Revolution vs. Gorilla Boy - The Best Bag for the Buck?

On to the big boys, these bags, the Revolution Carolina and the Gorilla Boy Kong are all the bag you should need for most any disc golf situation. For a tournament situation, roadtrip, or just all around everyday golfing, these should carry all the discs you might or might not need, as well as extra gear you want to tote along. While the smaller bags are suitable for beginners, I’d only recommend getting one of these bags if you’re really serious about disc golf–i.e. playing as much as you can and wishing you could somehow play more. With both of these bags coming in at over $100 a piece, I doubt too many beginners would be seriously considering one of these anyway. I would also strongly recommend picking up a set of quads if you’ll be using one of these bigger bags. While not essential, you’ll immediately notice how much nicer it is to carry the load on two shoulders, centered on your body. This comes into play especially on long days at the course, or in tricky situations where balance is key, like jumping over a ditch or traversing a fallen tree.

The Revolution Carolina

The Revo Carolina is undoubtedly the most popular bag with higher level tournament players. Revo has firmly locked a corner of the market with the Carolina Team Bag and you’re almost guaranteed to see at least one person carrying one at any course. I have to give credit where credit is due: the Revo Carolina is quite simply the best looking bag on the market. With its color coordination, distinctive putter pocket, U-shaped opening, and general sleek design, it is a very aesthetically pleasing presentation. In fact, just the other day, my friend was carrying mine for me while I was doing some filming and seeing him from a distance I thought “Hey, that’s a good looking bag there…wait, that’s my bag!”

The Carolina sells for $125 + $9 shipping on the Revo site, and is constructed from 1650 D and 1000 D Cordura and has a truck vinyl bottom. It is advertised to hold 12-14 discs, and it does so easily. 14 discs rest easily in the main compartment, plus 2 putters in the putter pocket, and if you wanted to carry more, you could fit some in the ample side compartments. The frame that comes with the bag is Revolution’s “Roll Cage” internal frame. It has a single divider and works quite well in the bag, fitting it perfectly, keeping it rigid and keeping your discs off the ground. Putting the frame together can be a little tricky (it needs to be assembled in the bag, as the included instructions tell you), and I’ve heard stories of people accidentally cracking their frames while trying to install them. To Revolution’s credit though, I’ve heard that the frames were replaced without cost.

The Carolina is no slouch when it comes to storage capacity either. It has two main zippered side compartments, two bottle holders, two smaller open ended side pockets, two pencil pockets, a putter pouch, plus a small zippered pocket on the putter pouch (which addmitedly isn’t all that useful for carrying much more than small stuff like change or chapstick.) The zippered compartments themselves are ~ 225 cu. in. each, making for a roomy couple of veritable caverns to stash any extra gear in. You still have to be judicious in what you’ll be carrying with you, but the Carolina should fit all your storage needs. The bag rides very comfortably, but you need to make sure the pockets are zipped up all the way if you’re carrying anything in the bottle holders, otherwise the bottles swing loosely around. It should be noted that even with the pockets zipped up, bottles will swing about somewhat–not enough to be a deal breaker by any means, but it’s a trade off you have to accept for not having a rigid side to which attach a bottle holder.

One common complaint that is heard on the Carolina is the setup of the bottle holders. While these are legitimate insulated bottle holders, the bottoms of them, instead of being solid fabric, consist of a strip of nylon webbing. This works perfectly well for a Nalgene or large Gatorade sized bottle, but for smaller beverages, like a 12 oz bottle or can (ahem), they can slip right through the bottom with a little jostling. One solution that users have come up with is to simply keep a foam beer cozy in the holder, thereby preventing fall-throughs with smaller containers. Another aspect to it is that sometimes I use an empty bottle holder as an easy access spot to keep a microfiber towel. Anybody that has used microfiber towels knows that they’re awesome for wiping off water and dust, but will pick up anything they come in contact with on the ground. With the open bottom of the bottle holder, it pretty much ruins any ideas of keeping a towel in there. I’m assuming that the choice to go with the strip of webbing is to save on weight and cost of materials. That’s all well and good, but again, on a top of the line bag, you wouldn’t expect to find a detractor like that, especially when the “falling bottle” problem could easily be solved by adding a second strip to form a “+”. On a positive note, the open topped pockets behind the bottle holders fit a smaller container quite well.

As with the Mini, the Carolina includes the key clip, which I’ve already stated is one of the simplest-yet-handiest features of the bag. Unfortunately, also like the Mini, the Carolina has deep pencil pockets, except these are made out of thicker, burlier material. This translates into an even more difficult time of retrieving a golf pencil if it slips into the depths.

Another feature that I haven’t heard much about in others’ assessments of the Carolina is its water resistance. No disc golf bag, that I’m aware of, is actually water proof, but the Revo Carolina is as close to it as I’ve seen. For one, the truck vinyl bottom is impervious, and the frame keeps the discs off the ground anyway. But also, the bag has a rain flap that covers the top, including the putters. This is in addition to the regular zippered flap that covers the entry to the bag. So essentially, you have two layers of rain protection over your main compartment of discs.

The flap doesn’t cover the side pockets at all, but I found the zippered pockets to keep their contents mostly dry, even when exposed to a torrential downpour. Of course if you want to keep your stuff dry, you should be using an umbrella. The Carolina has umbrella straps, but like on some other bags I’ve seen, they put the straps on the bottom, back side. This might make sense for weight distribution, but it makes no sense to me from a practical standpoint. If it starts raining, you pull out your umbrella and use it, but if it stops raining, you’re left with the choice of carrying your umbrella around in your hand (effectively negating the usefulness of the straps in the first place) or putting the soggy umbrella back in the straps to rest against your back for the rest of the round. The best solution I’ve found for carrying an umbrella is to carry it in the loops of your quads–this keeps the wet umbrella off your back and also provides for good weight distribution.