As I prepare for the national disc golf tournament coming up in late October, I’m playing in a few tournaments leading up to the event to help me better understand and deal with the mental stress & anxiety that plagues me when I play disc golf.
I think… I might be on to something….
A good friend of mine who I have been playing disc golf with for 10+ years now is having a similar problem but perhaps not quite on the scale that I’ve been dealing with. We’ve been discussing what we can do to help alleviate some of the problems that happen early on in the tournament due to the adrenaline surging through our body from being excited, stressed, anxious, etc. We both suffer from starting out poorly and then later in the round everything starts working. lol…
We agreed we just need to warm up a little longer to burn off that excessive adrenaline and stress that might be lingering around. Just enough warm up to loosen the muscles, tendons. And while we’re at it, some cardio to get the blood flowing nicely. He’s going to apply this to a tournament in the morning, I applied this to a tournament….. today (9/6/2025).
Update: My bud had one of his best tournament starts ever! So we both consider this a good strategy moving forward.
I arrived at the tournament with about an hour until tee off. I did about 15 minutes of resistance band stretching. I then walked 3 holes and threw just a putter to get the arms working followed by a few putts. This entire warm up took around 30 minutes. I had an additional long walk to my first tee (on another course!) which ended up taking almost 20 minutes because I walked to the wrong starting hole. lol.. Lots of elevation on this course so I end up getting a nice unexpected cardio work out as well.
Last year I was taking a full hour for warm ups. This was a bit too much and it was causing some issues. Then my bud and I started doing only 15 minute warm ups. The thought was the muscle memory is there, we just need a good stretch and a couple of throws, putts, and we’re good to go. It seemed to work but looking back it was probably not enough to burn off that morning tournament adrenaline. hmm…
Tee off time, let’s go, I’m feeling great! yah… first hole I take a double bogie and I’m already behind by two strokes. lol.. But I feel fine, little to no anxiety or stress. But the important thing is I’m not feeling any adrenaline rush. Physically I feel fine! Long story short, I go on to play solid in this 2 round tournament and win by 10 strokes! I also beat my PDGA rating in both rounds which is always a welcome bonus.
So perhaps just a bit more active warm up to burn off some of that anxiety fueled adrenaline? That’s it? That’s all I need to come out swinging at all future disc golf tournaments? hmmm… Maybe… today my mental game was fairly solid. I did miss several birdie putts, but overall I was very satisfied by how I felt physically and mentally.
We’ll have to see how my bud handles his tournament with an extended warm up. Hopefully this will work out well for him as well.
Health Update: I’d say the past few days or so I’m 95% heart arrythmia free, which feels great. It’s so weird not feeling my own heart beat (like normal people!). I’m so used to hearing that thing thud and flop around in my chest. lol.. But I’ve been on this roller coaster before, going days, weeks, months with no heart arrythmia and then….. hello…we’re back! lol..
September 7, 2025
