Making The Switch

I am sure that I mentioned in posts earlier this year that I was getting tired of throwing the discs in my bag in what felt like a very good way and yet not scoring well. I tried out a few discs that I had picked up from tournaments along the way that were manufactured by Latitude 64. This included a few Dynamic Disc discs. After much thought and returning home from my big tour and not shooting nearly as well as I would have liked I made the decision. I made a big purchase of discs and now have a bag that is completely made up of discs from the Trilogy companies. Oddly well balanced between the companies as well. I want to take some more time here and now to explain my thought process as I made the switch. I am to really lay out why I chose to throw all Trilogy. Lastly I want to take some time to explain why I chose not to join the Team Trilogy thing that has been going around.

It is frustrating to play disc golf. To feel like you are improving but to not see that reflected in the scores. It is even more frustrating to see the same things happening when you know you can play well with those very discs that you have played with for a long time and know rather well. I have played with a mixed bag for a very long time and before making the switch I had Vibram and Discraft well represented in my bag along with one disc from Innova. You gotta love the Gator. And lets be honest, I still love all these discs. It was tough to look at my discs and say, you just aren't working as well as I would like you to work. Perhaps there are other reasons with my game why the discs weren't working. I am sure it is more that than anything else to be perfectly honest. Still, something had to change. So, I started as I said by taking the few discs I had to a field and throwing them against what I already had in my bag. It really wasn't a huge difference until I crushed my Dynamic Discs 167g Purple Renegade that I got as part of my players pack at the 2013 Glass Blown Open. I also found that my Latitude 64 XXX was flying on the same lines at my Predators, but were easier to get a tad bit more distance out of. So, I started playing with those discs and working them into the bag. From there is was more a matter of timing the switch to take place far enough in advance of big tournaments so as not to throw me off completely. This I believe turned out to be a very poor decision. I took an even more mixed bag with me on my tour and still struggled to play well. I had some great shots and a lot of moments where I was struggling, with any disc that was in my hand. But there were times when consistency just was not there as I switched between drastically different styles of plastic or rubber as the case might be. Upon returning home, I knew it was time. It was really a now or never thing, and never didn't bode well for my disc golf game at the present time.

So why Trilogy? Well, I did not have much experience with Trilogy discs in the past. At one point I began buying them to test out, but fell into enfatuation with Vibram and kinds just put the Trilogy discs in the bin. I had at least one dear friend I met playing disc golf who was and still is all about Latitude 64, even though his playing days are severely limited by other interests he has taken up. Trilogy, and Latitude in particular has been around me for a long time. There are a handful of people that I look up to in my local disc golf community here in Colorado. Honestly, Mitch Sonderfan was the reason I found Vibram to begin with. Well, I have some other close friends who happen to be with Dynamic Discs. When Dynamic made the move to begin producing discs with Latitude 64, I knew it was only a matter of time before I tried this discs out. I knew when my close friends chose to stick with Dynamic over their other disc sponsors that there was something special about Dynamic Discs as a company that I greatly appreciated. I honestly think they are doing things the way they should be done to grow the sport. I can only dream of a day, not when I am sponsored by Dynamic Discs, but of a day when they hire me to work for them in a job role I will not mention on here. With the discs specifically, I have found that I can throw them more consistently and longer with less effort. That is huge in the long run. I need to be confident that I know what my disc is going to do when it comes out of my hand. Not just what it is going to do, but that it will be on the line I intend it to be more often than not. In the short time I spent throwing Trilogy alongside other brands, I found myself reaching for Trilogy more and more for the simple fact that I was more confident that I would know what the disc was going to do. It will not always be true, but as long as it is more often than other brands, that is all that matters.

As many of you know, there is a group of people known as Team Trilogy out there doing something I think is absolutely amazing. I am not going to join them, even though I will more than likely be bigger fans of Trilogy plastic than many of the people who are. It came down to one simple fact for me. Until someone is paying for and providing me with gear, I am not going to act like I am sponsered by someone. I am still going to use my Innova Shami towels at tournaments because they are the best thing I have found on the market. I am going to wear all the wonderful shirts from the tournaments I have played in throughout my disc golf career, because it reminds me of past good times that I have had. That being said, I look forward to the day when I have a company willing to provide wonderful things to me for playing with thier equipment.

I am really looking forward to the rest of the season, and have been impressed with how my game seems to be turning for the best. If there are any questions that I did not answer about this process for me, feel free to ask. I know Trilogy is not for everyone in much the same way any company is not for everyone, but it is what works for me.