Conquer Windy Conditions on the Disc Golf Course | Level Up – Season Two

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Level Up your game! Brian Earhart provides some pro tips on how you can improve your play in windy conditions. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned player, this video is packed with expert techniques and practical ways you can improve different parts of your game. Subscribe to the Disc Golf Network for more Level Up content on this topic!

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What’s up everybody Brian airheart here with Team disc craft in the disc golf Network and you’re watching another episode of level up today we are at the iconic tobogan course here in Michigan and today we’re going to talk about wind and how we can better play in windy conditions let’s do

It before I jump into how we play different wind conditions and wind directions I first want to talk about something that I see overlooked so often by amateurs all the way up to professional players and that is the direction in which you’re checking the wind I see most players checking the

Wind based off of where the teapad is facing and not where they’re actually going to throw initially not everybody is throwing a laser beam that’s pointed the same direction as the teapad so what you need to do is you need to walk up to the teapad visualize your shot and say

I’m Lefty I’m swinging a big Hiser out to the left rather than throwing straight I need to check the wind in the direction that my Heiser is about to go that way you get a much better read cuz I mean a a headwind that comes straight

Off the teapad is not going to be a headwind the moment you offset the way you’re throwing the disc so now this is going to be a head crosswind so this right here it seems common sense but I see it overlooked so often I felt I had to start out by mentioning

That next I want to talk about a common phrase that I heard all the time growing up when I was learning the sport for the very first time and make a little bit of an adjustment to it the original phrase that I used to hear all the time was

That headwinds lift and Tailwinds drop now in some cases that’s true but we see it most evidently on the putting green where a player who maybe push putts with a little little nose down does not get a lift from a headwind the headwind is going to push against the front of the

Disc and shove it into the ground on the other hand yes if you are maybe a nose-up spin putter you’re going to get a little lift from the headwind CU the headwind is going to hit the underside of the disc first and give it the lift

So yes the phrase is accurate a lot of the times but depending on the nose angle it’s not true so an adjustment I’d like to make to that phrase is headwind flips Tailwind Fades and no matter what your nose angle is that’s going to be true a headwind simulates more air speed

Up against the front of the disc and therefore the disc needs to have more spin or be more overstable by nature to resist turning with the direction it’s spinning on the other side with a Tailwind it doesn’t necessarily make the disc fade more and move more side to

Side but it makes it much more resistant to Turning so again if you’re throwing nose up nose down Tailwind is going to make it harder to get that disc to turn with the direction it’s spinning so with that said when we do step up to a t-shot and we do feel a

Headwind coming in the direction that we are going to throw how do we adjust for that couple different ways to do it number one you probably have a disc in your mind that you would throw if there was Zero wind all you have to do is take that angle

That you would throw with no wind and add a bit more Hiser to it that’ll allow it to adjust for flipping more and then ride up to fly and still fly through the headwind the same way if the wind gets too severe changing the angle of release

Is a lot harder than just picking a disc that by nature is overstable and maybe a little bit faster so you can use a driver that’s overstable compared to a mid-range and get a very similar flight releasing it at the same angle that you would if there was no wind at

All too often do I see players that way over compens State when there’s even just a little bit of wind present instead of just changing the angle of release slightly with their favorite disc they Club up to the most overstable disc in their bag in fear of flipping

The disc over and not achieving a flight that they want but if you step up to a t-shot and you read just a gentle breeze a lot of times you don’t need to change anything I can’t tell you the amount of times that I tried to make a release

Angle adjustment or a disc adjustment for wind that was not that strong there are times when even if there’s a little bit of wind at your back the best thing to do is nothing and treat it as if it’s not there only when you feel like the

Wind is maybe above 5 10 miles an hour do you really need to start making bigger adjustments a lot of times not changing anything or just changing release angle slightly is enough to beat the wind in a lot of conditions now let’s talk about Tailwind if you step up to a t-shot or

An approach shot and there’s a Tailwind behind you it’s pretty much the opposite approach of the headwind you can either throw something with a little bit more turn out of your hand maybe a bit more anheiser to prevent that fade at the end or you can just Club down to something

More understable by nature to get that extra Glide at the high speed before it fades out and actually if the Tailwind is strong enough behind you throwing a disc that’s not only more understable by nature but also slower by nature in regards to how wide the rim is can go

Farther than your wide Rim distance driver because those wide rims need a lot of speed up against the front of the disc to actually fly straight at the high speed a slower disc could carry a lot more forward and finish a lot straighter even with the Tailwind making

It more resistant to turn next I want to start talking about the trickiest winds in my opinion to play in and that’s cross winds cross winds in my opinion are the trickiest winds to throw in because because the angles you have to hit to get the wind to help you rather than

Hurt you have to be very precise and I say that because of this if we have a crosswind coming this way hitting the bottom side of the disc we’re going to get helped by it if the angle is here the crosswind is going to hit you and

Shove you into the ground so the stability of disc that we choose and the angle at which we release in the crosswind are very very important the first cross that I want to talk about out for a right-handed backhand thrower is that helping crosswind that guides the bottom of the

Disc gives it more distance and helps to carry it right to left if you’re throwing straight this crosswind is very tricky if you want to throw a straight shot with a hard crosswind coming right to left with a righty backhand you either can choose something understable by Nature throw just a subtle Hiser

Nothing too steep so the wind carries you offline something something subtle to where you get initial help with the crosswind as it flips at the later point in the flight the crosswind then shoves it down and pushes it more forward it’s a very tricky line on the other side the

Other choice you can make is to take something overstable by nature and throw anheiser a little bit higher than normal that way as the disc is flexing out the Crossman can kind of shove it down to a normal altitude and then as it starts to

Fade at the end then it gets helped down its line both of those options are okay the trick is to not go too extreme on either side you’ll get shoved down too early or you’ll get carried offline now for the other side the pushing crosswind so to speak this can

Actually be your best friend and you can throw extremely straight and extremely far with this crosswind if you’re throwing a right hand to backhand you have that left to right wind you have two options yet again one you can throw a heer release a lot of players exclusively throw in a Heiser release

And the only thing you have to not do is throw it too low cu the moment you throw Hiser with this wind coming left to right you’ll get hit on top of the disc and you’ll get shoved into the ground if you just take something slightly underst

Stable that will ride up to Flat without getting shoved into the ground or flipped all the way over you can actually throw it a little bit higher than normal let it get pushed down and then it’s going to flip to flat and push forward the other option that you can

Take which is my favorite option is to take an overstable disc and let the bottom side get exposed to the crosswind something overstable is not going to flip all the way over when that happens it’s going to be resisting the turn the entire way so it’s going to get a nice

Initial helping from the crosswind and then as it starts to fade the crosswind is going to hit it and push it forward you can get extremely straight flights with this crosswind if you just Club up to something a little bit more neutral maybe on the overstable side

The other thing that’s really nice with these winds is how straight you can throw something on approach shots a lot of us have those favorite overstable approach discs that we like to swing wide and fade back to the basket but with that pushing crosswind we don’t

Have to aim wide or do any geometry we can take that overstable approach disc that we like and throw directly at the basket knowing that the wind is going to resist us fading and penetrating more off to the left so it’s a really nice wind and I’d much rather prefer it to

The other one blowing right to left again if you have a forehand or backhand you can choose to let either crosswind help you rather than hurt you throwing that right-handed backhand with the helping crosswind is so much tougher than just taking a forehand and letting the wind help you rather than hurt You okay so a quick recap headwinds don’t always lift the disc and Tailwinds don’t always drop the disc that’s very dependent on nose angle headwinds do always make the disc want to flip more and Tailwinds always make the disc want to stay stable and fade more Crosswinds

Are very tricky but if you do learn both a backhand and a sidearm it makes your Proficiency in those winds much much better thank you all for tuning in yet again I hope you learned a little bit more about some strategies to attack the wind a little bit better for more

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