Diving Into Disc Golf’s Most Customizable Company | Beginner Guide to Gateway Discs Plastics

In 1994 a man named David McCormack dove into disc golf and founded a company called Gateway Disc Sports. As new companies have come onto the scene, many folks have forgotten about what one of our founding companies is doing. Known for their putters, Gateway is cooking up some incredible plastic in their machines. Dave is a wizard when it comes to creating new discs, blends, and options for the disc golf community. I’m stoked for this year putting with the wizard, and landing on a plastic was harder than I thought it would be. Why is that?? You’ll have to watch to find out!!

Have you heard of the Birdie Fam? It’s a community of disc golfers who are striving to excel and improve together. We are going to talk about your struggles and plateaus in a safe and healthy environment. When we come together as a family, we’ll grow together as people. So if you’re ready to take that next step in your disc golf game, and start improving with the greatest community in Disc Golf then head on over to the Patreon website!!
https://www.patreon.com/robbiecdiscgolf

If you enjoyed the content or it was helpful, don’t forget to Like and Subscribe to support the channel!
New content comes out every Thursday here, and every day over on Instagram!
Join the Instagram family over at https://www.instagram.com/robbiecdiscgolf
As always, I want to take a quick moment to recommend all of my incredible sponsors who keep me geared up and ready to compete!

The best place to find discs, head over to https://foundationdiscs.com/
For the best putting tool in the game, head over to https://discdotusa.com/?sca_ref=461240.iNMCZcBeOn and use the code “rcdiscgolf” for 10% off!
The amazing FlighTowel and other related products to massively improve your game can be found at https://flightowel.com/​ and use code “128799” for 10% off!
The best beginner bag, as well as a phenomenal bag overall for the under $100 price point, check out Atlas DG Supply at https://atlasdgs.com?sca_ref=1360340.9uuH1iN8RU
Finally, to look the best on the course and keep that sun out of your eyes, head over to https://www.blenderseyewear.com and use the code “rcdiscgolf” for 16% off!

Thanks again for stopping by, but until next time I hope the birdies outnumber the bogies!!

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
0:30 Setting the Table

What is up YouTube fam Robbie C here today we are at Dynamic Discs Iron City and we are running a little poll because there’s a company out there called gayway disports and gayway has been around for quite some time inside of the game and they have a very iconic putter

That if you’ve been around discol for really any amount of time you might have heard about and it’s called The Wizard hariry so minus the hairy but uh yeah the wizard super iconic disc and today we’re going to talk about the plastic Blends that come with Gateway because last week checked

There are a lot of them so we’re going to take some time diving into the plastic types so that if you’re interested in getting in the Gateway you can check out these different Plastics but we also don’t want to just have my opinions and the facts about them we

Want to pull the people and see what they think so we’re posted up here inside the store we’re going to leave this set up for a couple days to try to get some votes on what Plastics people think are the best that way you can kind

Of see there are a lot of options out there before we dive in got to ask Russ how are you doing today you having a good one so catch me if I fall So let’s talk about the wizard give you a couple quick facts the wizard is a mold released by Gateway discs January 9th 2002 the wizard gets released to the public approved what a great disc now they did revise it in 2016 December 30th they came back and Revisited it and

Something cool that’s been happening over at the Gateway world is they’ve actually been reselling those retro Wizards so you can somewhat see side by side I’m going to try to do my best here but the Retro wizard has a little bit more of a shallower profile which can

Make it fit a little easier in the hand and if you want to be a thrower of the wizard that shallower profile works really really well because I know a lot of people can really get hung up on super deep options and so the wizard the revised Wizard or the current wizard

Actually has like a good bit of depth to it which as someone with really large hands I really enjoy now now I’ve been putting with Wizards now for a little over a month and I’ve really been enjoying them but for me landing on a plastic has been super tough because

There are so many options with Gateway and when I got on the phone with them which first off what a phenomenal company to work with they’re super willing to answer the phone they’re super willing to talk about what they do and they’ll easily do custom stuff which

Makes them honestly just a pleasure to work with with new disc golf companies seeming to pop up every single day it happens I mean heck Teemu has Disc Off discs that you can buy out there now so someone may feel something like an ESP and be like oh you know this feels good

But I wish it was a little tackier and you can go to another company and try to find it or even people will put additives into this but Dave McCormick has a huge IQ when it comes to just dis golf knowledge really knowledge in general for a lack of a better term he’s

A bit of a wizard when it comes to cooking up new ideas and he can think about how to combine certain pieces and add certain additives to different Plastics to give it a variety of hand fi as well as a shot shaping capability which can be part of the reason why

There are so many different plastic options when it comes to Gateway but before we dive in I want to showcase what we’ve got going for the test setup for folks so that way you understand what’s happening with that because it’s going to be worked into the different

Types of plastics that we talk about here today so what we’ve got here are 15 different Putters out here available they’re all wizards some are retro Wizards some are the modern wizard a lot of different options here but we’ve got Plastics ranging from the 2s to the

Super the 4S the super stupid silly soft you have fossil you’ve got glow 2s or no glow money blend eraser firm tripl s so many different plastic type options here and what we’re going to do is have people come to the table and feel the different plastic types and kind of pick

Their top three plastic type options and I think you’re going to see that there is uh there’s not like one just standout winner that usually stands Above the Rest because it truly does come down to preference because we all like different Putters for different reasons reasons so

Covering the first one that’s not on the table this is the diamond plastic diamond is much more of their premium plastic has more of like a star plastic feel for comparison extremely durable but definitely a premium plastic feel now if you like that durable feel next

Up is going to be nylon which actually has nylon worked into it so while in the hand feel it can actually feel almost like a bit of a gummier plastic you can see that it’s given a little bit of give to it because it has that nylon worked

Into it as one of their base plastics it’s probably the most durable of the base Plastics that they have out there so if you want a base plastic feel but a thrower that isn’t necessarily going to get super chunked by hitting cage and putting with it or even when it hits

Trees nylon could be absolutely the choice for you next up we have their firm plastic it’s going to be denoted with an f and prer to this is why it’s called a naked wizard is because unlike the bottom and most of them it actually doesn’t have the tooling on the bottom

That you might see on a traditional Gateway molded disc firm plastic is noted for having a firm rim and slight Flex in the plate one of the things I really like about about their website especially is they talk about how flexible the disc gets under certain amounts of pressure which is really nice

If you if you like a firm Putter and you like a good thrower firm could be awesome this is probably I wouldn’t say after feeling a lot of them I don’t know that I would call this the firmest or maybe it is the firmest but the this is

Going to be like the Baseline in terms of the harder Plastics that are base Plastics and we’re going to go all the way to the other end where you’ll see 4S that gets a whole lot more flexible next up we have the money blend which is

Going to be denoted by a dollar sign on the rim the money Bling can kind of range from 2s all the way up to 4S but because of the additive added in there gets a little shinier on the surface and the more it beats in it gets a little

Gummier this one is pretty used and well loved you’ve seen Tanga in some videos so far but it still has like a bit of firmness to it but it has a little give to it and that just comes from natural wear and tear also really fantastic in wet conditions because of the grippiness

And gumminess that it provides I’m Jacob and I’ve been playing about 6 months okay and then and Gateway discs if you had to rate yourself on your familiarity with Gateway one being I’ve never heard of them 10 being I’m one of their sales reps I would say one okay perfect

Perfect so what we have on the table is we have 14 different Wizards and 14 different Plastics so Gateway one of the things they Pride themselves on is customization uh and so what we’re going to have you do is I’m going to ask you to feel the Wizards uh and tell me which

Three are your favorite okay sort of like the more firm it feels um more stable in my hand yeah absolutely like that one’s pretty flexible yeah not a h more of a a rubber blend this one this one almost feels too hard too hard okay yeah it’s a little

More flexible than I like that’s a nice like Middle Ground there I was about to say I like it cuz it’s not as flexible but it’s not nearly as like yeah still got that grip absolutely y I’d say I like that one okay that one yep

And I think it’s I’ll say that was the one that had some give to it I’d say this one okay that one and that one awesome awesome so that’s Special Blend fossil and I think this is the SS nice glow is another fantastic op option this is a glow firm so you’re

Going to see where a lot of the Gateway Plastics because they have so many options a lot of times they’ll mix glow in and mixing the glow in can have a multitude of like variables to it I think that the glow almost gives it like a little more firmness at least from

What I’m feeling Gateway is going to be here responding in the comments to help out uh but I think that the firmness you get from glow can be really nice but I also think glow gives a little extra grippiness as well because if I even just compare this firm to the other firm

I feel like this one the glow firm actually has a bit more tack to it which could be really nice especially let’s say you like a firmer putter but you want it to be a little tackier this could be a great option for you this plastic is called Pure white plastic

Which is a step up from the firm plastic has some other additives in it I’m not even going to try to like sound super sciency in all this cuz that’s just not who I am but there are different additives that separate it from being just regular firm but this has that

Tackiness to it so if you don’t like the glow the Pure White could be a great option for you I know this was out of a lot of them that I tried this was easily in my top three when it came to choosing plastic types the Pure White feels

Really really good obviously the only drawback being that it comes in just white and if you don’t like putting with white Putters that could be a drawback to you because it can get muddy really fast but thankfully they have other options another option is the Noto Pure

White which is the same Pure White blend but with color mix into it and when you mix color in that can have a variety of options depending on what color you mix in if you mix in a black color for instance that’s more of a rubbery

Material which is going to give it that grip this does not have that rubbery material in it and so it feels really good even you’re going to see one of the people here talk about that their preference was actually this over the Pure White because it has a little more

Slickness to it so not so pure white if you like that stiff blend and you want it grippy but not too grippy not so P could be a great option next up is fossil plastic which comes from reptilian discs and traditionally fossil plastic is used on the wizard turning it

Into the lizard this is the Retro wizard so it’s that thinner profile this plastic is my personal plastic of preference comes out super flat has that firmness to it got a grip somewhere between the not so pure white and the Pure White absolutely love this and I

Actually have been putting with it ever since we got them in the mail really enjoying it it’s kind of nice how easy it is to get this thing to float has a lot of pop and that firmness is something I really like I mean you can

Just see I’m giving it a lot of pop and it’s just not like giving any give whatsoever which is really wonderful my name is Allan and I’ve been playing disc golf probably about a year now okay yeah uh and so familiarity with Gateway on a scale of one to 10 one being you’ve

Never heard of Gateway discs and 10 being you are their sales rep oo um probably like two or three one thing that I found out about Putters is that I like a beaded putter okay well these are all Beed so that’s nice I about to say that’s the first thing I

Noticed I don’t know about that one that is is G uh is real gummy okay I like that still a little gummy but not just a little bit if I had to choose three that I liked yeah would be this one okay a little bit more

Rubbery but still pretty good for sure I like this one I say was it that that one the tacky or I think the tacky tacky probably be yeah I think these three would probably be the best ones for me yeah so we got Trip s uh I know the

Black one’s Trip s and this is 2 us no this is nylon okay uh which is probably one of their most durable base Plastics that they have because it literally has nylon mixed into it um and then this is their new Proto glow uh tested it out

For glow last night and I mean you light this thing up and it stays lit for like three holes really it’s crazy next up is SS which is their super soft plastic super soft plastic comes with a variety of options starts off with a firm Rim

But gives a little give inside of the flight plate lots of times this is like a special run that has this sort of stamp on top of it but it doesn’t necessarily always come with the stamp on top of it now this one bends at easier pressure than the firm’s going to

Give um but it still has some durability that you can use on shots and things like that if you like a softer putter but you don’t love like silly soft this is a great alternative I’d be willing to bet this is one of their most popular Plastics that everything kind of

Branches off of while firm is sort of the base layer this is the next step up in terms of popularity here we have double s in glow plastic which like we said gives a little more tack even not because there’s not the decal on top of

It but just being able to feel this putter it is so tacky which is nice and Gateway glow sneaky underrated y’all you charge it up it may take a minute when you’re using it but once it gets that glow it holds it for such a long time I

Used a glow wizard last night and it held it for literally three different holes which is kind of crazy a little more flexible especially off the shelf I mean this one’s brand new and it still has a little bit of give so you might want to think about that but a really

Solid option especially if you like a putter with a lot of grip if I was playing a rain round this would be a great option for me now keeping the double s alive this is double s with hemp mixed into it which actually gives it a much more firm appearance the hemp

Is a really cool alternative they do on the Recycled side of things and so by mixing the hemp into it it actually I think gives a lot of sturdiness to it so you can see that they probably are mixing hemp into even like a 4S or a 3s

Or even I would be so surprised but like a firm hemp blend looks like really really great option this still has the grippiness of 2s but it has a lot more the flight plate feels a lot more firm that you would be expecting out of the firm plastic now eraser blend plastic

Comes in at a different feel with it is actually the 2s with one more run of regrind mixed into it at least I think that’s what Dave explained to me so what I like about the Eraser Blends is that it sort of has like a smoothness to it

That you don’t get from the original 2s Blends and so this smoothness feels really good I mean this is obviously a used eraser Wizard and it still feels really good has a nice bit of rigidity to it feels pretty solid which is pretty awesome before I found the glow firm

This is definitely what I was using in sort of a winter for that grip that I wanted my name is John uh going on four and a half years okay and in terms of your familiarity with Gateway disc Sports uh if you had to rank them uh

Rank yourself as a one being never heard of it 10 being you’re a sales rep for them where would you put yourself well I work in a disc golf store so pretty strong I’m going to go eight okay awesome when I first started disc golf I

Don’t know if it’s just a beginner thing or what but I always want it as gummy and just soft as possible and just over four years progressed to firmer and firmer so now love it like that is has no give at all kind of slick which is

Actually another problem I have is the disc sticking to my fingers and over spinning so like I’ve found here lately like the Slicker the disc is it actually slides out in a straight line with where my arm’s taking it so yeah I like uh that’s how on the list right there no no

No no even that like that doesn’t have a ton of give but it’s got just enough that it’s already in my head that it’s like a soft putter even though it really isn’t too soft too grippy kind of grippy too nope yeah it’s here here and here okay

Yeah so that is another vote for fossil which is that one uh the not so pure white is that one uh which is pure white that’s not white which pure white with color mixed in which gives it a different feel uh and and it may be my

Favorite album because it has a little bit of U and once again most people wouldn’t like this but it’s got a little bit of a powdery feel to it like fingers sliding yeah and for for where I’m at right now I kind of like that yeah the regular pure W yeah so makes

Sense next up we have special blend now Special Blend kind of can be sort of a an all-encompassing umbrella that you may not expect because Special Blend Gateway specializes in special Blends which is really cool because Cameron mesmi for example wanted a certain blend of plastic that he was looking for and as

One of their sponsored players they were able to run a special run of plastic for him if you’ve got a local event or you’ve got a large event things like that they can do runs up to 200 discs of that custom plastic for you looking for

It so if you wanted to try out like we talked about a little earlier unlike hemp firm that option could be available to you Gateway specializes and special Blends for instance this one has like a 2s or 3s feel but the grippiness is on another level it almost reminds me of

Like the pure white or not so pure white extra tack on it which is really really great so here we have glow SS and you may say Mr YouTube man you already talked about glow SS we talked about glow SS on the Retro wizard this is glow

SS on the revamped Wizard and so even one thing that I noticed is just with that deeper profile having it on the standard wizard versus the Retro wizard that thinner flight plate it actually makes this feel a little firmer because of the depth because with a larger Rim

It actually accents sort of the rigidity of this which is awesome because let’s say you have a plastic that’s a little gummier put it on the Retro Wizard and it’s going to feel like it has a lot more give just because it’s that thinner profile really really great option here

Excited for this one next up we have tripl S plastic which s plastic feels really good now this has that black blend which has the color mixed into it so it’s going to feel a lot more rubbery Tri s we’re starting to get to you can

See sort of the give to it now one thing that gayway wants to make sure people understand is that just because it has some give to it doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily like super flexible or anything like that like it’s going to be just like super soft in the Heat and

Things like that you can have a putter that has some give to it and you can have some firm Putters that once you use them it’s going to beat in to have this little bit of conditioning but the trip s plastic is a Next Step Up in gumminess

Without feeling like it’s like flopping in your hand like you can see I’m trying to give this like a lot of and it’s still holding holding that shape pretty well really great option is the trip s if you’re much more of a softer profile person when it comes to

Your putter next up we have the 4S blend and 4S is super stupid silly soft 4S this is one of their sure grips and y’all you can immediately tell this has a lot of give to it so you’ll hear one of our people who comes through and

Tests things out and he mentioned that when he first got into putting he really wanted that really soft plastic now if I as a push putter soft plastic is tough cuz I can feel like when I’m driving my fingers into the Putt and I’m really pushing my fingers I feel like it has

Some give to it that doesn’t mean this is a bad putter because one nice thing about silly soft is when you putt with it let’s say you miss most often it’s going to give a little give it’s going to flop on the ground it’s going to stay right there firmer Putters are more

Likely to roll away because they’re going to hit have that wobble get up on their own and roll away so soft butter could definitely be an option for you and there’s nothing quite like 4S plastic when it gets out there and especially in colder conditions this

Thing is so grippy and it’s going to firm up a little bit in those colder conditions so if you find yourself living in those northern states or more Arctic conditions or arctic areas try to play this 4S plastic could be absolutely perfect for you now we talked about a

Lot of plastics here and I feel like it be overwhelming hopefully you stuck with us because like I said I mean you just saw there there is a ton of information when it comes to Gateway and even as people have come through the shop and you’ve seen the data rolling preference

Is everything and that’s one thing that’s really cool about what Gateway is doing is they have a ton of mold options out there say you’re not even a beaded fan you don’t love the wizard because it has a bead on it and you don’t love the

Depth of the wizard you have the option of going to the Retro wizard which is a little more thinner profile or if you don’t want the bead there are other options out there I think the magic doesn’t have the bead so many different shapes and so many different Putters and

Because there are so many plastic options out there if you have been struggling to find a putter there is few companies out there that understand the science of what’s going on behind the disc as much as the mind of Dave McCormack trying to lock in what they

Have going here at Gateway I’m gonna go ahead and addess the obvious elephant in the room Robbie with all this hype are you like signing with Team Gateway is that what you’re doing to which I’ll go ahead and say no I’m not necessarily signing the Gateway by any means but I

Love working with passionate people and there is just no way that you can ever end up on a phone call with anyone who works at gayway who isn’t passionate about what they’re doing why because they have so much customization options that they are eager and excited to work

With people to give them what they’re looking for we’ve had people come in the shop today we’ve had people come in the shop today that some have been like I want a really firm Putter and other people prefer the softer Blends you can see that across the voting across the board which just

Goes to show there’s really no right answer here now if you stuck around this long I’m going to go and give you a little teaser and that is that in partnering and like doing this video one of the things we talked about was man I

Really I just knew that I wanted to put with the wizard I was excited about the wizard I’m excited about the puns we can make with the wizard and all of that um and we actually for our birdie family event that’s happening in March we’re

Going to try to make sure that we have wizards inside of the player pack for them because when I felt these Plastics I was like I really really like this plastic but there’s one slight modification to one of them that I really want to make and they were like

Let’s do it let’s make that and in fact and just having a conversation with them we’re literally trying to come up with our own plastic blend that is going to be available not only as a great putting option for me but a great thrower for

Lots of you if let’s you may not even prefer a more firm Putter and that’s the excitement and awesomeness that is awaiting for us at Gateway so I’m super pumped to be in the conversation with them and having that and helping bring something to the market that I I’m not

Necessarily sure exists out there right now hopefully in the next month or two we’ll be able to see at least a prototype for that get the teasers out there get you guys hyped about it and give you the opportunity to join the zard gang so I want to thank Mason and

The team at Gateway for sending out all of these Wizards to me honestly guys like it has been so fun finding a new put getting to know it getting to love it and it’s actually I feel like I’m seeing the results right off the bat this is dropping on a Tuesday and this

Is also the same week that you’re going to see Foundation Allstar happening and I’ll just say end up in a putting competition and uh my Wizards went undefeated so kind of interesting I want to say thank you so much for tuning in thank you for checking out this video

Thanks to everyone that was in the video for giving their opinion and feel on it it can always be intimidating knowing there’s thousands of people are going to be watching but thank you guys so much for tuning in Hope you have an amazing rest of your day please make it

Fantastic for someone else too but for now we’re going to leave you with the Birdie