Rediscovering DX on an Easter Day

I mentioned before that I started throwing Innova discs back in 1996, but felt like my game progressed when I threw my first Discraft mold. I only threw plastic for about a year back then so I never had the chance to delve into a disc-buying and trying phase. It wasn't until recently that I finally started throwing Innova molds.

My wife likes the game and owns her own bag of discs. Usually, when I'm ready to buy a disc or two I find myself wondering what new disc she might like as well. Tee Birds were on my mind at the time, so when I added a Star Tee Bird to my Internet cart I went ahead and clicked the tiny box for a 150 DX Tee Bird for my wife.

I started thinking about the old days and wondered what DX plastic I threw back then that made me feel like the entire Innova brand wasn't for me.

When the exciting day arrived we opened the USPS package and removed our new purchases. I couldn't wait to finally throw the Star Tee Bird, but I found myself equally curious about my wife's DX mold.

Fortunately, she let me try it out. The plastic actually felt OK. I knew the rigidness would have to take some getting used to, but I figured that wouldn't be a problem. After throwing hers a couple of times on a serious hyzer line I decided I was going to buy a heavier one for myself one day.

That day came extremely quick.

When my blue 170 DX Tee Bird arrived I went out to the field and started experimenting. I immediately found out it was going to be a great under-stable disc. I knew I would be able to hit some nice lines down tight fairways, but there was one thing I didn't know right away.

I didn't know I was going to start driving this $8 disc further than my go-to distance drivers.

On Easter I hit up a course in Redmond, WA called Juel. It's a wide open park with nine baskets and 18 tees. It's a great course to practice long precision drives and putting. Unfortunately the ground gets saturated after heavy rains, so most of the course was unplayable since I didn't feel like wading through ankle-high rain water.

I played the few dry holes over and over again and a couple of them were around the 350 foot mark. At one point during my practice the Nuke started pissing me off. I couldn't accomplish a good flight. After I had thrown my two Nukes and a Star Tee Bird I grabbed my DX plastic in anger, stepped up and tried to puncture the atmosphere with it. I stood in amazement as I watched it slowly stand up from the hyzer line, start gliding right and then slowing start gliding back left as it made its way back down to the dirt.

"I just out drove my Nukes," I said to myself. I couldn't believe it. I only threw about 345 feet maybe, but it was further than my other weak drives with premium plastic. I felt like I knew even less about this sport than ever.

Since then I've been using the cheap Tee Bird in my game more and more. I've noticed that I need to throw with good form to get it to go far, but that's OK because that's what I'm really trying to accomplish.