#816 | 2023 Disc Golf Pro Tour Review Show w/ Brian Friend | Episode 1

Speaker 1 (00:00):

Stop. I finally made it back to Florida and

Sevan Matossian (00:03):

Had bam reflect on this

Speaker 1 (00:06):

Past weekend. Um,

Sevan Matossian (00:08):

Uh, Calvin Heim, Heim,

Brian Friend (00:11):

Hein

Sevan Matossian (00:12):

Heim’s.

Brian Friend (00:13):

Instagram is spelled differently than his name.

Sevan Matossian (00:15):

Oh, uh, impressive. Uh, finish. Impressive finish. Extremely kept it, kept it exciting. Uh, really, uh, stayed on top of Kevin Jones in the 17th and 18th hole. Oh, yeah. <laugh>. Oh yeah.

Brian Friend (00:30):

You’ve done your homework.

Sevan Matossian (00:32):

Oh, yeah, I’m ready to go. Oh yeah, the back nine, it’s called the Back nine. For those of you who don’t know, the back nine is Hols. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Brian Friend (00:43):

Dude, you, I think you got it on your own tonight. I can, I can just leave.

Sevan Matossian (00:46):

Just chill buddy. Just chill. I got all this. All we need is Su or Caleb to, to log in now so someone can run the back end. Okay. So you sent me this guy’s Instagram, uh, this is, um, Calvin Hein, and, uh, he’s good. He, the, the, the te tell me what’s going on here. What, what are we doing here tonight? Why, why, what, what kind of crazy shenanigans are we up to?

Brian Friend (01:09):

I mean, I’m not, I’m not sure We’ll see, but, uh, this past weekend was the first profession, like pro tour event of the year for the disc golf season. And you and I have been kind of talking about the possibility of doing some coverage of that sport. Well, we try, have been trying to get ga you know, guests on that play disc golf for a over a year now, maybe two years. And, uh, we’ve been failing

Sevan Matossian (01:32):

<laugh>. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why won’t those guys come on?

Brian Friend (01:35):

Well, we haven’t gotten their attention yet, so that’s maybe what we’re trying to do.

Sevan Matossian (01:39):

Okay. And, uh, and do the, uh, you’re saying the Disc Golf Pro season has started, how, how many weeks is the, um, season?

Brian Friend (01:48):

So there’s the, there’s disc golf going on, like all year round. Okay. And, and the technically in terms of tour points available, the season actually started like two months ago. But those are all what are called eight tier, B tier, and C tier events. And the points available in those are very small. The majority of the points that you can earn towards the season happen in the Disc Golf pro tour events, of which there are 16. And those started on February 23rd this past week. And the le the Disco Golf Pro Tour Championship is the last one, and that ends on October 15th.

Sevan Matossian (02:25):

And so is this every weekend for the next, is this every weekend for the next 16 weekends?

Brian Friend (02:30):

No, there’s a lot more 16 weekends between now and October 15th.

Sevan Matossian (02:34):

Okay. How many are, how, uh, is it every other weekend? So we don’t, we won’t be on here every week or will we?

Brian Friend (02:40):

I don’t think so. There are tournaments every week, and the best players in the world, you know, for the most part will play in tournaments most of the weeks, but they won’t play every week. They’ll take some weeks off for travel to go back home to family. And the tour has some like sections to it. So obviously in this, in these months, the tournaments are taking place in warmer climates. So the first several tournaments are in, or there’s one in Vegas, and then there’s a few in Texas, I think three in a row are in Texas. And that gets us through March. But they’re not all pro tour events. They have some tournaments that are called other things. Um, so we’re not gonna cover every tournament every week. We’ll probably focus on the big ones. And in addition to those,

Sevan Matossian (03:22):

Are those 16 all considered big ones?

Brian Friend (03:26):

They’re considered big ones, but not the biggest. There are also four majors.

Sevan Matossian (03:30):

Are they all scored equally of those 16,

Brian Friend (03:33):

Uh, in terms of the points available? Yeah, I believe so. But a couple of them are playoff events, and so those might be weighted more heavily towards

Sevan Matossian (03:41):

End of the season. I, I counted about 32 or 33 weeks between now and like October 14th.

Brian Friend (03:48):

Right. So for example, in, um, in the summer, there’s a, there are some events in Europe,

Sevan Matossian (03:55):

So there’s some, oh, no shit in the whole tour has to go there. If you’re a serious player, you have to go there.

Brian Friend (04:00):

Not necessarily, but most of them do because one of the majors is in Europe. So if you go there, you’ll go there and play one of the, one of those 16 events on July 13th that weekend. And then the following weekend is the European Open, which is one of four majors for the year.

Sevan Matossian (04:18):

I have to turn off this, um, uh, notify me. I, I have to this, uh, oh, play sound effects. I have to turn this off. This, this, this thread that you and I are on with these, uh, games experts is, is some, is something else, isn’t it?

Brian Friend (04:33):

Yes.

Sevan Matossian (04:35):

I, I I’ve never really spit. I’m 50 years old. I’ve never really been on a thread like this.

Brian Friend (04:41):

Yeah, I have.

Sevan Matossian (04:42):

Uh, and I’ve been on some crazy threads. You have been on one like this before.

Brian Friend (04:46):

Yeah, it’s actually, you know, um, more or less that’s what the morning chalk up Slack channel used to be like.

Sevan Matossian (04:52):

Wow. That’s impressive.

Brian Friend (04:53):

You know, people from around the world would get information and they just put it in there and then we would decide what to do with it. This is a very different group of people, but it’s a similar concept.

Sevan Matossian (05:02):

Yeah. Uh, so sorry, I switched subjects. I went over to CrossFit, uh, for a second. Um, Brian, in terms of your knowledge of CrossFit versus, um, disc golf, are they comparable?

Brian Friend (05:14):

I’ve been playing, I’ve been doing CrossFit for 10 years. I’ve been playing disc golf for three. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I’ve been watching CrossFit for 10 years, and I’ve been watching disc golf for three.

Sevan Matossian (05:23):

Okay.

Brian Friend (05:23):

So I would say that my knowledge of, and, uh, I would say my, you know, I would say my knowledge of disc golf is on par with my knowledge of CrossFit from like five years ago

Sevan Matossian (05:33):

When I first started with you. Okay. Uh, that, that’s impressive. Sarah Cooper, do disc golf players follow the rules? I think that’s a little, that’s a passive aggressive, uh, question.

Brian Friend (05:43):

Well, if there’s anyone who, uh, likes to fall CrossFit and is concerned that disc golf is gonna be full of controversy that detracts from the quality of what’s happening on the field of play, it’s far less problematic in disc golf.

Sevan Matossian (05:56):

Right. Simpler. They only have, uh, a couple, couple things going on.

Brian Friend (06:00):

Yeah. You, you throw it in the basket and you can however many points it was for the, the shots you took. And if it’s outta bounds, it’s very well defined. You know, occasionally, just like in regular golf, you’ll have a penalty that replied after the fact for someone who did something that was illegal, that wasn’t noticed immediately. But it’s pretty rare.

Sevan Matossian (06:20):

Uh, Justin, hi. Uh, you’re not supposed to call until tomorrow evening show.

Justin (06:25):

Yeah, but no one wants to listen to disc golf. Do they really?

Sevan Matossian (06:29):

<laugh>. This is a disc golf show. Listen, listen. Uh, someone, one of my, uh, esteemed colleagues saw that this was on the schedule and he goes, are you crazy? The CrossFit stuff is so hot right now. Why are you wasting your energy on disc golf?

Brian Friend (06:42):

Because after three, three

Justin (06:43):

Weeks now this move, just move on. And

Sevan Matossian (06:46):

Lemme tell you, I think you guys are just jealous cuz you think me and Brian are cheating on you. And we are.

Justin (06:52):

I have to ask Brian a question,

Sevan Matossian (06:54):

Please.

Justin (06:56):

So right now I’m in the North America west region or whatever. They’re calling that they’re taking 68 teams, the quarter finals. Is that correct, Brian?

Brian Friend (07:08):

Well, 68 What

Sevan Matossian (07:10):

Teams to quarter finals?

Brian Friend (07:12):

I don’t, I don’t think that’s right. Team. You’re talking about teams like, uh, groups of four, two men and two women.

Justin (07:22):

Yeah. Team. T e A m.

Brian Friend (07:25):

Oh, teenagers.

Justin (07:27):

No. Team tm. Team quarter. I think

Brian Friend (07:31):

They’re taking, I think they’re, I think they’re taking 40 teams to summer. The quarter. Final

Justin (07:36):

Quarter.

Brian Friend (07:37):

Quarter. Oh to summer finals. Quarter quarter finals. I have no idea. Quarter quarter, no idea. And don’t really care.

Justin (07:44):

Okay. So lemme tell you what the game size says. Ok. They’re taking 68. They’re taking 68 teams to quarterfinals from this particular continent. They’re taking 40 teams to semifinals. So they’re gonna take 68 teams from the open mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And then they’re gonna drop 28 of those teams and take ’em to quarter final.

Sevan Matossian (08:11):

Hold on, lemme check your math. Uh, yep, that’s right. Yep. You got it.

Brian Friend (08:13):

Okay.

Justin (08:15):

They’re, they’re missing the boat somewhere. And I know that, I know that it’s not a big deal to the top level games athletes, but they’re missing the boat somewhere on this team thing. Like how do only, how are they, how is only 68 teams qualifying for stage two of a four stage competition when 4,000 individuals qualify and they’re gonna take 60? Like they’re, they’re missing something here. And here’s my solution. And bear with me. I’m gonna take just a second then I’ll hang up. My solution is that every affiliate in good standing that registers for the open is automatically put, they automatically have a team. It doesn’t cost dollars. You don’t have to go register a team. Every affiliate has a team. Regardless if you care about the competition side of it or not. I

Sevan Matossian (09:03):

Already liked it. I’m signing off on this idea. I’m already signed off. This is an excellent idea. I love this already.

Justin (09:09):

And then you can actually call it the fucking affiliate cup because every affiliate is participating in it.

Sevan Matossian (09:14):

Thank you. Uh, uh, yes. That’s a fucking brilliant idea. Um, you should be the CEO of CrossFit or at least replace Justin Berg’s position.

Justin (09:25):

Well, I’m

Sevan Matossian (09:26):

Wearing, and I’m not even joking, even though I’m using my smart ass voice, Justin. It’s fucking a no-brainer. Duh. And hey, and if you want people to go to the events, how about let in a hundred affiliate teams to the event so you can pack the house? Cuz Waples already cracked the code on that.

Justin (09:40):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (09:41):

Okay. Thank you. I’m calling tomorrow and, uh, beat Brian down some more please. Back will dear. Back to Frisbee golf. You’re a good dude. It’s actually a fucking brilliant idea. It’s a no-brainer. Adds to the affiliate proposition. Okay, back to Frisbee. Golf. Okay, so Brian, when, um, so you sent me, um, uh, four shows from this, um, YouTube, uh, station. Um, why did they call it, what is the, why did they call it Joe? Me Pro?

Brian Friend (10:10):

The founder’s name is Jonathan Gomez.

Sevan Matossian (10:12):

Okay.

Brian Friend (10:13):

So he just combined those names. Joe, the first two initials from his first name and the last three init or letters from his last name, Joe, me Pro. He made this company a long time ago. He used to do a lot of the work on his own. It’s, um, picked up a lot of steam recently. They’re, you know, there are other companies that have post production like they do for a lot of events, uh, because they, but they usually get the lead card. So, you know, um, for whatever reason, maybe they have to bid on it. So they get the top, the feature card is a selection of players in round one. And then every subsequent round, the top four players play on what’s called the lead card. The next four players play on the Chase card. Usually Gatekeeper Media, maybe GK Pro is another U2 station that might cover those. And on the really big tournaments, there’s usually a third card of coverage as you know, from following along this week in the, in one, the course of a day, you know, after another round, there can be exchanges from the lead card and the Chase card. And sometimes someone has a really hot round and it’ll jump two cards. So, uh, this is just the place you can go to watch the top four players every round, play their round in about an hour.

Sevan Matossian (11:21):

Yeah. Th and this is a really cool site. The camera work was fantastic. The commentary was fantastic. It’s not, uh, it’s not stuffy commentary, it’s real commentary. It took me a little while to realize that the guys who are doing the commentary actually are all of them actually, uh, pros or former pros. They’re also guys who are even playing on the circuit. There was one guy who was like commentating and he was playing,

Brian Friend (11:43):

No, all three of them actually started playing in this tournament. One of the guys had to withdraw after first round. The other guy didn’t make the cut for the final round, but the middle guy, uh, made the cut and, you know, somewhere in the twenties or something for this

Sevan Matossian (11:55):

Tournament Sex. Sexton Sexton.

Brian Friend (11:57):

Yeah. And Nate Sexton, uh, he’s been playing for a long time. He finished Tide for 43rd, only 49 players made the cut. So he had a bad last round, but, um, he doesn’t play very many tournaments during the year, but when he does play, he usually does pretty well.

Sevan Matossian (12:12):

Okay. And how many tournaments, um, do, do you have to play of the 16 to kind of maintain your pro status?

Brian Friend (12:19):

Uh, I don’t know. I don’t know all the qualifications for Pro status, but there are 90 players that have what’s called a, a touring card. Okay. So those players can register for those to, they have like first dibs on those tournaments. Okay. They have, they can, so usually they can get into them. Um, regardless, there’s normally about 160 male players in the field, so there’s another 70 guys that don’t have a tour card that are trying to earn their way into that tournament. And there’s a few different ways to do that. And I don’t know all the, all of the rules for that necessarily.

Sevan Matossian (12:49):

Well, good. I’m glad you don’t know everything for this show. Cause I was concerned that we’re not gonna have anything to talk about in the next show. Robbie Meyers looks like one of the dorks I saw on the, on the, um, uh, circuit. Uh, for sure. He looks like a Frisbee player. Brian, any desire or plans to go to the Jones Borough Open? You’ve got a place to stay. If so, that’s nice.

Brian Friend (13:10):

I have yet to go to a pro disc golf event. Uh, I, I play in like c tier level events locally, um, which is fun, but I haven’t gone to actually watch one. Um, I’ve actually never really enjoyed going to watch like, professional golf tournaments because the, I think the only way to do it is if you like just pick a group and follow them. It’s so boring for me to just stand on the 16th tee and watch a t you know, four guys hit a T shot and then wait 10 minutes or 15 minutes and watch four more guys hit a T shot. So, uh, if I went to Disc golf event, I’d want to go to one where I had the capacity to follow the card that I wanted and be able to watch them all play the entire round. Uh, some of ’em are easier to do that at than others.

Sevan Matossian (13:50):

Okay. Uh, uh, definitely not a disc golf player, but it’s big here.

Brian Friend (13:54):

All right, cool. That’s one of the, yeah, like that course is a very famous course. Um, and shows up every year as one of the, one of the stops on the Disc Golf Pro tour.

Sevan Matossian (14:04):

So, so this website, so Brian gave me four of these videos to watch, um, in their, their 30 minute videos and they were recaps. It looks like, uh, I’m gonna go to videos here. Big Big’s YouTube station, 422,000 subscribers. A 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.

Brian Friend (14:21):

So the pink ones are the women’s okay. And the green ones are the men’s.

Sevan Matossian (14:25):

Okay. So eight, if you wanna follow just the men, it’s like eight half hour shows to get caught up and they do an incredible job of recapping.

Brian Friend (14:36):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (14:36):

I mean it’s, how about that guy that was hit with the disc and the commentators are like, Hey, he might have a broken ankle. Is that for real, that one of those could break your ankle?

Brian Friend (14:44):

Oh, I mean it’s, it was, you have no idea how fast and hard these guys are throwing those discs. Yeah. Um, and that was a distance driver that was coming in with a lot of speed. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, it probably hurt his ankle if he broke his ankle. It would’ve been just cuz of the way he landed more than anything else. That rarely happens. It does happen occasionally, but that I’ve never seen that before. Where tho the guy who’s in position to film the shot from the, um, fairway gets hit by the disc and the fact that it hit him in the leg and, and, and, and went into the bunker, which caused a penalty stroke for the player who threw it was very unfortunate.

Sevan Matossian (15:18):

Oh. So I was wondering what ha Okay, we’ll get to that. I, I, I, I got that clip up here. You’ll see when it hits him. We ca uh, back when I used to play Frisbee, we called any shot that was started coming down at an angle like this. We would call it a tomahawk if it was coming. I didn’t hear them use that word once, that phrase tomahawk. So they,

Brian Friend (15:34):

So there’s a tomahawk throw, it’s an

Sevan Matossian (15:36):

Over brand’s this throws. Yeah, yeah. But the, I didn’t see anyone use any of those to either, by the way,

Brian Friend (15:41):

They might, they will use them on occasion. Those players can, most of them can all do it. There’s throws called the grenade. You probably saw a few rollers. There’s a couple different throws that people do.

Sevan Matossian (15:50):

What’s that? What’s a heiser Heiner? Heiser

Brian Friend (15:52):

Heiser. That angle is the heiser angle. So if you’re a right-handed backhand player, yeah. Like most of the discs will fade from right to left. And that’s a heiser angle. The opposite is an Anheiser

Sevan Matossian (16:02):

Angle. So Anheiser. Heiser.

Brian Friend (16:05):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (16:06):

Oh, okay. All right. Good. Awesome. Uh, so basically what I’ve done here is I’m just gonna pull up some clips and, and we’ll cruise through this and we’ll get, we’ll get through all, uh, we’ll get through the tournament and then we’ll climax with the, um, last nine holes. And hopefully Susan will get here because this is gonna be quite tedious <laugh> for me to pay attention to you. And, um, okay, let me, let me go through some of my notes here. Uh, one of the things when it started, uh, there were no, they said there’s no more bad players on the tour. The sport has evolved to weed those guys out. So obviously we’re at a spot. It’s kind of like CrossFit. There’s no no, there’s no one shitty at the games anymore, right?

Brian Friend (16:42):

There’s definitely no one shitty at the games. There’s, but there’s, we know, we know we don’t have the best 40 in the world and these tournaments, there’s no bad players anymore. That’s what they were saying is, you know, you used to be able to be fairly recreational and show up at one of these events and play if you wanted to. Now the level is raising dramatically. And I think that, you know, the covid whatever period of time had a lot to do with that because it’s basically the perfect covid sport. It’s outdoors. You have your own equipment, you don’t have to touch anyone, you don’t have to be near anyone. And while everyone, everything else was closed, disc golf courses were open and, you know, a lot of young players have started playing. And if you’re, you know, semi athletic, have a background in baseball or Frisbee or football where you were throwing, like, you can, like the, the motion is fairly easy to learn. Um, if you’re good at hand-eye coordination things and you have those, the combination of those two skillsets, you’re gonna be good. And there’s a lot of people like that. It is physically demanding, but it’s not a low, it’s a low barrier to entry.

Sevan Matossian (17:42):

Uh, in, in speaking of it being a kind of the perfect, um, covid sport, it’s also the perfect like, uh, like the church and like the military. It’s a perfect sport if you’re gay. Um, there’s tons of, uh, dudes, uh, uh,

Brian Friend (17:56):

The court that’s, let’s let’s quick clip that for our clip section and tag all the dis golfers. We’ll definitely get ’em to watch. Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (18:02):

Uh, we’ll get, ANOVA was sponsoring the show very soon. Uh, the course is a, uh, a par 69.

Brian Friend (18:09):

Well, there were two different courses they played.

Sevan Matossian (18:11):

Okay.

Brian Friend (18:12):

Um,

Sevan Matossian (18:13):

And oh, and the second one was a par 61

Brian Friend (18:16):

Maybe.

Sevan Matossian (18:17):

Okay. Okay. I was wondering that. I thought, okay. I, you’re right. Okay. So the first course that you took me to is a par 69. That’s the first course. And, and, and also in the, in the, in the early rounds that you were showing me, it looked like the guys were carrying chalk bags and in the final rounds they weren’t. Why, why is that weather? Uh,

Brian Friend (18:33):

They’ll all have chalk bags in their, in their bags somewhere in case they wanna use it. Some guys use it a lot more frequently than others. And yeah, it’s basically to make sure that you’re, you’re getting the grip on the discs that you want.

Sevan Matossian (18:45):

Uh, but, uh, and, uh, the longest hole in, in, in all of these we’re gonna ever see as a par four.

Brian Friend (18:50):

No, there were, there’s par fives.

Sevan Matossian (18:52):

There are par fives, there

Brian Friend (18:53):

Are, okay. Three, four, and five is the only pars that you’ll see, just like regular golf. Uh,

Sevan Matossian (18:59):

There’s a, there’s a kid, uh, who is 17 on the course, a Gannon burr. Is he, is he the youngest dude in in these, in this 90?

Brian Friend (19:08):

Uh, there might be a couple 16 year olds. Actually. There’s a guy named Evan Scott, Evan Smith and Cole Redlin that are all around that old, that are also have a tour card this year. But Gannon bur, while those guys are all incredible, Gannon Burr is a next level compared to them. Last year he finished fourth, I think fourth place for the season on the tour points, which just shows a lot of consistency over the entire course of the season. He did win one, one tournament last year where it was a Silver Series event, which is like one step down from a pro tour event. Still very challenging to do. And he was in contention in a bunch of others. I mean, he, he’s, he has a prodigy in this sport. Like he will be good for a long time.

Sevan Matossian (19:47):

I’m trying to find him. You guys gotta see a picture of this dude. You’re,

Brian Friend (19:50):

The thing is, I I, he’s very tall and a lot of, and not all of ’em, but a lot of the top players are pretty tall, like six three plus. And the wingspan helps because when you have that long reachback and pull through, you can just get more, you know, velocity on it. But he’s probably six five and still growing.

Sevan Matossian (20:09):

Okay, guys. L look at this dude, this dude’s, this dude’s shoulders are pointier than my elbows

Brian Friend (20:15):

<laugh>.

Sevan Matossian (20:16):

And, uh, oh, that was a great shot. I was around this stuff down. Okay, so, so look at this dude, this kid is so skinny and the commentator said that, um, in the off season he put on 25 pounds of muscle

Brian Friend (20:36):

<laugh>.

Sevan Matossian (20:39):

Excuse me. They, they couldn’t even believe they were saying that. Look at this dude. Yeah. 25 pounds of muscle on that.

Brian Friend (20:51):

You can see how long his wingspan is there and it’s just, but, but what’s kind of cool is, you know, a lot of guys when they’re growing up or people in general when they’re growing up, they’ll like, it takes time to grow into your body. And so, um, to have a long wingspan is one thing, but to also be dialed in enough to be super focused on your putt and have a really accurate putt when you’re still kind of growing into your body is what is most impressive about me for him. Cuz he is one of the best putters too.

Sevan Matossian (21:16):

He also put a hundred feet on his, uh, what do you call it? His drive? Is that what you call this?

Brian Friend (21:21):

Yeah.

Sevan Matossian (21:23):

A hundred feet. That’s huge. That’s like a, like a, a 20 20% increase from the best guys, right?

Brian Friend (21:29):

Yeah. Everyone on the tour can throw 500 feet plus and then a select group can can throw 600 feet plus

Sevan Matossian (21:36):

No shit 600 feet.

Brian Friend (21:38):

Yeah. And I mean, it definitely depends on elevation. The, um, wind. Wind. Yeah. This maybe the, you know, it depends if you measure from where it lands or it finishes.

Sevan Matossian (21:50):

Alright. Where the fuck is suza? I guess we’re just gonna, I guess we’re just gonna dive in. Here we go. Uh, gay, uh, oh, I don’t even have a clip for that. Okay, we’ll leave that alone. Okay, here we go. Okay, bear with me here. Oh, this is a tough job. Okay. 14, uh, 25. A misre release by Garrett. Not a spit out, but a, wait, what the fuck? It’s not even up here. Excuse me. Sorry. Let’s see. Share screen. Uh, so they call this, uh, um, here, here we are on whole three. You guys can see up there, it’s a whole three, it’s a 359 feet. Sometimes they even have the metric system up here for the euros to check out the number in the middles of par three. There’s some other numbers down here maybe Brian will get to explaining to us. But, um, they, they say right here that, uh, Garrett, uh, has a, has a misre release. I think it’s Garrett, not Gannon. And, and what’s a misre? That’s just

Brian Friend (22:50):

A misre release, unfortunately.

Sevan Matossian (22:52):

Oh. Oh shit. I’ll bring Garrett to even par second. No way. That was tough.

Brian Friend (22:58):

Okay. So you could barely see it there, but indicated you have sometimes you throw a putt that look, that really looks like it should go in and it doesn’t go in Uhhuh <affirmative>. This case, what he’s saying is that he hit the high right side of the chains on a downhill putt and it’s unlikely that the basket’s, that the basket’s gonna catch that from that far away. He shouldn’t be missing his mark by that much.

Sevan Matossian (23:21):

So, so, okay, well hold, hold that thought because here they call it a misre release mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And in other places they call it a spit out.

Brian Friend (23:32):

Right. So a spit out would be like, you throw it right at the middle of the chains, you hit the mark. Okay. When you’re putting, usually you’ll pick one chain link Uhhuh, and you’ll be aiming for that chain link depending on what the wind’s doing.

Sevan Matossian (23:45):

No shit. You think this guy is aiming for one specific chain link right here?

Brian Friend (23:49):

Yeah. And I think from a, what looks to be like a 10 foot putt, he’s missed his mark by probably six inches right. And eight inches high. So he’s just letting it go a little late. And because he’s going downhill and the, and it, and it’s the top right side of the chains that he hit that it’s unlikely it’s gonna catch the disc. He should be hitting the lower part of the chains with the nose down. So it just dives right in there.

Sevan Matossian (24:13):

And, uh, how many, how many chains are there hanging from a basket? Hmm.

Brian Friend (24:18):

Variable. And I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t really know the rules about what’s the minimum or maximum allowed, but this is, there’s not a, you’ll see as over the course of the season that some of them look different. This is not like, there are baskets that have more chains than this one.

Sevan Matossian (24:31):

And there’s not a uh, you mean on even on this course?

Brian Friend (24:34):

No, no, no. On the course for a pro tour event on this course, it’ll all be the same. If you go to your recreational course, you might not get that consistency. But you know, most, um, like Parkinson recreations departments are starting to take this golf more seriously and they will have nicer and nicer and more consistent stuff on their courses cuz more people are playing.

Sevan Matossian (24:52):

And, and, and look at this stance, this gra it’s a, it’s a, it’s a granny stance way off as midline. Like, there’s no, it’s not a, it’s not a core to extremity at this distance. It’s just too, too extremity.

Brian Friend (25:03):

It’s called a straddle put uhhuh <affirmative>. There are a couple players at the top of the game that use a straddle putt, but most, most of the best players do not. Most of them can do it and will do it if they’re forced to, if they have to straddle out from a bush or a tree or whatever else is in their way. But as a default, go-to put, there’s not a lot at the top of the sport that does this

Sevan Matossian (25:23):

In a basketball. It’s called a, I think it’s called a granny shot.

Brian Friend (25:27):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Sevan Matossian (25:28):

Right? Isn’t it? I know my sports, uh, Jessica. Oh, look at they’re Suza. Thank you. Thank God. SU’s here <laugh>. Thank

Brian Friend (25:34):

God he was sweating. It’s Matt

Sevan Matossian (25:36):

<laugh>. Uh, just got here. We have been getting into disc golf for the past six months after hearing Brian talk about it on the podcast. So much fun. Oh, awesome. Australia 1499. Okay. Good. All right. Are you with us Suza? Are you,

Mattew Souza (25:48):

I I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but I’m more than happy to bring up all these clips as matter of fact, you’d be stoked. Look, I was ready to hit the ground running. Is it mine or is it yours? I have

Sevan Matossian (25:58):

A few. Oh, you’re safe. Exact time. You’re awesome. I’m, I’m, I’m, uh, pulling mine off. Mine can go by. Bye, Roger that. Okay. Uh, so Gannon had a, uh, spit out on whole three. Okay, here we go. God, now here we go. Brian, we’re fucking off to the races. You ready to talk some golf? Uh, this is the elite of the elite, right? So basically what we’re seeing are these are the top 90 best guys in the world. And, and why don’t we cover the women because we’re sexist, misogynistic, or we just don’t have time or,

Brian Friend (26:28):

Um, like I said, there’s usually about 160 players in the a men’s field for a pro tour event. Uh, for the women’s field there were 29.

Sevan Matossian (26:36):

Oh, okay. Okay. True. Actually that might not be true. Still developing.

Brian Friend (26:38):

That might not be true. There were 29 that made the cut. They may have had less in the, they may have more in the previous rounds, but there’s

Sevan Matossian (26:44):

Not, I thought you said there were 90 guys on who have the pro card. Now you’re saying 1 26.

Brian Friend (26:47):

There’s 90 with the, there’s 90 with the pro card, but there were 160 in this tournament.

Sevan Matossian (26:52):

Oh, so you can show up and still play if you don’t have a pro card.

Brian Friend (26:56):

Yeah, there’s other ways to get into the tournaments. Okay,

Sevan Matossian (26:59):

We’ll check. Is that, is that, is it like that in golf too?

Brian Friend (27:02):

Yeah, there were 57, uh, women that started the tournament. 29 made the cut. Um, there were hundred and in this case 119 players who started the tournament and four, uh, 49 that made the cut.

Sevan Matossian (27:17):

Uh, will Branstad are my 50 year four year old dad and 15 year old brother. Played disc golf together now multiple times a week and go to tournaments together ever since Covid, I mean, you should have ’em watched this show <laugh>. So you, um, when we’re rich and famous, you can be like, yeah, dad, I missed the boat on that one. They really liked me, but I bailed on them. <laugh>. Okay. <laugh>. Mr. Branstetter. Um, oh, uh, when, when do you uh, uh, uh, I guess they, uh, a backhand or a, a forehand.

Brian Friend (27:46):

So there’s, um, certain players that’ll default to one or the other. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the best players can do both. And the, usually the deciding factors are, um, what is the wind doing? What direction do I want the disc to go? And the combination of those two things can, will make the difference in that decision. Uh,

Sevan Matossian (28:04):

And obs and obstacles too, right? If you’re throwing a backhand and there’s a tree in front of you and you don’t have a forehead, you’re kind of screwed.

Brian Friend (28:11):

Definitely not

Sevan Matossian (28:12):

Screwed, but you gotta use more of a A heiser. A heiser,

Brian Friend (28:15):

Yeah. If you’re out of position, then you might be forced into a specific kind of throw. That’s where you might see someone do a tomahawk or a grenade is if they have to, they can’t go around and they have to go over. So having all of the tools in the bag are gonna be, is gonna be valuable. Most of the players on the tour will be de default to the backhand when they can, but I would say 20% are forehand dominant players. Um, and like I said, they’ll get the best guys in the sport can, can do both, uh, anytime they need to.

Sevan Matossian (28:45):

Hey, um, su I’m okay with using more than seven seconds. Not more than 10, but seven. Like let’s flirt with disaster on the show. Let’s see what happens. Uh, 17, um, 1720, uh, Gannon had a spit out on whole three and then whole four, uh, he makes this insane shot. So we saw the guy, we saw the guy get a spit out and um, and, and, and now he comes back. Uh, which I’m guessing can be kind of difficult. Here we go.

Brian Friend (29:14):

Yeah. So Ga the one thing that sh should be known about, can Amber, I told you he is very good at putting, he’s also one of the, he, his putty is extremely fast or hard and so he’s very accurate, but he rifles it in there at the basket and in the middle of the chains is a pole. And if you throw it hard enough that it hits the pole still with some like, goes through the chains and hits the pole, sometimes it’ll bounce back out. I’m not sure if this was one that did that exactly, or if it was one that actually went through the chains. But there are times that you throw a putt that you’re hitting your mark and it still doesn’t finish in the basket. It’s called the spit out. It’s unfortunate when it happens, but it does happen.

Sevan Matossian (29:51):

Uh, sorry. Uh, Susan, I think you found it su I think you just back up a little. I think I gave you a bad time code, but I think you was that found it. Was that okay? That was it. That’s what we’re, yeah. Yeah. Cuz that’s Gannon. Bur.

The above transcript is generated using AI technology and therefore may contain errors.

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