Altitude has a huge impact on the flight of disc golf discs. When playing at elevation, golf discs fly more overstable, and surprisingly don’t go very far. For this reason, it’s very important that you understand how disc flight varies when selecting the right discs to buy at high altitudes. In sports like football, due to lower air density, kickers can get more distance at high elevation stadiums than they can at lower elevations. In other sports players fatigue more easily because of this difference in air. In disc golf with its sophisticated aerodynamics, the flights greatly vary.
How to Overcome flight differences when playing at Altitude:
There are two simple ways to overcome the flight differences when playing disc golf at high elevations and the reality is that you will likely have to use new and unique discs for many of your big distance shots. To get a similar flight pattern and distance at high elevations as at lower elevations there are two things you can do to remedy the difference in air density.
- Throw lighter weight discs. You can often get a similar flight pattern by throwing the same disc molds you normally use by throwing them in a lighter weight. If you typically throw max weight 175g discs, try throwing something in the mid 160’s
- Throw more understable discs. Understability (the ability to resist fade) is typically determined by the turn rating (third number in the four digit disc golf flight numbers). If the disc that you normally throw has a turn rating of -2, try throwing a different disc of the same speed but with a turn rating of negative four. At high elevations, discs do not exhibit nearly as much high speed turn as they do closer to sea level. Using a more understable disc will help make up for this distance.
Our website is designed to provide you with important details and flight ratings for hundreds of different disc models from dozens of different disc manufacturers. There are discs out there for players of all skill levels playing at all altitudes.
We are working to expansively grow our inventory of disc golf discs from a variety of different brands by summer. For brands that we do not carry we provide links to Amazon.com and Infinite Discs, where we may receive an affiliate commission for any sales that may result from our referral.
