot of compliance things to come up with. We need disc golf in a bunch more countries, so that, like the Marco Polo program, the Paul McBeth Foundation, some of that stuff that's got to expand. We need to do that for like five or six more years to get these in a bunch of different countries. Um, and then we have to get on par with their drug testing policies, um. So that's a whole.
Speaker 1:I know we're the pro tour, the pro tour is starting that, so we have to get in compliance with uh with that stuff, which is worse. So we're at least three years away from that, with uh with that stuff which is we're still.
Speaker 3:We're at least three years away from that. Okay, um, from my understanding, like the anti-doping and performance enhancing and stuff like that gotcha, gotcha yeah, yeah okay so we have to get into compliance with all of that.
Speaker 1:We have to get into more places, um, and then I think yeah, I think that I think we're on track, though I think the, the leadership, the people leaders in this sport are, it's on their radar. I think it'll happen. I don't know how soon, though Definitely not in my life, I mean not in my life as a player, but maybe in 20 years, fair enough.
Speaker 3:Fair enough, all right. So I got to ask Sarah what do you got in the bag?
Speaker 1:What do you got in the bag? Yeah, main drivers are my signature trace, the Cosmic Neutron Traces and the Fission Photons I like a Vanish, a Neutron Vanish as well and the Understable Distance Driver. I'm throwing some orbitals with my backhand at that slot, overstable, pretty much going with photons in the 11 speed slot. Nine speeds I don't have too many, but I do like throwing a virus backhand. Or I've recently started throwing the virus sidearm for a big turnover, really liking that shot, um or a or a longer flip up to straight shot, and then six and a half speeds are a huge part of my bag. So we're talking relay crave. Those two combination Overstable, nine speed. The fireball Mids I love the pyro for my overstable, the reactor for my middle and the matrix. The electron matrix takes care of all my understable slots For putting.
Speaker 1:I love putter approach stuff. I like the tempo for sidearm and I like the range for both sidearm and backhand. The range is our new one. For both sidearm and backhand. The range is our new one. I haven't thrown the Cosmic ones that Eagle came out with yet, but I've been throwing a Glow range for pretty much a full year now and I really like that disc. It's really fun to throw.
Speaker 3:The range is the one that's. It's kind of like a Berg. Yeah, it's like a Berg yeah.
Speaker 1:It's a puddle top putter. Yeah, it's really unique, flying so. So I like that. But then, as far as my actual putting, I use a spin, electron spin, which is an understable disc. I like to throw it on anhyzers as well. That's pretty much my bag very cool.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. I don't want to get you in trouble, but out of all time your entire career what's your absolute favorite disc like? Just maybe one that you wish you had or one that you have a fond memory of? Yeah, yeah, um, oh, like an individual, like an individual disc yeah, for example, I have a ninja turtles custom dyed leopard that jenny made for me and it's my absolute favorite of all time oh yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I have this orange crave that I really like, that I've had in my bag for like five years. I've had a. I got a couple aces with it. It flies great. It's still a staple in my bag. Um, it's just, I just love how it flies. So I would say that one or I have this matrix, this electron matrix that is so has so many uh wobbles in the top that it looks like the worst disc ever nobody would ever want to throw it and it's so beat to crap that it just looks like you couldn't even sell it in a used bin.
Speaker 1:Um, but I love it. It's so weird, it's so flippy and, um, it does cool stuff that's all it does.
Speaker 2:Cool stuff so you mentioned hobbies earlier. When you're not disc golfing, what are your hobbies?
Speaker 1:oh, I'm always developing new ones, trying to figure out what I like, trying to spend my time not frisbeeing. Okay so, entrepreneur, I play frisbee, but I also because of what it takes to be on the road full time. I am also an entrepreneur, so which means that I work from when I wake up until when I go to sleep, which is not good. I have learned over the years, so hobbies have been really important to me. So what I do hobby-wise is I love to sew and cross-stitch and paint and color and make stuff. I like to work on my van.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my hobbies are crafting, essentially creative arts oh, very cool as Jenny's sitting here knitting herself a new pair of leg warmers while she's yep, I have to knit or crochet to help me focus.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'm working on a new pair of leg warmers if you need a set, let us know.
Speaker 1:Actually, I really need to learn to crochet, because I don't actually know how to do that. I've tried a couple of times. I actually have a little kit to make myself a hat that I haven't gotten into yet, so we'll see. Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3:There you go, all right and so um. Next question here is how do you feel that disc golf has helped shape you as a person and what lessons have you taken away from your experiences? Just kind of overall.
Speaker 1:Oh man, countless lessons. Um, really, I think it's really expanded my own understanding of myself, certainly get to know myself better than I ever have because of the sport. You know, as soon as you think you've got something figured out with yourself in the sport, the game shows you what you're lacking. So I really appreciate that about the sport. I definitely could not have grown as much as I have as a human in general without disc golf. So just about yourself learning what you're great at, what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to work through all of that. And then the interpersonal skills, like really learning how to, like I said earlier, enjoy watching someone beat you but be at peace with that.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that most of us come into a lot of us come into this game as a very with a really competitive mind frame. That is sometimes to our detriment and I think disc golf really teaches you to balance that and gives you the opportunity to learn how to balance that. Now, I don't think everybody does and you know I have my moments where I'm not even close. But just that constant ability, that constant opportunity to try to just better yourself, I think is always there to enjoy watching other people play well alongside while you're doing, trying to do your best. So I think definitely learning about yourself and learning how to be a great community member, I think, is what I've learned the most speaking, speaking of community, is what kind of projects or what kind of things do you have going on in the future?
Speaker 3:uh, and what? What are your plans for, maybe after disc golf?
Speaker 1:Well, that's a really good question because that aligns exactly what I'm trying to do, um.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm going to continue to play um until it makes sense, until I can't really support myself, where it doesn't make sense for me to be out on the road, which we're not quite there yet, but we're getting close. So after that, my goal is to go through the communities, to still stay on the road, kind of in my nomadic state, which I prefer at this point and try to go and improve courses that need some help, like going to some private courses that are struggling in certain ways and see if I can come in there and help them improve their course, improve their connection with the community, and see if we can get some of these courses that aren't quite up to par to really get them as really viable options for their community and connect the community with these courses and make sure that the though however many was we have like what is it 8,000, six, six or 7,000 courses in the United States? I want to make sure that they are all really good. That's my goal, nice.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. So so course. And community development, then that's right.
Speaker 1:So course and community development, then that's right, that's a better word for it. I could have just said that All right. So, yeah, course and community development, that's what we're. Yeah, I'm actually I'm hoping to start like a YouTube channel and kind of play it like a homestead rescue. Have you ever seen that? Oh, we love that show.
Speaker 3:We love it Disc golf rescue, yeah, so in that. I love it.
Speaker 1:Disc golf rescue yeah so in that kind of like that. But I don't know, you know I don't want to necessarily approach course owners like, hey, I'm going to come rescue your course. You know, it's not really quite where I'm at with it. I think they just I want to try to come in and be a consult and do a bunch of work on their property and see if we can get it, improve it in ways that can make it a more successful venue at it, improve it in ways that can make it a more successful venue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and come in with the lens of like what can we also add for, like uh, beginners, women, juniors, like I know that's one thing we've done uh over here in Washington. A lot of the courses are looking through that lens of how can we make it more, you know, user-friendly to all areas of disc golf.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually that's. I'm glad you said that, because that is actually my main focus, more so than trying to make these like chance championship level courses. I'm talking, um, you know, there's estimated uh, 15 million people play frisbee. Um, only one, 1.4 million um you use use udisc, and only about 150,000 play tournaments. So the people that I know are the 1%ers or even the .01%ers, but there's 99% of the people out there don't want to play a course that I would compete
Speaker 1:on. So trying to make sure, and unfortunately and maybe not not unfortunately, but just as the way it is people who typically are in charge of designing courses or have the passion and motivation to go plead with their parks department to get a course put in, are also usually pretty well. So their eye sees 350 foot shots. They don't see what the 99% need Right. So, adapting these courses that don't get a lot of play because, honestly, they're just maybe not fun. They're meant for the 1% and there's only so many 1% out there. So if we can adapt these courses for the 99, add some putter courses, some micro courses, you know, get some bathrooms on these courses, figure out ways to get a league, get a double league started at this course.
Speaker 1:Get some short pads. Get a couple extra pin placements, you know, make the course a little playable. Get some better signage, you know, improve some of these little things that make a course way better for pretty low cost. I'm hoping I'd like to do it on grant money so that I can come in and, you know, be at no cost to the course owner to try to improve the property. So, or the YouTube channel subscribers, I'm hoping could fund some of that. So anyway, that's kind of the goal eventually. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:Those are some great aspirations. I love it and we've talked about it before is that it seems like I think it's just something in society. Is that people like to see the winners and people like to see the overachievers and the upper 1%, and it creates this vast underserved community of just the recreational players and you know the people that do it on weekends just for a kick in the pants with their guys or something like that, and uh, yeah, that's that's. You know, that's really where your audience is. Is that 99%?
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 3:I mean if that's how I see it as well if I was a marketing person, I would say why not go to where the biggest population is, Because that's where the market is.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, population, yes, and then and that's also when we think about where that actually is in in physical area, a lot of times the population dense areas don't have the space we can't put in these big courses, like one thing you just does really well is they have this community health index that I'm going to try to utilize that shows like it's not just the number of courses, it's course proximity to populations and also the style of courses that exist within the community and whether there's enough courses for the underserved population, which is actually the majority. So, yeah, that Community Health Index and UDIS, udis latest reports they send out, is a really powerful piece of information for where, where, what communities need and what they don't already have oh, one question light bulb.
Speaker 3:I forgot to ask you this and I've been dying to ask you this. Can you make? Can you make a comment on this? I was eavesdropping on a professional player at the Cascade Challenge last year and they were conversating between each other and the remark was made and I thought it was kind of interesting that the difference between a tour professional and a local professional is mindset. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a pretty broad statement. I think that that could be applied to pretty much any situation, because mindset is everything. Um, I don't know if I totally agree with that. Um, I think in some ways, yes, they're totally right, but there's also more to it than that. So, not just mindset, um it's. You know, literally the amount of physical practice somebody has. A regional pro is going to their nine to five and they're spending.
Speaker 1:They're spending a lot of time doing other things and they're trying to fit in practice. They also, you know they're probably the underdog. They don't have any expectations of themselves, you know. So it's the combination of yes, I mean they have expectations, but you know, when it comes to them performing on a big stage, they don't expect to win um, so they're going to play better because of that, probably um.
Speaker 1:So that's part of the mind frame, but it's also just the physical amount of time they have to play and practice and dial in their shots. Sometimes I actually feel kind of like I'm jealous of the regional pros sometimes, because I think it would be excellent to not have any kind of expectation and to be able to come in just to see how you could do with just the challenge in mind and not all of the other stuff that I have to constantly block out or constantly try to work through because you're on tour. So I mean, I guess I because you're on tour. So I mean I guess I agree with him on the mind frame. But it's like the, it's like the foundation of the mind frame is different because we're coming from a totally different um situation even though we are signed up in the same division.
Speaker 3:No, that's. I think that's well said. That's very insightful. So this has been an episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer podcast with Sarah Hocum. If you appreciate us, love us, please like, subscribe, follow, tell all of your friends. You can find us on Facebook and Instagram at the Intentional Disc Golfer, and also our family page at Saprinsky Disc Golf, and we also have an ex TikTok and YouTube all at the same place at the idg podcast. That, uh, at the idg podcast, uh, the youtube is going through an update right now because as we work to incorporate video, so that's coming soon.
Speaker 3:If you don't see anything on there, don't worry about it. Uh, you can also text us some fan mail through our website on Buzzsprouts there. So when we share our links and everything, you can click on that and there should be a little fan mail button up at the top corner of the page. And if you want to get a hold of us directly, we have a email at theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom. That is theintentionaldiscgolfer at gmailcom, and this show is made possible through all of our fans and our supporters. So if you'd like to become a fan or a supporter, well, you're already a fan, but if you'd like to support the show, please go on to our patreon.
Speaker 3:Uh, backslash the intentional disc golfer that is patreoncom. Backslash theintentionaldiscgolfer. And, if you so choose, after the outro music. We do like to do a little bit of an outtake, blooper reel. So if there's any bloopers or outtakes after the outro music, they will be attached to the end of this episode, kind of like a hidden track, if we remember CDs, and we'd like to thank all of our fans out there and definitely like to thank sarah hokum for spending this time with us and having a lovely conversation. So, uh, and a quick shout out again to josh larson. Oh, capitan, again, this is the intentional disc golfer podcast.
Speaker 3:My name is brandon and I'm jenny and here at the intentional disc golfer, we truly believe that disc golf changes lives, so go out there and grow the sport. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Intentional Disc Golfer Podcast. These are the bloopers and outtakes from this latest episode. We do have to warn you that profanity may be used and sensitive topics may be discussed. Listener discretion is highly advised. To avoid this, please stop listening and move on to the next episode. Now, jenny, what is on our community calendar? Oh crap.
Speaker 2:I'm not ready yet.
Speaker 1:He usually fucks up on oh sorry, he usually messes up Tom's stretch and then I catch him right at the end.
Speaker 3:I'm a construction guy.
Speaker 1:I cuss like a sailor, so yeah, sorry I've been out of the education system for a few years.
Speaker 3:Well, and golf will bring it out of you, oh yeah oh right, yeah, yes, for sure yeah I gotta ask sarah, what do you got in the bag? Oh, um all the good stuff few wrap up, few wrap up questions here, cause we're coming up on it, but yeah, what's what's in your bag and a quick shout out again to Josh Larson oh, capitan, and uh, I lost it.
