As the daylight disappears and temperatures drop, many of us find ourselves spending a lot more time inside. It’s a perfect time of year for video games, and thanks to Gordon Griesel, it looks as though disc golfers will have a virtual environment to keep themselves entertained.

Earlier in the year, I mentioned Gordon’s project, and my eagerness to see it become a reality. Well, Gordon has made good on his intentions, and now has an early December release date planned for Disc Flight Sim. As a way to help get people ready for the release of the full version, a free downloadable demo is available on his site, which you can find here (currently, the password for download is “demo”.)

Being busy with several things lately, in addition to the encroaching holidays, I haven’t had a chance to play with it too much, but I can say from what little I have seen, I’m very impressed and am eagerly anticipating the full release. While the graphics may not be the cutting edge stuff you see in big budget video games, the physics at work here are quite impressive. Just throwing drives with a few selected discs, the physics at work were extremely realistic. Not that there has been a lot of competition in the world of virtual disc physics, but this simulator portrays the flight of a golf disc far more authentically than anything I’ve seen before. A disc thrown flat will fly straight and then fade left predictably. A flippy disc thrown hard with a slight hyzer angle will flip up to fly straight, turn right, and then fade left. That same flippy disc though, if thrown with full hyzer, will hold its hyzer line and finish left (just like my real life botched hyzer-flip attempts!).

The game will include some pre-made courses, a full selection of discs, several different play-modes, and the ability for players to design their own courses, which they’ll be able to share with others. As an added bonus, there will be many terrains the player can download at no cost from the Disc Fight Sim site. The game is currently only for XP/Vista, and Gordon is looking at selling it around $19.95, or “for around the cost of one nice disc” as he puts it. It will be available for download or on CD, and customers will be able to pay in a variety of ways.

Excited by the prospects of the game, I contacted Gordon (who is very accessible and responsive, by the way), and asked him a few questions.
More on Disc Golf Simulator Right Around the Corner

Though it is possible to play disc golf with one disc, most people want to carry several. And except for the masochistic, most would like to have some sort of apparatus in which to carry their multiple discs, as well as their water, keys, phone, “other” beverages, safety supplies, cigarettes, rulebook, etc. Enter the disc golf bag. Now a bag may not need to be specialized, for the casual golfer, a simple backpack or soft cooler type bag might work fine. My first bag was a CamelBak, and that suited my needs for the time being, but I immediately wanted something a little more tailored to the sport so I could have easier access to my discs, and carry more comfortably.

Needless to say, as I grew more hopelessly addicted to this sport, carrying more discs as well as playing more frequently, I needed to upgrade several times over the years. It didn’t take too long for me to decide that I wanted to buy a bag that would suit my purposes and would hold up for as long as I needed it. Through my research, I learned of two manufacturers that stood out for building high quality, durable bags: Revolution (Revo) and Gorilla Boy (GB). Both companies have an excellent reputations, and I couldn’t find anybody saying a negative word for either. After much deliberation, I decided to go with the Gorilla Boy Kong, the flagship model. I was very happy with my purchase, but I felt later on, that I should also have a smaller bag for lighter, minimalistic rounds. For that one, I chose the Revolution Mini. Both bags have proven to be excellent, but in the interest of satiating my own curiosity and hopefully answering some questions for our readers, I decided to purchase the bags’ counterparts: the Revolution Carolina Team Bag and the Gorilla Boy Spider Monkey, respectively, and compare them here.

Wow, talk about uncanny timing. A couple days after Brian posts about the original Revolution Mini, they sneak in a brand new model: the Deluxe Mini.

The first thing I thought when I saw this is that it looks like the Gorilla Boy Squirrel Monkey, but upon further inspection, there were noticeable differences. The Deluxe Mini is actually more similar to the Revolution Pro bag, just shrunken down to a more compact form. Shrunken down so much, in fact, that they were no longer able to put the putter pocket on the front, but instead put two putter pockets at opposite ends of the bag. I think that’s a great innovation, but as somebody pointed out, if you have the zippered pockets behind the putters too full, you could end up warping your discs. Not too much is said about the Deluxe Mini yet, just what is on the main page, but you can be one of the first to try one out for $70. It’s hard to make a judgment without seeing one in real life, but my initial impression is that I like the design.

Screenshot courtesy of ign.com

Being an avid disc golfer, casual gamer, and living in an area that doesn’t always offer the best climate for squeezing a round in, I’ve been pining for quite some time for a decent disc golf video game. There have been a smattering of offerings presented in the past, but none of them did much to impress. Probably the most well known game is the Innova Disc Golf game, published in 1999 by little known publisher Wizard Works (who put out the equally impressive Grand Slam Turkey Hunt). The most generous appraisals of the game were “pretty good for what it is,” while most reviewers summed it up as “crappy.”

After the Innova game, there wasn’t too much offered for disc golfers in the digital realm. There were a couple little flash based games, which Brian wrote about earlier, but again, it wasn’t anything to write home about (the designers didn’t even know the difference between an hyzer and an anhyzer).

We disc golfers had to sit idly by while we saw great games for traditional golf being released, like the ultra-realistic Tiger Woods franchise and the cartoony, yet undeniably fun Hot Shots Golf series. I know lots of disc golfers played these games, being the closest thing the market had to offer to a disc golf video game.

Then came the evolution of the Nintendo Wii. More on Holy moly, a halfway decent disc golf video game?

Not to long ago I decided to stop carrying around a pile of discs in my hands and purchase a disc golf bag. Of course, I don’t purchase anything disc golf related without first consulting with Tim. He recommend a couple of different brands that he has had luck with and sent me their respective sites.

I ended up on www.discgolfer.com where I found a great little bag for beginner to intermediate level players. More on A Durable Disc Golf Bag for Beginners

Most players already know that disc golf is one of the most environmentally friendly games out there. Besides a few trees and branches that might be removed from fairways, a some dings in trees from errant throws, and inevitable erosion from foot traffic, there is no impact to the environment. But what about all those discs that you’re carrying around? They’re made from plastic, man, and plastic, like, comes from petroleum. That’s right, if you follow the Bush administration’s logic on drug users supporting terrorism, then by playing disc golf, you are supporting the war in Iraq. More on Disc Golf Goes Green(er)