For the love of the sport. A place for DG enthusiasts to share their thoughts.

Archive for February 1, 2013

Prodigy D1 & D4 Review

Posted by alphagenerator


Image I will use the post to drive more user feedback. Take my brief review with a grain of salt, as I was forced to play with my non-dominant hand… still recovering from shoulder surgery.

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Most, if not all, proto D1 & D4 discs currently come in max weight. The D1 is meant to be very fast and over stable, without the dreaded meat hook at the end. The flight path was narrowed significantly… reducing the side-to-side travel down the fairway.   The inner lip has been rounded as part of Prodigy’s patented Easy Release Technology. The easy release is meant to reduce both grip lock and blisters. (Soap Box Rant:  Innova’s most recent production of discs (late 2012) has a micro-bead on the inner lip that is extremely sharp and difficult to release.)

I am consistently getting more distance (20-40 ft) on every throw with both the D1 and D4. The D1 flies over stable, as intended. Prodigy claims the D1 flies well into a headwind as it does with a tailwind. I have yet to play in these conditions.

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The D4 is designed as a very fast, under stable driver. In my experience, this disc is not under stable. I would actually classify it as slightly over stable. Obviously, I am not getting a solid pop on my release, but I was expecting something along the lines of a fast Innova Roadrunner or Mamba (Definitely not the case).  I figure a 150 class disc will make the D4’s alleged under stability more apparent.

Overall I am happy with the purchase and look forward to throwing more Prodigy plastic. Both of these discs throw very well and get max-d with every toss.

What are your comments / reviews?

– Jeremiah


Running Tournaments

Posted by alphagenerator


Grip and Rip DGC began as an outcropping from the Dogleg crew’s drive to bring another course to our hometown of Jasper, AL. The new course is still being decided by the local city council, but they are pretty close to making a final decision. When researching all the details for starting a club, I found the PDGA to have a helpful How-to guide.

We cut our teeth with Discraft’s annual Ace Race tournament, which proved to be a valuable learning experience. Skills learned included: managing costs, gathering sponsorship’s, taking pre-registration monies, registering with the local park, setting up the course for tourney play and coordinating schedules with football season (if you are not from the Southeast, then you wouldn’t understand =)).

With all this Ace Race tournament director experience, I decided to take the PDGA’s Officials Exam to better understand the rules for sanctioned play. PDGA Rules – The rules are interpretative in some cases. I am more of a casual player, so I don’t necessarily agree with all the tedious rules (just my preference). The 10 official’s exam can be taken an unlimited amount of times and is only $10, which is good for 3 years. The PDGA now has a Pre-Register Tool that allows tournament directors to collect payment online. It does cost $2-3  for the player to use, but the players list updates in real-time.

I started building a GnR website with a forum to house all of the club’s activities. This proved to be more complicated than anticipated; so we setup a Facebook group under “Grip and Rip Disc Golf”. The events section is extremely helpful, since it allows local players to accept the tourney invite.  The real-time feedback allows for us to judge the expected attendance ahead of tourney day.

Contrary to popular belief, tournaments are time-consuming to run, and yield little profit for the club.  However, they are beneficial in growing the sport. Without groups of disc golfers coming together with similar interests, new parks wouldn’t be built and existing parks wouldn’t be improved. Just in the Birmingham metro alone, there are 7 new parks coming online in 2013! I really hope we can continue growing this beautiful sport.


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