My Wife's Driving Technique

[Webslinger]

My wife started playing disc golf about two years ago. Pretty much just for recreation, though she did play her first tournament a few months back. Several months ago, I bought her a 150 class Pro Katana and Pro Boss thinking she might be able to get more distance out of those discs than she does with her 150 class Sidewinder and Valk. The other disc she's been carrying is a 150 class champion Teebird, which she would always use for a throw that required more fade (dog-leg left throw).
Well, she's improved quite a bit on her drives. The interesting thing though is that despite getting good distance with the Katana and Boss, she's outdriving everything with her Teebird. The Teebird has become her go-to disc on almost all drives and the Katana/Boss hardly gets used.
I think I understand why this may be so, but thought I'd put it out there to you more experienced players and ask this...
Why can my wife outdrive a 13-speed Katana and Boss with a 7-speed Teebird?

[keltik]

well unless your lovely bride has man hands she probably isn't getting as strong a grip on the Boss/Katana as she is on the Teebird. My wife throws the Comet the best. just be supportive of her and make good suggestions on her game. remember suggestions not commands. but be proud that your wife is wisely discing down.

[Webslinger]

The grip on the Katana/Boss vs. Teebird was something I thought about as well. I remember when I first threw a Boss. The grip felt odd due to the width of the rim. Took some getting used to. She does well with her Eagle too.
Though she doesn't have man-hands, my wife does slap the sh*t out of me on occasion, and may likely make that a common practice if I were fool enough to ever issue her a command.

[Dr. Burd]

Why can my wife outdrive a 13-speed Katana and Boss with a 7-speed Teebird?

The Teebird requires lower cruising speeds, and to my knowledge, a much larger and more forgivable range of them. You probably answered your own question. The Katana and Boss are 13-speed discs and the Teebird is a 7.

When she throws the Teebird, it spends more time actually "flying".

(Also, the rim size won't help.)

[JR]

TB starts to fade much later in seconds and depending on the throwing speed and nose angles etc. maybe even later in distance. Once a TB starts to fade if it even does it does it slower and usually takes longer time to hit the ground from the same height. Height depends much on the throwing speed. Katanas keep height better than TBs when they are thrown fast because the Katanas slow down slower but TBs hold height better at medium slow speeds. At slow speeds it's anhyzer/hyzer angle vs height dependent which falls to the ground fastest and which goes farthest at the very end of the flight. So it's a mess to try to figure out how many feet in different heights, hyzer, nose angle etc. each flies for any given player. Researching all the different things leads to a large matrix.

It's safe to say there are not many women that benefit from speed 13 discs vs slower ones. Val Jenkins throws speed 10 discs, Carrie Berlogar has used R-Pro 160 Bosses and they come in lower weights so that may be the only exception. Women's world record is done with a SOLF which is speed 10 I think. A man has made a distance record of 247 meters with a TB that lasted 45 minutes until beaten by a Valkyrie at speed 9. Interestingly the old male record stands and muddies up the field by being thrown with a slower disc than the ladies record. Lucky us as Avery Jenkins has thrown 255 m in practice with a Destroyer at speed 12.

[JHern]

...Why can my wife outdrive a 13-speed Katana and Boss with a 7-speed Teebird?

Speed doesn't mean distance. Speed means how fast you need to throw it to get it to fly how it was intended to fly. The Katana will maybe be useful for somebody throwing a Teebird 350'. If you can get it to turn over just right, then it'll "bolt out of sight" as the Innova description says. But unless you have the power to get it up in the air and turning, you won't benefit at all from this disc. Anyways, the Katana is very squirrely, and most other "high speed" drivers are too. Boss is the same, but requires 400'+ power to even begin harnessing its potential (at least for the more stable runs)...nice thing about the Boss is that it fades more reliably, so it won't be as prone to "bolt out of sight" when you really don't want it to do so.

My wife likes the Teebird, and has similar experience as your wife. But she drives with a beat 175 DX Valk (she has also done well with a 171 ESP Avenger SS) or 163 ESP Cyclone. She has just enough power to turn these discs over slightly, which is essential for gaining max distance. She can't come anywhere close to turning over the Katana or my DF Boss. She has now switched to using a putter (175 Wizard) for most upshots, which makes me happy to see ( ), since she's scoring par 3 an awful lot these days (playing at par 3, for a woman, means being competitive in tournaments).