Disc golf field work involves practicing your driving, throwing, shot-shaping, distance, power, technique, or other parts of your game in a large, open field. But if you don’t have access to a large open field you can also practice on an open hole on your favorite course, as long as it’s not busy. Or, you can do some field work on your favorite wooded course.
You may be wondering why field work is so important. Well, practice in general is important so you can improve your overall game, and field work plays a big part in that. It helps you work on multiple parts of your disc golf game like consistency, accuracy, distance, power, release angles, flight lines, etc.
So below, you’ll find some tips on how to start your field work, as well as the key areas to focus on while doing field work such as power and distance, technique and accuracy, and learning your discs. Plus, we’ll let you know how you can set goals for your field work.
Set Goals
Goals are super important in disc golf, because without them it’s hard to accomplish anything and the same applies to field work. If you just go out to the field and randomly throw your disc in any direction, you have nothing to measure your improvement with. Have some kind of goal in mind so you can work towards improving individual parts of your game.
Goals are also important because field work isn’t just about improving your throwing in a wide, open field. There are in fact many different parts to your throw that you can work on during this practice. Decide on what you would most like to work and improve on, and then you can get back to your goals.
You need to set overall goals for your disc golf game and individual goals for your field work practice sessions. Again, it’s hard to measure improvement without having specific goals set for every practice session. Set those goals so you can work to achieve a new goal every session. Plus, working towards these goals is excellent motivation to keep going!
Practice Makes Perfect
To truly improve your disc golf game, you have to practice often. Field work is a big part of improving your game, and therefore, you should do field work as often as you can. To really see improvement, it’s best to practice daily and do field work at least three times a week. You should see a major improvement in your game if you’re able to implement that schedule!
But that is often easier said than done, and it’s hard to stay disciplined. But it is important to make time, and be consistent. Create a practice routine that is manageable and that you can stick to every week. For example, a 60/40 practice split means that you do field work for 60% of the time and other practice for 40% of the time, such as putting practice or solo disc practice.
Plus, these sessions don’t need to be too long. Practice with what time you have available. If that’s only 20 minutes, then that’s fine! You can get double the amount of throws in just 15 minutes as you would in an entire round on the course. If you dedicate at least 15-20 minutes to your field work, you’re sure to see results soon enough.
You should also take practice as seriously as you take competition. This is an idea you may have heard in school if you participated in any competitive extracurricular activity. If you take practice seriously, it will translate directly into your real competitive play. Of course, practice should be fun, but if you take competition seriously, why not practice too?
That lack of focus may be reflected when you participate in competition. Taking practice seriously will naturally lead to you playing well with improved skill in competitive rounds on the course. We cannot underestimate the importance of field work. Have fun with it but take it seriously!
Technique and Accuracy
These are two very important aspects of your disc golf game and aspects you should always practice during your field work. Let’s take a closer look at these two crucial aspects of your game:
- Technique: During your field work, focus exclusively on your technique and try to make all of your throws perfect, applying the ideal form and technique. Once you perfect your technique, you can begin to work on everything else. Still, you should always pay attention to your technique going forward.
- Accuracy: The key to accuracy is to tackle it head on. It can be tough to be totally accurate, but with practice you are sure to improve. Three quick ways to improve your accuracy is to dedicate a field work day to accuracy, and to have an accuracy practice day in the woods.
Power and Distance
Field work also gives you an excellent opportunity to begin working on power and distance. While there are a lot of different parts of your game to work on, power and distance are two huge parts of your game that you should always be trying to improve on. Also, these two aspects of your game are the most fun part to work on!
To improve your power and distance, have a dedicated maximum distance field day, use landmarks to work on your distance, and have a practice day using only putters to improve your total distance.
Learn Your Discs
Finally, use your practice field work sessions to get to know all of your discs and learn all the possible lines a disc can fly on. If you can’t rely on your discs you will not play well with them. Understanding and learning all of your discs will result in better scores. Work on every disc that you plan on throwing and learn every shot type and line possible.
If you take all of the above into account during field work sessions, you’ll be ruling the disc golf course in no time!
