Tips for Playing Disc Golf in a Foot of Snow

My brother lives in Ohio, so it's not often we get a chance to play disc golf together. He was here in Utah for the Holidays, and we desperately wanted to go out and let the plastic fly. The problem was that we had more than a foot of snow. The snow was fresh powder, light and fluffy, and discs sunk beyond visible unless thrown perfectly flat.

Unless you enjoy playing paleontologist, digging through a foot of snow is not exactly a fun way to play disc golf.  So don't even try right?

Wrong.

Playing disc golf in the snow can be very fun, and tromping through a foot of snow is even better exercise than regular disc golf.

Here are a few tips to make disc golf work when there is lots of light fluffy snow:

1. Use Bright Color Discs - Yeah, this one is probably a no brainer, but just in case your common sense didn't register, don't use white discs. I find that the best color discs for snow play are bright red/pink. These discs show up well, and seem to have a little glow to them under an inch or so of snow.

2. Tape a Ribbon on Top of Your Discs - I read on a forum somewhere that tying a ribbon on discs was a good way to find discs in the snow. While the discs themselves go feet into the snow, the ribbon leaves a nice trail that usually stays on top of the snow, making it easy to find your disc.

On rare occasions, both disc and ribbon submerged below the snow. Even when this happened, the bright disc and ribbon were still partially visible through the thin layer of snow.

Using packaging tape, I simply taped a three foot long ribbon on top of the disc. After sixteen holes (using just the one disc for every drive and mid range shot), my tape fell off of my ESP Surge. The ribbon stayed on for the entire round for the Pro-D Buzzz and Surge that my brother used. Perhaps Duct tape would hold the ribbon better in the elements, and from our experience, the tape did seem to stay better on cheap Pro-D plastic discs. When applying the tape, make sure you do it inside to a room temperature disc with room temperature tape.

Once my ribbon was gone, my drives went a lot farther, but It was substantially harder to find my disc. Well worth the loss in distance for a more enjoyable round of snow DG. I'd estimate the riven reduced my distance by about 30%.

3. Be the first group to play after a new snowfall. When there were no footprints around, it was easy to see where discs went in the snow. When footprints were around, not so much. Especially after my ribbon fell off.

4. Bring a Towel and Keep it Dry. While the snow I played in was fairly dry, it was still nice to dry the disc off before each throw. The only problem was that my towel kept getting dragged in the deep snow. For other rounds of snow disc golf I've played I wore a jacket with a big pocket in the front. This made the perfect place to hold my towel, and my glove while I threw. When the snow is so light that your bag sinks 4 inches, chances are your towel will get wet.

You can play Frisbee golf when there is lots of snow on the ground, you just need to be prepared so that you will have fun.