Course Strategy

Scrambling

Recover cleanly when you are out of position.

Why it matters

Everybody throws into trouble. What separates scores is the decision made from inside it, and the expensive instinct is to try to win the stroke back immediately. One bad throw is a bogey; one bad throw plus a hopeful recovery is a double or worse.

How to do it

Accept the stroke that is already gone before you choose anything. It is not recoverable and trying to recover it is what costs the second one.
Find the widest, safest route back to a clean lie, even if it is sideways or backwards.
Take the lowest line available. Low shots hit fewer things.
Use a disc you can control from an awkward stance — a putter or midrange, almost never a driver.
Decide what score you will accept on this hole, then play the shots that guarantee it.

Common mistakes

Attempting the narrow gap that saves par.Count how often you would hit it. At one in four, three times out of four you are now in worse trouble a stroke down.

Throwing hard from a bad lie.Power magnifies whatever the awkward stance does to your form. Smooth and short.

Refusing to throw backwards or sideways on principle.A clean lie is worth more than direction. The card has no column for style.

Deciding the escape route while standing in the trouble.Step out, look from a few angles, and pick. The view from inside a bush is not a good basis for a decision.

Key points

First priority: get back in play.
Take your medicine — do not compound a mistake.
A safe bogey stops the bleeding.

The drill

Drill · Take your medicine — 9 holes, always taking the safest escape. Play nine holes with one rule: from any trouble, you must take the safest available route back to a clean lie, with no exceptions and no heroics. Compare the score. Almost everybody shoots better, and the number is the argument the instinct will not accept on its own.

Watch: Discraft Disc Golf Clinic: Getting Out Of Trouble — Discraft Disc Golf