I played Lil G today with Guy and Olse.

I threw zero backhands.

For most of the year I have been obsessed with throwing thumber and tomahawk approaches.

Not drives, but approaches.

These shots are sort of like learning rollers.

You can honestly learn how to do them pretty quickly, but mastering them is so much harder than backhands and forehands.

They can feel way more unpredictable. 

With traditional backhand and forehand shots the things like nose angle, arm slots, shoulder level and footwork aren’t always obvious when you get them wrong.

Why? Most course design is pretty forgiving when you get backhands and forehands wrong.

The course design isn’t bad per se, we just don’t have the resources to demand better shots right now.

However, if you spend enough time around an elite overhead or roller player you understand that they see the course entirely different than the rest of us.

They have to factor the ground and wind play more into their shot decisions.

Really good overhead players can tell you the arm slot, disc type and nose angle that you need to throw a disc on to make it skip or spike or roll backwards when it hits the ground. 

It’s the same for players who have mastered rollers.

They see the course in an entirely different way.

They find the bank in the dirt they want to hit with a roller. They understand how the wind and nose angle affects the direction the disc will cut when it hits that bank.

They understand how they have to alter their run up to land the shot perfectly and reduce the chances it rolls deep into the woods or down a hill.

They are playing a different game than the rest of us. 

They aren’t just aiming into open air space like the rest of us.

They are mentally predicting the shot from their foot placement, to the hand pressure, to the nose angle to the aim point and eventually the place it hits the ground and how it finishes after that.

It is a less forgiving shot when it’s wrong.

More room for error.

More variables to process. More to ignore.

But so much more beautiful when it’s exactly right.

The rise in forehand dominant players was a result of modern course design and crossover skills from other sports. 

Once someone started winning with Forehands, the backhand turnover died.

Shot creativity died.

We simplified the required skill sets accidentally.

The sport reacted by making tee shots more suited for forehands and less for backhand turnovers.

The elite players also wanted to choose shots with less room for error. 

To win big money you cant have any errors.

You have to eliminate unpredictable shots.

The harder ones to master.

No one is really designing for these alternative shot types yet, but the reality is the overhead shot probably offers the same easy transition into disc golf from other sports that the forehand did.

We don’t have manicured greens and perfectly mowed fairways to help improve ground play with these shots.

Very few course designers ever get to actually shape the land. They just work with what they have. Cut some trees. Pour a little concrete.

We don’t have money for more than that.

The industry also doesn’t make a lot of discs to cater to these shots.

We have just never taken the time to fully cater to them. Yet.

Everything in the industry is designed around backhand and forehand hyzers right now.

The courses, the discs, the pros, the events. All of it.

The easiest shots to learn.

The most reliable to film.

These are also the most forgiving shots on the types of terrain we are currently allowed to use.

Will we ever shape greens to only require a roller or overheard approach into it?

Maybe a Roller tee shots that sets up a forehand approach?

Will big tournaments ever even allow any of this?

I mean let’s just look at the greatest shot in disc golf history. The James Conrad Holy Shot is a technical backhand turnover on a very challenging green.

Not a stock hyzer followed by a big putt.

An approach shot.

The shot they are supposed to have mastered.

A technical turnover shot.

It was the perfect player for that shot at that moment.

We had an approach shot that encouraged an all or nothing mentality.

Not the tee or the putt. The approach.

Every other potential variable was eliminated.

The moment demanded that James Conrad do something amazing and he delivered.

Because he was a master of turnovers and throwing his putter.

Skills needed in the previous era of disc golf.

Here was this exciting moment. The most viral moment in the sports history. A template for how to showcase the amazing things our sports players can do with a disc.

Go figure that some of the most polarizing shots and holes in our sports history aren’t the drives or putts.

They are the approaches.

The ways we’ve asked players to throw those approach shots.

The approach is where we see total mastery.

We’ll see where disc golf goes from here.

maybe I’m the crazy one approaching this all wrong.