Hey everybody, welcome to this episode of the Disc Golf
Instrument. I'm Bobby Cool Daddy, Slick
Breeze and I'm this special disc golf answer man interview.
I have Ron Converse Junior who just won won his fourth world
title and this all together is your fifth major title.
Is that correct, Ron? Yes, Sir.
Awesome. Well, I, as soon as I found out
he, well, I saw the post, I was looking through Facebook and I
was trying to figure out what was going on at worlds and I saw
the post where you had the little hat hat salute on there
and congratulate you. And I was like, that's awesome.
And I was like, we got to get him on the show, find out what
happened at the event and how you're feeling and stuff like
that. So.
So how are you feeling now that you have your 4th world title?
It's it's nice. I'd like to do it again at least
two or three more times. But Oh yeah, yeah, you know how
it is. You get to where you're playing
well and you want to continue to play well and compete well and I
love it. So I I'd very much like to go to
the next worlds and repeat. So take us back to that moment
though, when you put in the last putt and you just realized, you
know, it just came to you or let's just the, the knowing that
you just won your 4th world title.
Are you, are you in, are you in disbelief?
Are you like, is there a lot of pride?
Are you? You know what's going on through
your mind in that moment. It was more I was really glad
that it was over because I let me let me back up.
So that round started. I was 7 strokes ahead walking
into it. I stepped up and I back-to-back
solo birdied 2 of the harder holes on the course, hole one
and two. The rest of the group didn't get
any. And then it just sort of
deteriorated and the wheels fell off and he was catching up.
And I think it got down to where Tim only had a couple strokes to
go. If I'd have missed a whole lot
more than he'd have got me because he was playing very well
and I was playing horribly. I couldn't seem to get my brain
where it was supposed to be. Once I got to the point where I
think I had the realization that I had one already.
And as soon as that happened, I went and you know, all, all the
things I had been doing for the last week just sort of
evaporated and it was just a matter of trying to tread water
through great drives, didn't convert through bad drives and
converted to get the par and a whole bunch.
It seemed to me at the time as if there were a whole bunch of
bogeys. Now looking at the scorecard it,
it wasn't as bad as all that, but in my head I was like, Oh my
God, I'm going to lose, you know.
And so I was. I was very, very happy when that
last putt sank, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that
it was over and the bloody had stopped.
Now this the division you played in was MP 60 and so you've been
around for a long time, disc golf.
Remind me how long you've been playing disc golf?
I started messing with it in 81. Oh wow, so quite a quite a long
time. Yeah.
I'm sure this wasn't the first time you've been in a situation
where it was stressing you out, like going toward the final, the
final holes you were stressed out.
How do you handle that? What?
What kind of player are you when this when the stress is really
there? Sometimes it doesn't matter at
all. I mean, I've, I've been in big
money situations where it was just another day playing disc
golf. And at the same time I've I've
had occasions where the wheels have come all the way off and I
have fallen back. USDGC good example, the final
day after multiple days of hanging in with Kenny Climo and
and playing pretty well, one stroke behind him and I get up
the next morning and come out and I just could not do anything
right to save my life. And I ended up falling all the
way back to 10th place and shot. I, I can't even remember what it
was. If we hadn't been so far ahead,
I would have definitely been way farther back than that.
It was, it was a miserable round.
But on the other hand, I've, I've had I've had the rounds
where I was behind going in and managed to do the opposite and
just totally blank out that what was going on and just work my
way through it one shot at a time and, and just come out the
other side way ahead. So I think that where your
emotions are at any given moment makes a huge difference.
And for me wanting it, I wanted this too bad.
And I think that if I had stopped thinking about wanting
this and, and, you know, and just worried more about, well,
OK, it's just another day in the park, walk out there and then do
it, it, it, I wouldn't have had any of the problems I had.
So you've won five major titles and I know from following your
journey, you know, being with Dynamic Discs and you've been
with Dynamic Discs a long, a long time.
But what does winning look like now in the MP 60 division
compared to some of the because I know you've won other A tiers
and other events that you play locally.
What does winning look like now at this age compared to earlier
ages? Well, it still feels just as
good. Honestly.
It's only been a couple years since I won a tier in the Open
division, so it's not that far away.
I set a course record, won a tier, shot a 1085 rated round at
the oldest a tier concurrent in the US.
Which would be oh, I just went blank.
Which anyway, I I play pretty well I've I've taken some time
off because of work. Last year I was injured and I
find that the injuries as I get older are harder to recover
from. So I spent a lot of time on a 9
inch grinder and ended up with an elbow problem towards the end
of last year and really struggled.
Took about probably 5, probably about five months of where I
didn't play very much at all. Didn't practice through a few
events but really didn't do anything and I still am not
practicing as much as I probably should be.
I've I've reduced it a lot because I'm I'm still doing a
lot of work and it's a little rough.
Yeah, how do you, how do you, so when you go on those long
stretches of not being able to play or injury or having to
work, how do you, how do you keep your mind in the game?
How do you make sure that you are staying sharp and and your
game is not suffering? Well, I can still put and so
I've got a number of baskets in the yard.
It was just being able to throw drives and getting out to, to
actually grip it and RIP it couldn't do that field work,
really couldn't do that either. And that hurt my game quite a
bit. So I know what I need to do to
accomplish it and part of it is getting the reps in and making
sure as I go into the larger events like this that I have
plenty of time on the course. And so I, I set up to play, I
think I played four or five pretty good sized events in the
Masters MP40 division and I won the last two of them.
So I'm I was feeling pretty good about how I was playing and I
know how I'm playing. Any given day I get out there
and play with whoever. I still throw in excess of 400
feet. I still am able to putt pretty
well normally and I haven't really.
I'm sure it's going to catch up with me one of these days soon,
but as long as I maintain, I think the work, while it's
kicking my ass right now, is also helping me to maintain my
physicality and my ability to perform simply because I have to
stay in good shape to to do the job.
And that's a friend of mine, Jimmy Souter.
He's also been in a very physical work for a long time
and we both play fairly even head to But he was we were
talking about it and, and decided that the work what is
what was keeping us in the game, even though it was sort of a a
hassle to try and get around it. At the same time, it was
maintaining our physical skills, athleticism.
I don't know if I was retired if I would have the motivation to
work as hard at staying in shape as as I do just simply by going
to work. So you.
Know speaking on that have has there been any time leading up
to this world's or maybe the whole maybe you're just not
ready to give up if it has been every time you thought you know
I just I just can't do this competition thing anymore.
No. No.
No, I, I, I've had when I've had physical problems, I haven't
really. No, I don't think I've ever
thought I'm ready to quit. It's always been what do I need
to do to get back in the shape that I need to be in to compete.
And that's, I think that's more the mindset that I've got is I
want to see how far I can take this.
I, I would love to be able to continue to play at a fairly
good level, as old as I can get. And that's really I, I'm, I'm,
I'm very curious how, how far I can push it.
So I'm, I'm going to keep trying until I can't.
And I, I've thought about it a lot and I, I think it's going to
be the small things, arthritis or, you know, something, the
inability to grip the disc properly is probably going to be
what takes me out because I'll still be able to walk around
and, and do the rest of it. And my arms and shoulders will
probably be great. But I'm, I'm assuming that the,
the grip is probably going to be the hard part.
So I've been thinking about that and trying to figure out how I
can work around that as time goes by.
So back in the day, like I said, when I would travel to a lot of
the dynamic disk events, you know, you'd be the, the, the old
guy playing in the, in the MPO division and you'd still be
giving these kids a run for their money.
What do you think is the secret to to that for you?
What? How did you, how are you able to
keep up with these guys that were throwing farther and
farther and farther? Well, really, I've always been
able to throw fairly far and it really hasn't dropped a lot even
with the older discs. I said a a second place behind
crazy John Brooks throwing distance and it was, it was like
485 feet with 187g. I can't remember what it was,
some big platter and then time goes by and I'm still throwing
somewhere around 485 feet. My longest ace is from about 15
years ago. It was at 485 feet, but that
obviously I'm not throwing it as far as I was.
I'm, I'm now I figure it's more like 4/15, 4:20 somewhere in
there. But my putting skills have
improved, I would say quite a bit and my ability to look at a
shot and know what to do, well, that's that's improved
dramatically. I'd get up there and I might
throw the wrong shot or, or try and make something work in the
past. And now I've I've been throwing
for long enough now that I know what I should be doing.
It's just trying to pull it off sometimes.
Is the. Unpacked that for us.
Unpacked that for us a little bit.
Like, what are you thinking when you walk up to the T pad and
you're looking, you know, at the layout?
I know you can't. It's, it's, it's hard to give a
general answer, I'm assuming maybe because of so many
different layouts that are out there.
But what generally what's going through your mind?
What are you looking at first to kind of figure out what disk
you're going to use, And then what how do you go through the
whole process of knowing how you're going to throw that disk?
Well, first place is going to be what's the trouble on this hole?
What do I want to avoid? What do I want to accomplish if
I'm in a larger event? It's more like, how can I not
lose 2 strokes? You know?
I don't want to throw OB no matter what.
And so you shape your shot to avoid the problems and still try
and maximize the good stuff. So if I want to throw a straight
shot and I have a cross wind and I'm afraid of going to the
right, I'm going to throw something that's still going to
break from right to left. When it finishes.
If you know, even if the left is a little obstructed, I'm going
to try and push it over and then have it break back if I have a
shot. I've also tried to get a little
more, a little less aggressive because I do have a problem with
I know I can make this shot and I can do it like 8 out of 10.
That's not good enough. I mean, honestly, if you, if you
fail to convert, then you just lost a stroke or you stuck it
somewhere where you can't throw. And a lot of times it's as
simple as trying to go through a window or not choosing to pitch
out when you should just pitch out and take your lumps.
And that's the kind of thing that I, I think the pitching out
thing has come a long ways in the last few years because I
used to, I'd look ahead and I would go, OK, that little spot
right there, it's thinner. I think I can get through that
spot right there and if I do, I might be able to salvage this
hole. Well, no, no, it's way better
for me now I've I've recognized that if I just throw it out into
the middle of the fairway, throw it up to the basket and drop it
in, I may take a four, but I won't take a 5 or a six or or
whatever it takes to cut through that piece of forest.
So. Do you watch much disc golf of
the big disc golf tournaments? Do you watch on YouTube or
anything? I watch some of them.
I I like, I like watching the big boys play over in Europe.
I love the courses over there. They're truly beautiful and it's
on my bucket list. I'd I'd like to get over there
and have the opportunity to play while I still have the skills to
maybe be able to do something with it.
What are your thoughts on some of the progress you've seen from
players as far as their their skill level from the time you
started up to up until now? Overall, it's part of it is the
technology because the reason why I, I could throw 485 when I
was young and with a fat ugly disk and now I can throw, you
know, it just sort of followed me.
I rode the wave of, of disk improvement and that's what kept
my distance going. And I've, I'm looking at the
kids now who are coming into it with a knowledge of throwing
discs and lots and lots and lots of practice and, and they're,
yeah, I got to watch a lot of these guys at junior worlds in
Emporia and Gannenberg. Great example.
Holy crap, he throws far and he's very, very skilled and I
love seeing it. It's, it's fun to watch.
I can't duplicate it at this point in time, but I sure do
love watching it. And it's, it's nice to see the,
the skill level still there. You know, people keep improving
and I, I hope to, I don't know how much further they can push
it, but I, I hope to, to see it continue to the point where the
professional side is truly amazing.
And I mean, it already is, but I mean, even more to where those
guys are doing things that they're just dreaming about now.
Yeah. So take us back to or take
yourself back to, let's say not quite when you first started.
Let's say you've been playing for 2-3 years.
What's what's some advice you'd give yourself back then?
Wow, that's, that's a tough one because two or three years puts
me at the first beveled edge disc.
So honestly it was, I think I really started competing in the
early 90s and in like 919293 and I I played a lot.
Anytime I wasn't at home or with the kids, I was at the course or
I was dragging the kids with me to the course.
It it, it really, I would have spent more time practicing
putting and focusing on the different.
Well, I right now, I, I putt different ways.
I'll putt with a stagger stance, I'll putt with a straddle.
And as I play more courses and and see more.
Variations in crap around the basket.
I'm really happy to see that it's no longer just a nice clean
circle of, you know, 10 meters and they've actually started
putting obstacles in around baskets and things.
I think that really having to place your shot as you come to a
hole really improves the game considerably.
But the other part is that if you know how to manipulate a
round stuff with your putt and not just throw that straight
putt every time, then you're ahead when you don't quite get
it where you need it. And so you can maybe throw it
around the tree or throw it over the rock or, you know, and you,
you get better at finishing a hole.
And I think that's, that's a big deal because nobody ever is
perfect. And especially on the more
difficult courses, if you are off a little bit on your drive,
that puts you in a, a rougher spot for your second shot.
And with your second shot, you have to get to the basket
usually and, or get in a position to throw in a putt.
And so it, it just becomes much, much harder with the older
courses. Approaches were simple.
And I, I, I'm very good at simple approaches.
It's the, the ones that are more like another 400 foot Dr.
followed by, you know, where I want to put it.
That's a lot harder now, especially if you have a
congested landing zone. Being able to putt around that
stuff is very important. And I would have told myself
that long ago. It's not going to stay like
this, get the newest, hottest and, you know, continue to to
run with it. To a certain extent I did
anyway. But yeah.
So yeah, it seems like that's been a thing for the longest
time is people want the newest and latest and hottest, you
know, disk and you know, obviously, I mean, that's a yes,
people love to do that. But and then another thing I was
going to ask you is when you are practicing or I guess what
advice would you give? I know a lot of people like to
go out and they'll go play around and they consider that
practice. But how much of your practice is
actually playing around a disc golf versus just getting out to
a field and seeing what your discs do?
Yeah, field work is so important and that's that's part of what
I've been missing. So to make up for it, what I do
is I'll go to a course and I'll throw six shots on each hole,
you know, something like that. Instead of dumping the bag in
the field, I'll dump the bag on the course.
And it, I'm, I'm sure that in busier places that's hard to do.
I've, I've got enough courses around here that I can find one
that's not got a lot of traffic and just spend some serious time
working on trying to low ceiling or, you know, the different
types of shots that I might have to do on top of just open field
shots. I, I think that working with
obstructed fields and trying to bring it around trees and, and
working less with the, the open field shots is really beneficial
because it seems like course designs going more for tunnels
and more for high difficulty, throw it to a certain area and
then have to throw it from there.
And I, I love those courses because I can score well on
them. And people that throw really,
really far might have a little more trouble because, well, I
remember when I was just learning to throw far and I can
only throw like 300 feet. And it, it made a lot of my
decisions really easy because I knew I couldn't throw any
further than that. I would pick a spot at the
farthest distance that had a good landing zone where I could
continue from there to get to the next, you know, the next
shot. And it, it, that was, I didn't
have a choice. Now these guys that throw, you
know, 5-6 hundred feet, they have to figure out on those
shorter holes that are constricted where they need to
put it so they can get to the basket.
I, I, I dislike watching courses where they're allowed to just
throw a shot that's short of the general direction, but maybe 300
feet the wrong direction. You know, Las Vegas shows up
every now and again, some of those open fields where they're
not trapped by OB or by natural hazards, they can just throw a
big spike and it doesn't matter. And so they'll get a three from
somewhere from wherever. Now as as course design improves
and you end up with courses where you're not allowed to just
throw random giant shot that direction and you actually have
to pick a landing zone, I think you're going to see continued
improvement in the the skills of all these guys.
All right. I got one last question for you,
but before I do, I'm going to tell you, have you think of a
question? What have you been doing with
these last episodes that I was kind of switch seats with you
And have you ask any question you want to ask just to bring up
the conversation if you want to talk about.
So I'll let you think about that.
But before you do, we'll make you think more and ask you.
So let's say you've got one round of disc off left your for
your entire life, right? What course you playing?
What 4 discs are you using? And then who are you playing it
with? Wow, this is sort of mean.
Well, do I get to drag them all with me to wherever?
Yes, we're going to Europe. OK.
Yeah, and man, I'm not sure which one I'd pick.
There's some beautiful courses over there.
There's some. Beautiful courses over there,
but I I would be in Europe and I will take, I would take an
enforcer, a blister pro, an escape and a judge.
Oh OK, no need for a mid range huh?
That's I can throw my judges almost as far as I can throw
most of my mid ranges. There's a few exceptions, but I
think I can do an escape. I don't know man, That's that's
just something. I know, I know.
The enforcer though that, I mean, that's a pretty well for
me it is. It's a pretty overstable disc is
that is that kind of your one of your distance driver like a go
to distance or? No, no, it's not distance.
It's well sort of is. It's about probably 350
overstable. If I throw it up in there, it's
going to spike. If I want to throw a skip around
the corner, I can, I can hit the corner and have it fly and and
give me a good jump. There's there's a lot of tricks
I can lean on it with a forehand and, and probably get it about
290 and that's about it. But it it would give me a little
more flexibility in there is. That escape going to be a flippy
escape for you or. Well, I, I've got some that are
fairly straight and basically I'll put a, a tiny bit of hyzer
on it and it'll just barely turn over and it'll, it's just, yeah,
really darn straight. I I've enjoyed the escape
throughout the years. I don't think it's changed a
lot. It's just a matter of putting a
tiny bit of hyzer on it and throwing it, you know, level or
however you need it. I don't want to go to product
heavy, but it was interesting you, I had requested from the
team to send me some throws of the Heist because we're having a
heist release here pretty soon. And you actually had a kind of a
different take than what you've seen people talk about on the
Heist. Kind of tell me about that.
I've heard a lot of people say how under stable it's going to
be and that's not my experience. I'm I'm finding it to be if I
hit it hard it'll flatten out and go straight, very straight
and it will finish with a nice predictable heiser finish.
It's not, it's not flipping over.
I think the video I sent you, I actually released it with an
Anheuser and had it come all the way back over left of center of
fairway. So it's it's still got quite a
bit of strength in it even into a headwind.
I was finding a very straight flight.
I I look forward to seeing maybe what the other plastics do.
I wouldn't mind having one that was a little more unstable just
to play with because it goes very far.
It has good glide. And yeah, the only reason it's
not one of the four is because I'm not used to it yet.
But it's, I, I picked one up. Somebody had left one in Topeka.
I was up playing Topeka and it was right after the glass blown
and somebody had left one out on the field.
And so my group, everybody had thrown one.
I hadn't thrown 1 yet. And so I, I picked it up and
just launched it and it was a clear one and it went dead
straight at about 443440. Very nice.
Didn't really turn over, didn't really heiser a whole lot.
Just was pretty straight. So we all signed it and turned
it in. So somebody has a, you know,
there was no signature or anything on it.
That's fine. Another thing before we jump to
your question, I know and it's a project that you and I just
could never get get off the ground.
It felt like and I don't remember where we ended up with
it what, but it was your big you had for when you were with this
craft. You had written a very long but
very well written post or blog post, whatever article about
throwing in the wind. And then we transferred it over
to dynamic Disks, but then we wanted to do more with it.
But tell us so because you played mostly in Kansas, right?
Kansas is pretty much where you've been playing the majority
of your. Oklahoma in Kansas.
Oklahoma, no, Oklahoma, Omar, Oklahoma, yes.
Oklahoma. And you, of course you've been
down to the Texas tournament when dynamic just was in Texas.
Tell us real quick, what's your what's your quick, quick down
and dirty of playing in the wind?
Quick, down and dirty. I don't know if you can do that
because it was it was a pretty extensive article.
It had really good information. Yeah, the the simplest one would
be don't allow the wind to hit the bottom of your disk unless
you want to push. If it hits the top, it's going
to push it down. If it hits the bottom, it's
going to lift it up and and may not let it go where you want it
to. So it really depends on the
effect you want, but if you want to be safe, you want to have the
wind hitting the top of your disk.
Interesting, that's the simplest.
Yeah, we'll have to dig into that a little bit more as time
goes by. The article, it was a magazine
article that was called Mastering the Wind and it stayed
on the disk Craft website for seven or eight years.
And then when I moved over to DDI, brought it over and
obviously I've I've put it on several disks, the basics, the
wind directional and last year I released one with a hot stamp
again. So they're out there.
That's awesome. All right.
What? What question did you come up
with to have a conversation about?
Well, I'm curious what you think about the progress of you.
You've been in doing media for this sport for some time.
And I, I think media was always sort of a catching point trying
to get it in front of more people.
And now it seems to have sort of made the corner.
I, I, I saw it all over the place in places that I wouldn't
expect to see it. But I'm still getting asked
occasionally about you. You all go down there and you
throw Frisbees at, at, at. What do you throw the Frisbees
at? So what are we going to to get
to the point and and what needs to happen for the media to have
a big enough effect that I don't get that question anymore?
That's a great question. So what what I found interesting
is that I've been listening to some podcasts, disc golf
podcasts. One of them is the The Funsie
podcast. And there's a couple young guys
that create content. They're not pros, they play disc
golf. They hang out with pros.
Some of them do and they create disc golf content.
And I was listening to one particular episode and they were
talking about how they felt disc golf was right on the cusp of
just being mainstream. And they just like if we just
get more money into the sport or if we just would end up on some
big, you know, champ sport channel.
And I'm thinking, my gosh, we've been saying that for how many
years? I mean, I mean, literally word
for word. I mean, we've been we've been on
ESPN, of course, you know, was the lower, guess you could call
it lower level ESPN channels. We've been on CS, CBS Sports
Center. Of course, as long as you had,
oh, I don't know if you heard that Thunder.
Wow. As long as you had the right
amount of money, you could be on CBS Sports.
So it feels like we've been on some major networks.
We've had major celebrities play disc golf and put it out there.
We just haven't. I don't know.
I'm almost perplexed myself. I don't know why we haven't made
the jump where it's just like more mainstream.
I mean, a lot of people can blame the whole, you know,
people still think we're hippies.
I mean, Jimmy Fallon and Brad Pitt just put, I don't know if
you saw that video, but they're, yeah, they're wearing tie dye
and they're throwing, they're they're throwing actual lids.
They're not throwing disc off discs, but they'll throw it into
a basket. You know, we recognize what a
basket is, but they're being goofy and silly.
Of course, they're comedians. That's what they do.
They make fun of things. But even that to the extent it's
like, wow, they they that's still the persona put out there
that just a bunch of hippies wearing tie dye, you know,
throwing these big round pieces of plastic.
I honestly think it will take it's to me, it's just going to
it's never going to be a, a, a, a single moment.
I don't think that we're going to go.
That's the moment disc golf became mainstream.
It's the little things here and there, the appearance on Jimmy
Fallon, whether it's how stupid it is, the guy from Game of
Thrones out there posting stuff about playing disc golf, some
celebrity getting into disc golf and playing it a little bit
more. These young kids that are
creating content that are just, they're just disc golf content
creators. They're not necessarily have
aspirations of being in a big tournament or winning any big
title. They just want to create fun,
challenging videos. And disc golf is at the center
of it. And it's just going to be a slow
kind of a slow burn in my eyes unless something viral comes
along. But even then, I mean, Brodie
Smith was been viral how many times for Ultimate?
And they're still not a huge sport.
But there are I think they're the numbers are probably bigger
than disc golf. Maybe I don't, I'm not 100%
sure. But you know, I think it's going
to be a lot of small moments that lead to the time where you
know, you won't have it asked. You won't it won't be asked of
you quite as often. I mean, even in pickleball,
pickleball's much more bigger, it feels like.
And I still have people ask me, you know, what is the kitchen
and what is this all about with pickleball?
I don't know if it ever go away, but I don't know.
But I guess let me ask, let me come back to you and ask you
when, when will you think is that kind of your, your
littman's test of when disc golf is made it if people don't ask
you about you throwing what at a what?
Well, I, I get it less in different places.
So I, it used to be even in the home courses area where we've,
we've got 5, No 6 courses in Ponca City now, I would still
have people say you, you play down there in the park and those
are baskets. Those what, what do they do?
You, you throw, well, you throw it into the chains and it.
Oh, OK, I see. And you'll have to sort of work
them through it. And for a while it seemed like
that had gone away. And then as I travelled more, I
would run into it in other places.
And a lot of the stigma has, has, has changed because, well,
frankly, you know, the, the hippies are starting to become a
dying breed. They've they've aged out and now
you have, it's more like, it's more like bowling.
It's become a, a very serious blue collar sport to a certain
extent, at least in this area. You'll find all the guys that
are working the, the local just assemblers and, and people that
are, are working all the factories.
That's their blow off time. They'll go out there and they'll
throw things at trees. And I, I understand that that's,
that's there's not a whole lot better for your Peace of Mind
than walking through a park, throwing things at trees.
And if you can do that with your friends and make fun of your
friends at the same time, you're way ahead, you know, mentally
and, and physically. And so I think it, it might
possibly take the place of bowling in the long run that's
in, in sort of that direction. But I was just, I was just
curious, you know, if there was a media if if you thought
perhaps the answer was in in your venue and media, maybe
getting it out there. I remember the albatross.
We all thought, oh, wow, that made all sorts of news.
Billy Angle the top ten. That was a big deal.
James Conrad, the holy shot that I mean, that was huge.
I had, I had people, I remember when that happened, I had people
sending me the clip saying, Oh my God, I see your disc golf is
now in, you know, on this channel, this channel, whatever.
So that was a big deal too. And part of that was timing as
we get closer into COVID and all the the people that came along,
there's a ton of people who have no idea who I am.
And it's sort of fun. I almost want to do one of those
like the other man dresses up and goes, and you know what I
mean? The basketball player dresses up
like an old man goes down to the corner.
I almost want to hop in and go down to one of the the, you
know, like Charlotte or something and, and stop on one
of the harder courses and, and ask for directions and how I
play. You throw it like this.
And I think that'd be that'd be tons of.
Fun. That would be funny.
But yeah, I just just wondered what you thought, Bobby.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, obviously if we were to, you know, all of a
sudden be on, you know, mainstream ESPN or something
like that, that would be beneficial.
But it it almost as though, like I said, I don't know that it'll
be one big moment because what if we, I don't want to say that
we've maybe maybe we have failed.
You know, we had the moments, like you said, the albatross.
We had the moments where James Conrad and the Holy shot and all
that. Did we take advantage of that
enough, You know, did we, you know, did we, you know, did we?
I don't know what I can't answer the question as far as saying
what should, what should we have done?
And I'm not saying nothing was done, but maybe not enough was
done. I don't you know, I don't know.
I do know that, you know, it is a it is a successful sport.
I, I mean, there's still people commenting now I see.
Why are you calling this a sport?
You know, so there's still a lot of people making fun of it and
stuff like that because there's people making fun of pickleball
and pickleball keeps getting bigger and bigger.
So I don't know, but I'm along for the ride.
I'm here to ride the waves and have a good time.
And what's interesting is that, you know, I've been only, I've
been gone for 4:00-ish years from disc golf, a summers
change. Not a lot has changed.
Some of it has just kind of progressed a little bit.
But you know, even even the outfits that the the people are
wearing on it and tournaments has changed over the years.
I feel not, not since the time I've left, but I can, I can say
within the last probably 7 or 8 years, it feels like the even
the outfits that they're wearing on camera has improved.
Maybe that sounds hard to say improve, but I think you know
what I'm saying. I mean, I, I remember seeing
times like guys were just wearing performance T-shirts and
basketball shorts and they didn't even match.
And I'm like, I get it. I get it.
I'm not saying I understand disc golf has its roots and just, you
know, casual. But, you know, presentation is
something. So when you talk media, that's a
thing. And it's like people are going
to look at that and go, what is he wearing?
But if you see someone, a nice polo, nice, you know,
performance shorts, I think people will kind of take the
sport a little more serious. So anyway, yeah, all right.
Well, Ron, I appreciate you getting a coming on the show and
talking about your experience. And again, a big congratulations
on your 4th world title. And yeah, like you, like us,
like you said, I want, I'd love to see you keep going.
It gives me hope as an old guy to see you keep going through
everything. And I hope you win a lot more
titles. I think it's going to be
awesome. I got one more quick one.
It's funny. Yeah, I went to sign up and I
had the 5%, you know, the top 5% rating wise.
You get to sign up early in, in your division at Masters Worlds.
OK, well, I was qualified to play.
I've never played 60 before. I've never played 55 before.
I've only ever played fifty. That's as old as I've ever gone.
And so I tried to sign up for 55 and they wouldn't let me really
because my native division, because I'll, I'll be 63 August.
It was the 60s. They wouldn't let me even though
I was in the top 5% of 55 year olds.
Wow, that's interesting. All right, Ron, again, I
appreciate you being on the show and I look forward to watching
you out there playing playing more.
Thanks, Bobby. Have a good one, man.
You too, man.