Disc golf: You don’t need a mini (it’s all in your head)

It was only 10 or so days back that I wrote about why you should always use a mini marker during casual rounds of disc golf. Clearly, that wasn’t that long ago – and now this? What gives?

Well, to every point, there’s a counterpoint …

This is that.

There are a few reasons to use a mini marker.

However, two stand out as the most important of the lot.

First, should your disc come to rest in a tricky spot, using a mini could prove effective. By so doing, you give your foot an extra eight inches of real estate to work with – that’s the diameter of most golf discs. Sometimes, NOT using a mini does the same thing, but in the opposite direction. 

Regardless, for this reason alone, be it for a casual round or sanctioned tournament …

Have one in your bag.

That said, it’s the main reason people use one I want to address today: getting the aforementioned “eight inches” closer to the basket on the putting green. To help you better understand how insignificant eight inches are, here’s a list of things that are roughly eight inches long …

Get your mind out of the gutter:

• A pencil.
• A mouse pad.
• Most bananas.
• A kitchen knife.
• The average man hand.

Yes, disc golf is a game of inches. And yes, on occasion, sad putts fluff their way to the basket so pathetically that an extra eight inches would have led to a make, but let’s be honest about this …

That’s a rarity.

Not including blatant lay-ups, most putts miss high, low, left or right. And when they do miss short, they miss WAY short – like, embarrassingly short. Remember: I don’t care how nervous you are, one eight-inch increment can’t compensate for a disc golfer putting like a pansy.

The skinny of all this?

Inside circle one, the mini marker is mostly a crutch.

It’s all in your head.

Because if you think lacking a measly eight inches of power will cause you to miss a putt, oddly enough, you’re that much more likely to do just that. Paul McBeth doesn’t use a mini. Hailey King doesn’t use a mini. And though you and I aren’t worthy of even being mentioned in the same sentence as those two golfers, in a very literal sense, we don’t need to use one, either.

Will I, though?

Undoubtedly.

For me, it’s a delay tactic. Marking my lie, moving the previously thrown disc and addressing my putt, only to short-arm the thing within the 30-second window the PDGA gives me slows the inevitable pain and shame. No, I don’t need a mini, but I’m unlikely to part from it anytime soon.

“Clank.”

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