Q: If I want to continue to play into the cold weather, should I be worried about shattering my discs when the occassional errant throw goes straight into a tree? Any plastics to avoid or discs that handle the cold better than others?

A: Your question makes us realize that discs rarely break like they used to, particularly during the first generation of the beveled-edged golf discs, between 1983 and 1998. During this time, Innova, Discraft and Lightning made all their discs in one kind of plastic, widely referred to as "DX," Innova's term for its entry-level plastic, the stuff that costs $7 and wears out relatively quickly.

Lick, whom some people know as Joe Proud, recalls 15 or 20 years ago bringing extra XDs to every tournament, in case of breakage, which was common. And many of us who've played for 20 years can remember discs impaled on branches high in trees, often for years.

Fact is, we used to break discs all the time, especially in winter, when the cold makes discs harder and more brittle. Once in the early 1990s at a winter tournament at Toddy Brodeur's course in New Hampshire, someone broke a Stingray (at the time, a maximum distance driver) so cleanly down the middle we had to consult the rules for the following passage:

If a thrown disc should break and come to rest in more than one piece, the lie of the largest piece will be taken as the result of the throw.

It also took the group a few minutes to determine which disc half was bigger.

The Development of Better Plastic for Golf Discs

Dave McCormack, the founder of Gateway, explains that early golf disc plastic consisted of low-commodity resins like polyethylene and polypropylene. Plus talc / calcium carbonate was the primary additive for weight. The combination was much too brittle.

In 1993, Discraft began making its Phantom with thermoplastic urethane, or TPU, a much tougher material. But it wasn't until five years later that Discraft tried TPU with another model, its Cyclone, and followed shortly thereafter with its XLs and X2s, the first models in its new "X" plastic line, today Discraft's mid-level line, comparable to Innova's Pro. The concept of making models in different kinds of material would take off, ushering in the emergence of better and better plastic mixes across the board. The XL and X2 also introduced something else previously unheard of, namely the $10 golf disc.

Today's high-end disc plastic has many variations and, depending on the company, many different names: Star, Evolution, Sirius, ESP, FLX, Fire Grade Resin, Premium, Champion, Z, Opto, Supreme, and on and on.

One thing all of these successors to the original disc golf plastic composition can claim is they rarely if ever break. Sure, they'll melt, slice, warp, scrape, gouge and flat-out wear out, but they'll stay in one piece.

Today's Better DX / S / Pro D Plastic

Dave McCormack confirms our suspicions by explaining that today's entry level plastic is produced from much higher quality materials. Specifically, it now contains thermoplastic rubbers and other more flexible materials that make today's DX Stingrays, Pro D Buzzzes and S Voodoos much more resilient than they used to be.

So if you see a golf disc impaled on a branch, chances are it's been there longer than you've been playing.

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This will be the last Torque Novitski. After four years the questions and answers are starting to repeat themselves, so it's time to move on. Next month look forward to a brand new monthly e-column from Marshall Street.

Sincerely,

Torque Novitski, Marshall Street

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