Best Disc Golf Gifts for Everyone on Your List

The holiday season is here, with it our curated gift guide. Find the perfect gift for the disc golfer in your life—or introduce someone new to the sport! From BIG gifts to stocking stuffers, we’ve got you covered with options for every skill level and budget.

techdisc, smart disc golf disc, disc golf training
TECHDISC measures speed, spin rate, angles, and much more!

Most products and experiences come with first-hand reviews, and our breakdown addresses a number of gift recipient categories. Plus, when you shop here you’re supporting our goal to help as many people as possible discover disc golf. So thanks from us, and them!

Whatever you do, don’t buy discs as a gift for disc golfers. We are very particular about our discs! Opening up our guide are some big ticket items and extravagant gestures.


BIG Gifts for Disc Golf Enthusiasts

Fully Immersive Disc Golf Simulator

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Let them experience disc golf like never before with a fully immersive simulator. Perfect for practicing during the off-season or hosting indoor competitions, this top-tier gift is a dream come true for any serious disc golfer.

X-Step Pro Turf Teepad

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Bring the feel of a professional course to your backyard or local practice area. This durable, high-quality turf teepad makes a great upgrade for any player serious about refining their form. When we built our course at Chaminade, we wanted the best teepad material for safety and durability. Turf is it, baby!

Disc Golf Group Event

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Imagine including a private disc golf event on a private course as part of a special birthday or engagement/wedding gathering. You can even include custom discs printed with your choice of image to use and keep.

Family Disc Golf Lesson

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Share the joy of learning and playing disc golf as a family! Tailored to all ages and skill levels, this private lesson offers a unique and memorable experience for everyone.


Gifts for Disc Golf Beginners

Disc Golf Gift Bundles

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Everything a beginner needs to get started! These curated bundles include essential discs and accessories to jumpstart their disc golf journey. A perfect introduction to the sport.

Private Disc Golf Lessons

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Give the gift of personalized coaching! Private lessons tailored to skill level and goals make an excellent introduction to disc golf for newcomers.

Author-Signed Disc Golf Books

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A thoughtful gift for both players and book lovers, these signed copies add a personal touch to any holiday gift exchange.


Gifts for Die Hard Disc Golfers

TECHDISC Smart Disc Golf Disc

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Upgrade their game with the TECHDISC smart disc, offering real-time data tracking to help players improve their form and performance. I use this personally as well as with clients on a nearly daily basis, and it can be a game changer. For two years now it has been the hands-down coolest disc golf gadget.

16×10 Visionary x DGPT Pro Disc Golf Net

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Perfect for at-home practice, this robust net is ideal for honing skills during the off-season or perfecting accuracy year-round. It’s also a great warm-up net for tourneys with tee times.

10×10 Visionary x DGPT Pro Disc Golf Net

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Compact and durable, this 10×10 practice net is still plenty big; a versatile addition to any die-hard disc golfer’s toolkit. I have an 8X8 from Visionary and it is lightweight, stable, and breaks down and goes up fast. Even better, the catching hole is placed for disc golf, not golf or baseball.

Hi-Top Disc Golf Shoes

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Engineered for maximum support and traction, these hi-top shoes are perfect for navigating even the toughest disc golf courses. As one of the advance testers I’ve been playing with these for six months now and I can attest to their comfort and support. Plus the lace stash is cool!

Disc Golf Shoes

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Designed with disc golfers in mind, these shoes combine durability, comfort, and grip to help players perform at their best. I’ve used these off and on since the first version came out several years ago, and they deliver on promises both general (water resistance and lightness) and disc golf specific.

bushnell Disc Golf Rangefinder

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Help them dial in their distance with pinpoint accuracy. This rangefinder is a must-have for players looking to improve their strategy and performance in all ways possible.

I play mostly on wooded courses, and when I visit a wide open course distances can be tough to judge. The Bushnell disc golf rangefinder solves that problem whether I’m in the U.S.(feet) or the rest of the disc golfing world (meters).

Author-Signed Disc Golf Books

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A thoughtful gift for both players and book lovers, these signed copies add a personal touch to any holiday gift exchange. I signed these as they are ordered, and am happy to include a custom inscription. Just ask!

disc golf gifts, disc golf books
School of Disc Golf owner Jack Tupp has written two acclaimed books on disc golf.

Stocking Stuffers for Disc Golfers

Idio Disc Golf Apparel and Accessories

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From hats to socks and 9 different t-shirt designs, Idio’s range of accessories offers something for every player. Perfect for adding a little flair to their gear collection.


disc golf in comfort and style

icemule coolers

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IceMule offers a wide range of styles, all built to handle the rigors that typical disc golf courses routinely dish out.

CEP Compression sportswear

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If you know a disc golfer who loves to play but is limited by a nagging injury, the right piece of compression wear may make a big difference. So, if you want ’em out of the house a little more often, this could be just the ticket!

ace pickleball

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If you ARE a disc golfer whose partner wants you to join them in exploring pickleball, resist the urge to get them discs! Instead, play the long game and get ’em some paddles and balls or whatever. They’ll be grateful, finally try disc golf, and Bam! They’re hooked.


Wrap It Up with a Gift Card!

Need one last thing, or something in e-gift format? A gift card to our shop or any of our partners above will show you cared enough to seek out and find a very special gift related to their number one passion (besides you).

disc golf shoes Idio disc golf shoes

New disc golf shoes!

  1. Intro- I needed new dg shoes!
  2. About Idio
  3. About the changes
  4. About my first trial (mention the difference, and what I learned about waiting too long)
  5. Update coming, not real soon.
  6. Links to past posts

A few days ago I received a package in the mail from Idio Sports. It contained a pair of shoes. Specifically, disc golf shoes.

My heart leaped! Both pairs of my current disc golf shoes have warranted replacing for two months, and it has rained nearly every time I tried to play in that period. I even strained a muscle slipping on the wet rocky slopes of DeLaveaga, not fully appreciating what the used-up soles of my old shoes would cost me.

Also, like any other disc golf junkie, the opportunity to use a new piece of equipment for the sport gets me excited. Especially when the products are breaking new ground, like TECHDISC, or in this case shoes designed from scratch for playing disc golf. We’re talking about specialized equipment, similar to soccer cleats or ballet slippers.

That is exactly what Idio is all about. They released their first such product, the Syncrasy, more than three years ago, and they are still blazing a lone trail to what should in time become a thriving sub-category of the athletic shoe market.

A pair of all-black 2024 IDIO Syncrasy disc golf shoes, posed to show disc golf-specific features on the toe cap, heel, and sole.

If you are not yet familiar with the numerous ways Syncrasy is designed differently than other shoes to specifically support disc golf play, here is a quick run-down. Go to the Idio website for more details.

  • A thick rubber toe cap to prevent disc golf-specific wear
  • A “Pivot Zone” built into the heel to assist plant foot pivoting on backhand drives
  • Strategically flexible soles tailored to disc golf situations and stances
  • Waterproof!
  • Lighter than hiking shoes or boots, tougher than trail runners
  • Minimal heel drop for optimal balance on all shots

I found that the first version of the Syncrasy delivered on all of those features, and just as importantly, mine held up great. I’ve posted some images below and will give a quick update to my original review at the end of this post. First, let’s see how the 2024 Syncrasy is different from the original version, and why IDIO says it is already a success.

The first version of Idio’s flagship shoe was a hit, especially when you consider it was conceived and executed from scratch. But I remember the CEO of Idio Sports, Craig Kitchens, telling me then that he expected the shoes would evolve based on customer feedback.

With a new model available now, it was time to put his promise to the test. Mr. Kitchens was ready when I reached out with the following list, and all items were the result of direct or indirect customer feedback.

  • Updated heel counter material for better adhesion of the midsole to the upper
  • Improved buffing and texturing of all bonding surfaces.
  • Improved gluing pressure, heat, and time to ensure proper bonding of components
  • Hardened outsole rubber to improve lifespan while not sacrificing grip.
  • Improved tongue gusseting to keep water from slipping in around the tongue area. 
  • Improved bonding of all TPU printed surfaces such as logo and mudguard. 
  • “Revised tongue material for finer feel of quality. “Although nothing was wrong with it before”

Many of the details listed above have to do with parts of the shoe staying together, and I do remember hearing from some people that that was an issue with the first Syncrasy shoes. I asked Craig about this and his answer deserves to be quoted verbatim:

“We had a great start with our shoes and made improvements across the board in order to address some minor warranty issues that we saw the first year. We maintained a warranty return rate of 3% which is right in line with the major brands, but now with the updates we sit at below 1% for the year. Proving that we are listening to the community and growing as a brand to always provide the best possible product for disc golfers.”

Craig Kitchens, CEO Idio Sports

Kitchens said all of the shoe improvements listed in those bullets above were the result of warranty issues that didn’t even occur at a higher-than-normal rate. That tells me two things: Users clearly validated the design of the shoes — their utility for the sport of disc golf — so Idio focused their upgrades on increased durability, comfort, and quality. I like that.

As you can see in the pictures of my first Syncrasy’s alongside a pair of Saucony Peregrine GTX’s, the Idio shoes didn’t break down in the most common disc golf-related areas for me and most disc golfers. Both shoes’ kept my feet dry until the end, but the soles and sides of the Saucony’s ended up in tatters.

IDIO Syncrasy on the left, Saucony Peregrine GTX on the right. It’s hard to see, but the uppers on both Saucony’s developed holes.

The bottoms are even more telling. The lugs wore normally with use on both shoes, but the Saucony’s developed holes ultimately exposing the Goretex liner.

IDIO Syncrasy on the left, Saucony Peregrine GTX on the right.

Silver Lining to a Rainy Round

It didn’t take long for a chance to test my new black Syncrasy’s in the rain. This shot from the parking lot at DeLaveaga, past the Hole 27 basket to the Hole 1 teepad shows what most of the course looked like.

After that one round, here is what I can say for sure. They felt great, and despite the saturated ground with puddles everywhere and off and on rain and wind, no water got anywhere near my feet. I put it that way because on a day like that, even if the waterproof liner does its job moisture can get in from above. Not the case with these. The tongue looks like billboard vinyl! (I’m sure it’s not).

My other initial observation is, the difference in traction between that round, wet ground and all, and any round during the past two months, was shocking. The soles work great on and off the pad, but that’s not my point.

As mentioned at the start of this post, I recently sustained an injury that is going to sideline me for a while (playing, not coaching). It was an injury that didn’t have to happen!

I was waiting until my current disc golf shoes either fell apart or stopped being waterproof to replace them. I paid little heed to the worn-down lugs because, until the ground was wet enough to be dangerous, I didn’t feel the loss of traction. Even though it was there.

The author trusting his plant foot during the 2023 Enduro Bowl.

The moral of that little tangent is to check your disc golf shoes and make sure they are still adequate to safely play wherever and however you play. I play technical courses and tend to put myself in all kinds of weird throwing positions. The shoes make a huge difference.

Idio disc golf shoes seem made for every terrain except sand (and what shoe is?), and I suggest all disc golfers give them a try, but the main thing to remember is shoes are an important piece of disc golf equipment. Wear something that gives you good traction and support, and pay attention to signs that either is breaking down.

I’ll try to update this post down the road, but it’ll likely be awhile. We’re supposedly done with the rain for the most part here until after the summer. I’ll believe that when I see it!

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

A Tribute to MC Flow, and How to Play Better by Balancing Challenge and Skill

disc golf book, disc golf lessons

MC Flow was not a hip-hop artist, nor a pioneering disc golfer from the early ’80s. He was a psychologist, and no one has ever referred to him by that name except me, in this post.

While researching my book, Three Paths to Better Disc Golf, I learned that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is the person credited with the concept of Flow. In the context of athletic performance and contemporary language, “In the Zone” may be the more familiar term for this state of being.

I read yesterday that Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chik-sent-mee-hai-ee) died on October 20th, a great loss to the academic community. After learning some new things about his teaching and having had a few years to reflect since mentioning him in the book, I decided to once again bring him to the attention of disc golfers who seek the elusive but wholly available nexus of optimized performance and enriched experience on the course.

Csikszentmihalyi was best known to academics who study psychology for his larger body of work exploring happiness and creativity. His codification of the ideal state of productivity, production, and engagement (flow) was his greatest contribution to the larger world’s understanding of the human experience.

Although the concept of flow applies to any long term endeavor that a person wishes to undertake and ultimately master, athletic competition provides the ideal vessel to understand, witness, and hopefully experience this elusive state.

When you think of an athlete being “In the Zone,” what is the first thing that comes to mind? For me it’s a basketball player who is making the right decision at every juncture, making every shot no matter how difficult. When this is happening, we’ll also hear phrases like “automatic,” “unconscious,” and “out of her mind.”

As I have come to understand it, though, flow isn’t a trance-like state where we’re either in it or we’re not- a plane of existence we may be lucky to stumble into once or twice in our lives. It is a target at which to aim, and much like aiming for one center link of a basket, even coming close usually produces positive results.

Csikszentmihalyi (aka MC Flow) used flow to describe a person being in a state of complete absorption with whatever they are doing, of being so involved in an activity that nothing else exists. In an interview with Wired magazine he explained it as “”being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away,” he said. “Time flies.”

If he had stopped there, this insight would still have been fascinating, but not very useful to those of us obsessed with optimizing performance. But thankfully he didn’t stop there.

The actionable crux of MC Flow’s hypothesis is a roadmap on how to get there. To achieve a flow state, he said, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur as both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results. If the challenge level is high and the skill level is low, the result is anxiety.

This brings me to the main new thing I learned about MC Flow’s hypotheses yesterday, and how it supports my concept of Disc Golf in a Vacuum.

Csikszentmihalyi believed that autotelic personality – in which a person performs acts because they are intrinsically rewarding, rather than to achieve external goals – is a trait possessed by individuals who can learn to enjoy situations that most other people would find miserable. According to the Wikipedia entry on the man and his work, “Research has shown that aspects associated with the autotelic personality include curiosity, persistence, and humility.”

When I had the mountaintop (Top of the World at DeLaveaga DGC, to be specific) epiphany that led to me formulating my own hypothesis on optimizing both enjoyment and performance in disc golf, I was zeroing in on some of the same general ideas as MC Flow. My big personal discovery had three parts:

  1. Immersing myself in the selection, planning, execution, and then evaluation of a shot, solely for the sake of doing so (the intrinsic reward) rather than as a step to achieving a low score on my round that day (an external goal) is the richest, most gratifying way to experience disc golf
  2. Remaining in or close to this state for an entire round almost always results in optimized execution and therefore optimized scoring
  3. Despite being wholly absorbed in each shot as it happens, I’ve found I am much better equipped to go back after the round, often many hours later, and relive the whole round

Csikszentmihalyi listed several conditions for flow, and others have taken it upon themselves to flesh out his hypothesis even further. If you’re interested in the broader topic I encourage you to hop onto Google and dig in. As it pertains to athletic endeavors, and specifically disc golf, I’ll focus on just one: You must be at the balance between the perceived challenges of the task at hand and your own perceived skills.

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The first chart in this post may make it seem like you need to be at the far end of both the challenge and skill side of the equation in order to experience flow, but this is not the case. The two simply need to be in balance. Other charts illustrating flow reference the term flow channel, and indicate that we merely needs to be redirecting ourselves into this ideal mix of challenge and skill. It’s not the only condition needed to achieve flow, but it’s seemingly the most important one.

In disc golf terms, this presents different directives depending on who you are and where you’re at with your game.

Less experienced and less skilled players can usually move toward the flow channel by simply being realistic about their capabilities and acting accordingly. When presented with a hole that “requires” a drive you don’t have – whether in terms of distance or shot shape – don’t take the bait. Figure out an alternative you CAN execute that gets you closer to the hole, even if it is unconventional. Remember, it’s all about finding that equal ratio of skill and challenge so you can stay balanced on the line between boredom and anxiety.

If you’re a skilled player wanting to get into the flow more, ask yourself if you’re at least on some subconscious level experiencing boredom. Maybe you’ve already determined what you can and can’t do on the course and have stuck to your comfort zone for too long. According to Csikszentmihalyi, you can’t remain in both the comfort zone and the flow channel for very long.

For example, even the most backhand-dominant players admit that certain upshots call for a forehand. If you’re in such a situation, consider upping the challenge part of the equation. It’ll probably cause you to veer quickly from boredom to anxiety – as the curvy line on the diagram indicates – but it’ll keep you moving toward your maximum mix of challenge and skill, Stay mindful of this mix and you’ll stay in or near the flow state most of the time. Any hey, that’s what practice is for, right? Working on skills in a less pressurized environment.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, you can’t remain in both the comfort zone and the flow channel for very long.

I started writing today to pay tribute to the man who explained being “in the zone” in scientific terms. When I returned home after that horrible USDGC performance in 2009 and discovered the transformative experience of truly focusing on abstract execution for its own sake, I knew I couldn’t have been the first to put it into words.

While I still think that in the highly-charged atmosphere of competitive sports the “focus on what you’re trying to do, not what you’re hoping to achieve” maxim is the key, MC Flow gave us much more. He gifted us with an excellent blueprint for using psychological tools to maximize our potential.