The Edge Program - Take Your Disc Golf Skills To The Next Level

Summary – great program for teachers and clubs and youth leaders that caters to small and large groups. Time to get back to school!

If you are a teacher, youth leader or run a disc golf school the Edge Program is a not for profit educational tool designed to develop and enhance the skills of schools and clubs in disc golf. Great for juniors, courses follow a curriculum (up to 232 pages depending on the package) that’s been fine tuned over years and cater to groups of 60 people and more.

EDGE is short for Educational Disc Golf Experience Program. I would agree with their slogan, Discimus Per Vita, in other words we learn for life. Isn’t it kinda fitting the latin word discimus is in there? And who doesn’t want to learn how to throw a better discimus?

I don’t normally do this but here is Edge’s Mission Statement, which is kinda on point if you are wondering if your school or club is a right fit for this program.

“Disc golf can be played from school age to old age, making it one of the greatest lifetime fitness sports available. Specially-abled and disabled participate, giving them the opportunity to take part in a mainstream activity. Because disc golf is so easy to learn, no one is excluded. Players merely match their pace to their capabilities, and proceed from there” (source).

Schools and clubs looking for someone to take over or just to run a professional course activity will find the 9 chapter curriculum a wonderful asset. There are plenty of elementary middle and high school lesson plans and activities.

It can be a great introduction to disc golf, or a fantastic day or week out of the classroom which can also encourage our youths to take part in a more active lifestyle.

With disc golf courses soon to take over the number of golf courses in the U.S. Disc Golf is a sport anyone can play, and it’s relatively low cost to get into.

If you want to book an Edge package the topics are laid out in a simple easy to follow structure depending on the game level for the participants. For new participants the fundamentals of the game will be taught and intermediate and advanced level players will fine tune driving, approach and putting shots.

Education Combined With Fun And Games

There is some basic arithmetic thrown in which I’m sure plenty of teachers will like, or possibly shirk away from. It’s not so bad though as with all good lessons has a strong tie into the real world.

The classroom focused lessons looks at some basic math by analyzing disc golf course lengths, and incorporates this into a game with backhand throws as the illustration point.

This can help new and even advanced players work out distances and make for better shot types. It can help players to visually pick out a spot on the fairway based on calculations combined with disc and power physics and a good ole dollop of intelligibility.

So there are worksheets to fill in as well as physical activities. Oh but why? the youngsters just wanna play disc golf.

Think about it, if you want to getter better at Disc Golf, in a faster time than just practising for days on end (that will certainly help too!) as like most other sports or games, a large helping of maths and calculations are needed, and the faster or more adept you are at compiling these the better.

Most of the time these are just ticking away in the background. But if you are using an enormous amount of brain power making the cogs turn to understand the basics this can drain your batteries pretty fast.

The fundamentals of keeping score, navigating the course, and anlaysing your standings in the competition, are all part of the constant number crunching you need to be on top of when you’re involved in a good disc golf battle or tournament.

The Edge (Educational Disc Golf Experience) Program curriculum features problem solving worksheets than aim to fine tune your number crunching abilities. The curriculum is based around the standards set by The National Association for Sports and Physical Education.

So is this just a shoddy haphazard course? No way, everythings been designed by Disc Golf Elite World Champions, a recreational therapist and even a mathematician, to ensure your mental and physical skills are thoroughly enhanced. Innova has also supplied curricular materials so you won’t be using any sub-par second rate equipment.

With practice you’ll be a stat master with little effort. It’ll also help you to pick better discs based on distance and probability.

Golf pros have caddies for a reason, they help them work out what club they need next, based on distance, wind and environmental factors, and their scorecard. All based on maths, distance, capability, how they are playing that day, and risk vs reward.

Sometimes playing safe, conservative or even negative is the order of the day. Disc golf isn’t won on one basket.

Grants are available for schools and youth clubs to help pay for courses. Edge have a great track record and have introduced some 2 million new players to the disc golf family. This not for profit registered (501) charity is not some dodgy organization looking to rip you off. It’s mission is to increase the basic skills of disc golf, introduce more players to the game, and increase the physical health of our increasingly sedentary and overweight nation.

Disc golf is unique in that anyone can play it from a very young age to well into their senior years. May their mission continue to bolster the game and improve our nations health. Salute you Sir!