Team Discraft: Mark Ellis Disc Golf Bio

	NAME:	Mark 'Lizard Lawyer' Ellis
	TEAM:	Masters
	HOMETOWN:	Brighton, MI
	PDGA #:	7423
	2007 PDGA RATING:	977
	BORN:	1955
	STARTED IN DISC GOLF:	1993
	day gig:	Criminal Defense Lawyer
	notable:	Throws forehand most of the time
	disc Cred:	4th, 2007 GM World Championships 2nd, 2007 GM World Doubles 19 PDGA singles events in 2007: 12 wins, 5 2nd place finishes 1st GM division, 2007 Great Lakes Open NT 2007 Michigan State GM Champion 22 PDGA events in 2006: 7 1st place, 9 2nd place, 3 3rd places 2000 National Doubles Pro Master Champion with Carlton Howard PDGA Senior Player of the Year, 2001 Michigan State Pro Master Champion, 2002, 2004, 2005 PDGA Board Of Directors (3 terms as Competition Director, one as Communications Director)

memorable disc golf moment:

One lovely summer evening a few years back we had finished a round at Kensington and a bunch of guys were sitting under a shade tree, drinking beer and discussing the issues of the day. The conversation halted when a group of three young, attractive women walked off the course, all attired in bikini tops and shorts. The women piled into a vehicle, inadvertently leaving a stack of discs on top of the car. The car started to exit the parking lot and several of the guys loudly yelled, 'Top! Top!' to alert the chicks to the discs on top of the car. The car rolled past us and the guys yelled louder. The driver just smiled at us and waived but kept on driving. As the car approached the main road it paused and the front passenger side window rolled down. One of the women reached an arm out of the car and waved a bikini top back at us. The guys roared. The window quickly rolled back up and the car started to speed away, causing the discs to fall to the ground. The car stopped immediately. The guys roared again. The vehicle just sat there for a minute, then the front seat passenger quickly hopped out, grabbed the discs and ran back into the car. She never looked back at us and yes, she was again wearing the bikini top. The vehicle pealed away.

Pro Clinics Featuring Mark Ellis:
Pro Clinic: Long Distance Drives Pro Clinic: The Fastest Way To Improve Pro Clinic: Making Long Putts Pro Clinic: Forehand Drives

Mark's Disc Golf Tips For Casual Players and Lower Level Tournament Players:

Practice for the Future
Disc golf is a life long sport and your practice should reflect that. Let's start with your normal routine. You go to your local course and throw the same shots that you have memorized from throwing them time after time after time. You don't even have to look at the hole as you walk up to it: you just automatically pull out the disc you want to drive with and know the landing zone you are aiming for. Before your drive lands you know within a couple feet how long your putt will be. You have dialed in these repetitious shots. Congratulations. How much does this help you when you step on a new course? How much will your game advance over time? Your home course (or courses) and your dialed-in shots are self-limiting.

There is nothing magical or fixed about tee pads. Try going to your local course and inventing new tee locations next round. Then the next round search for tee locations which reward your current skills the least. Then play the next round throwing rollers for your drives and forehands for your upshots. Then, on a day when the course is sparsely occupied play skip a basket (Tee #1 to basket #2, etc). By inventing new and difficult holes you are expanding your abilities and comfort zone. Eventually, you can go to new courses and realize that you are prepared for darn near anything you encounter.

Another limiting tendency is to throw your favorite shot too often. Let's say, for example, that your best shot is a righty backhand hyzer (how did I ever guess that?). So when you are in the rough after an errant drive you look for any righty hyzer line first, no matter how small. There might be a much bigger anhyzer line to the basket but you have so much more confidence in the hyzer line that you choose it anyway. You are holding yourself back. Instead, take the long term approach. What really matters is not that you shoot the best possible score today, but that you develop your game for the future. Try this: throw to the widest open route in the fairway (or an upshot) even if it forces you to try a shot you are not good at. So you will miss some shots. So what. Eventually you will develop anhyzers and straight shots and overheads and skips and rollers and forehands. You need these shots. Do not be afraid of them. Do not be afraid of throwing bad shots as you learn them.

Disc golf is a life long sport. Is there any reason you cannot be playing this game in 20 or 30 years or more? You need to develop and master new shots. Start now.

One Hundred Feet To Victory
Once a disc is within 100 feet you should be able to hole out within two strokes. Short, controlled upshots are a matter of practice. It is incredibly valuable to be able to park an upshot. If your upshot is within a few feet of the basket you have taken all the pressure off yourself and placed it on your competitors. On a tight course or a windy day how many strokes do you cost yourself by errant upshots? Come on! These are easy shots. The fastest way to shave strokes is to minimize errors on easy shots. The best practice for upshots is playing catch with putters. You need to be proficient backhand, forehand, overhand, hyzer, anhyzer, straight, high, low and skipping in all the different winds. Which ever of these things you cannot do will bite you. Look for the video of this skill on the Discraft website soon. Once a disc is within 20 feet of the basket you should be able to make the putt.

So let's talk about short putts. Although anyone can have a poor putting day, we know that in the lower tournament divisions short putts are high adventure. In wind they are comedy. The solution is to practice short putts. Most low-level players, if they practice at all, practice from way too far away from the basket for their skill level. So practice a lot from short range. Yes, I said a lot! Give it a half hour a day for the next two weeks and you will see a difference. Now I did not say putt for hours every day. If you are not focused then practice will not help. You cannot stay focused for hours. If you can focus for half an hour you are doing great.

Involved at all levels of the game, Mark Ellis shown here serving as the starter at the United States Amateur Disc Golf Championship

Involved at all levels of the game, Mark Ellis shown here serving as the starter at the United States Amateur Disc Golf Championship

But now here is the bad news about putting practice: It does not guarantee you will putt better any given day. More than any other skill, putting practice gives long term benefit, not necessarily short term help. So if you practice, then putt poorly the next time out or the next tournament, don't let it bother you. Just keep on practicing. Putting is all confidence. Practice your putts from short enough distances that you make most of your putts. Only move back when you have proven you can make the shorter ones. Putting is the hardest skill in the game to master. Most fine putters started just like you. They sucked. So they practiced and earned their current precision. They also have the ability to forget their last botched putt and make the next one.

Power, Schmower: Mark's Tips for Better Driving
Most players are way too concerned about power. Golf is a game of control, not power. OK, power helps and it is great fun to rip a drive that glides forever. But the easiest way to shank a drive is to try to throw too hard. So don't fall in love with power. Pursue CONTROLLED power. Leave the raw, unharnessed power to the other fools.

If you want power, here are the basics: Power is a function of form, wrist snap and fast twitch muscles. Your form you can do a lot about but there are limits on how much you can improve your wrist snap and fast twitch muscles. Some players are blessed with far greater physical benefits and will naturally throw far. Through general strength, stretching, coordination and conditioning cross-training you will improve (slowly) your snap and fast twitch muscles. And, of course, take your drivers out to the field.

The easiest and quickest way to improve power is by changing and improving your form. I know you do not want to hear this. You want to hear something like: " Just keep doing what you are doing, rip it as hard as you can, try this new driver, drink more beer and tomorrow morning you will wake up and wow your buddies! Sorry, I and many others have tried this approach and it does not work. Here is what does: GOOD FORM. Good form allows you to maximize the impact of your legs, torso and shoulders (the major muscle groups) on the shot. Most players, including you, have poor form. You started this way, are self taught, have never seen yourself on video and are not fully aware how much your form sucks. You may think they have great form like a Mike Randolph or a Cale Leiviska but sadly you do not. So how can you fix your form? It is best to find a good player to coach you. You cannot see what you are doing wrong. Yet, your errors are obvious to a good coach. If you cannot find a coach then you need to watch videos to see what good form looks like and a video camera (or at least a buddy watching you) to give you feedback. Or just come to Michigan. I'd be happy to give you a lesson. How do I know your form sucks? Well, you don't rotate back far enough and don't follow through nearly enough. You keep your head pointing too much forward and don't pull cleanly through the shoulders. OK, I cheated, I have seen you.

Lizard Games: Mark Ellis is a master of creating games that are fun, weird, and force players to practice disc skills.

Lizard Games: Mark Ellis is a master of creating games that are fun, weird, and force players to practice disc skills.

Once you have decided to take the huge step of changing your form, please understand that improvement is a slow process. You will get worse before you get better. So do not start a new driving style the night before a tournament and expect good results. It will take a few weeks of diligent practice (in the field not on the course) to develop better form and build confidence in it. Keep in mind that developing new form does not erase your old form. It is just a different way to make the shot. There will be times where the old form is right for a shot (for example you are stuck in a bush, have no run up and are shooting through the only opening you can see. Your new form may not help or may be impossible to use). So you are not replacing your old form, you are developing a new shot, an additional weapon. With good form you not only get additional power but an added bonus. The cleaner and smoother your form is, the larger the margin of error you have. With perfect form a missed shot doesn't miss by much. That's why Pros get such good bounces in the woods. The closer you are to the right line and velocity the better the deflections will be. It may not seem fair but the better you are the luckier you will get.

Play in Terrible Weather
The only way to learn to play effectively in terrible conditions is to...play in terrible conditions. Most players are fair-weather golfers. With the right clothes and equipment you can play in almost anything (lightning, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions, war, civil unrest and alien invasion excepting).

Go to your local course during bad weather. There will be plenty of available parking and no backup on hole #1. The few golfers who are there are players who are already good or soon will be. There is no way to learn how to deal with tough conditions by imagining how you would play as you sit comfortably on your couch, feet up, warm and dry and sipping a beer. One of the best training conditions for disc golf is big wind. You will learn to throw dead nuts flat because nothing else works. You will learn how small the margin of error is on upshots and putts in screaming wind.

If you have never played in a February ice storm blowing sideways on slick tee pads then you have no idea how to deal with it. There are a myriad of techniques that can make it bearable-even fun-with practice and experience. If you have never played in elevation or up and down big hills or in high heat and humidity then you are not ready for it. So if you want to remain a fair-weather golfer then let me ask you this: If you are in a tournament and bad conditions come up do you just quit?-new paragraph-Don't be a wimp. Life is too short to golf only in nice weather.

COURSES YOU SHOULD PLAY:
Course	Comments
Kensington Milford, MI	My most played and favorite course in the world. Kensington hosts two courses: the permanent Tunnel course and the temporary Toboggan course that is installed only for major tournaments. Yet my favorite thing about Kensington is the huge area around the practice basket and beyond. There is an area bigger than a city block that has parking lots, a beach house, pavilions and picnic areas that are widely unused during most parts of the year. This area becomes our private practice arena and the site of innumerable Lizard Games.
Winthrop Gold Rock Hill, SC	The physical setting of the course is lovely but geographically unspectacular. What makes the course great is its design and the brilliant use of artificial OB.
Flip City Shelby, MI	This private course is the labor of love of Bill McKenzie and his family. Beautifully manicured rolling hills belie how nasty the course treats errant shots.
Des Moines World's courses Des Moines IA	Walnut Ridge and Pickard Parks in the setups for Pro Worlds in '04 were superb power and control challenges.
Jordan Creek Whitehall, PA	A course used for Pro Worlds in '05. A great, mostly technical course with water and elevation.
Oshtemo Park Kalamazoo, MI	From the long tees a great course with many two drive par holes. Your first perfect, controlled drive only puts you in a position to make a second precise drive to have a chance at par.
Idlewild Park Burlington, KY	A tough, exacting, technical and power course filled with tight tunnels and omnipresent Out-of-Bounds. So long as you don't miss any drives or putts you will be all right.


In The Disc Golf Bag: Drivers
Disc	Comments
Z and ESP Crush (170 - 175)	My primary and favorite driver. As a forehander, I need a driver with great glide and overstability. Normally these two tendencies are mutually exclusive. You can get glide or overstability but not both. The Crush somehow does both and does both better than any other disc on the market. In general, the flatter the flight plate on the Crush, the more overstable it is. I throw the really flat ones. Actually every disc in my bag is the flattest I can find for that given mold. I, like most forehanders I have spoken to, find that flat top discs fit better in the hand for a forehand grip. The flat Crushes are dead nuts flat and fit in my hand perfectly. So if I want maximum distance on a shot that I want to hyzer at the end of its flight, I throw the Crush. Powerful, predictable, consistent. The perfect driver for a big power backhand or a forehand thrower. Between the Z and the ESP lines of plastic I don't notice any difference in flight characteristics. I tested the ESP plastic as it was released in many different molds. Generally ESP is a bit grippier and a bit domier than Z. In most conditions the grip factor is not an issue for me as I spray my discs with stickum (yes, stickum is PDGA legal and my favorite brand of stickum is called 'Pow'r Tac'). Some of the ESP discs come out flat topped and these are the ones I throw. I carry three or four Crushes in the bag in slightly different levels of stability.
FLX Surge (170 - 175)	My primary winter driver. The FLX plastic is the best plastic ever made for winter. Any other plastic (except soft D plastic, which is also excellent in cold) gets slippery and stiff in bitter cold like we have in Michigan. The FLX plastic is engineered to change less in temperature extremes. It was only released in January '07 so as of this writing we haven't had the chance to test it in the heat of the summer. The FLX Surge went in the bag immediately. I tested it one frigid afternoon and could instantly tell that it has better grip than any other candy plastic. So how is it working so far? Pretty well, I'd say (Editor's note. Pretty well indeed. Mark has won four back to back tournaments with the FLX Surge as his primary driver). FLX plastic has a vibrant and distinctive look. Players ask me what disc I am throwing, so I hand them the disc. So far, every single player that has touched it liked the feel of it. The responses are eerily consistent, 'Wow, this feels great! What is it?' The FLX Surge is more overstable than Z or ESP Surges and flies just like a Z Crush (generally Surges are less stable than Crushes but the FLX Surge is the exception to that rule). I carry at least two in the bag because I always carry at least two primary drivers and deep snow has a tendency to swallow discs.
Z Flash (170 - 175)	My most fun and semi-magical disc. For years I thought it was impossible for me to throw a perfectly straight long distance drive: A shot which leaves the hand dead-nuts straight and flies that way until it finishes straight with no fade or hyzer. Then I found the candy Flash. Wow! It is so fun to throw this disc. In my hands the Flash is a touch disc. I throw it smooth. I don't torque on it. And it flies straight and floats forever. Even though I don't throw it really hard it flies farther than any disc I have ever thrown. I am also learning how to throw it for a maximum distance anhyzer shot (the hardest shot in the game other than putting). I don't throw it into a headwind, I don't throw it hard and I don't throw it to hyzer. It is like plastic cocaine. It is such a rush to throw that it tempts me to throw it more and more. I carry two in slightly different stabilities.
ESP and Z Tracker (165- 175)	My primary anhyzer driver and for controlled soft tunnel shots. The Tracker is all about control. On most shots, control is much more important than power and the hardest shots to control are tight tunnels and anhyzers. One of the real challenges with an anhyzer is controlling the distance. The Tracker helps because you don't have to torque on it hard to get it to turn over. I can throw it smooth and flat and it produces a controlled, predictable response. I carry three Trackers: two of the original Z line (one has finally broken in after two years in the bag) and one of the new ESPs. The ESP Trackers are a bit more overstable than the Z line.
Z Talon (170 - 175)	My primary roller and headwind driver. In terrible headwinds the Talon fights better than a Crush or FLX Surge. The Talon does not give the glide of my other primary drivers but in big winds control is what matters. I don't roll often in tournament rounds. By happenstance most of my local courses don't require or reward rollers so I don't have as much practice rolling as I would like. Since rollers are inherently more dangerous than air shots, I avoid rolling except where required to get out of trouble. Still, rollers are great fun and I have a beat up candy Talon that I love to roll.
Z Reaper (170 - 175)	My main approach driver or short range hyzer driver. From 150-300 feet from the basket, especially in gusty winds, the Z Reaper is the preferred disc. It is very similar to a candy Crush with a bit less glide. When I have to hit a very tight hyzer line to the basket I have the most confidence in the Z Reaper. Because it does not glide a lot it is easier to control in terms of distance. I threw three hole-in-ones last year. All three were with the same Z Reaper (two were in tournaments). This Reaper is staying in the bag.

In The Disc Golf Bag: Midrange
Disc	Comments
ESP, X Buzzz and Z Buzzz, ESP and Z Wasp (170 - 175)	My midrange discs. I always carry the same two midranges, a red X Buzzz and an orange Z Wasp. Both of these discs have been in the bag for several years and both have very gradually broken in. I know both so well that although I could replace them with others there is just no reason to. In windy conditions or for particular holes on certain courses I might add a 3rd, more overstable midrange to the bag, in which case it is a Z or ESP Wasp. I don't often throw midrange discs. Generally I prefer drivers or putters for most shots. There is a small range of distances and conditions where a midrange is called for. Thus, midranges are touch shots for me. I don't throw midranges hard. They go straight or turn gently, usually through a tunnel. The great thing about a midrange is that the skip is easier to control. If you throw a driver it may hit and skip a lot or not at all. A midrange will skip a little bit and stop. Because I don't throw midranges much during rounds, and because it has a small margin of error, I actually practice it quite a bit. The X Buzzz was released several years ago as a limited production disc. They are rare and beloved and therefore hard to get a hold of. The plastic in the X Buzzz is a candy blend that stays surprisingly tacky in the cold. The new FLX Buzzz's are quite similar and worth a try. The Buzzz and Wasp are very similar to one another except the Wasp has a bead on the bottom that makes it more overstable. By finding the right plastic blend and weight almost any player can find a Buzzz or Wasp that will go straight or hyzer or anhyzer right out of the box. So there is no break-in period and in any candy blend the disc will maintain the same flight characteristics for a long, long time.

In The Disc Golf Bag: Putt and Approach
Disc	Comments
D Magnet and Soft Magnet (170 - 175 gm)	My main putter for the past decade. I prefer a Magnet in plastic somewhere between hard and soft. The middle range of stiffness in 'D' plastic gives just the grip and tackiness I want. Therefore, I change Magnets with the seasons. In the heat of summer a hard Magnet softens up nicely. In winter a Soft Magnet becomes stiffer. Last summer Discraft produced an experimental run of Magnets in 'Rubber', as Mike Wagner calls it (Mike runs the molding operation at Discraft). One day Jim Kenner (Discraft President) handed me a Rubber Magnet and said 'You might like the feel of this.' I took me about a second to say, 'Yes, I do.' It went immediately in the bag and stayed until winter. It will be returning to the bag when summer comes back. I love the feel of a Magnet. The form just feels right in my hand. When new, a Magnet is strong and overstable. It handles winds well for putts or approach shots up to about 200 feet. For upshots I am equally comfortable throwing it forehand or backhand.
D Rattler (165 - 175 gm)	My favorite golf disc. A disc for long putts, straddle putts and short runs. Outside the putting circle to about 100 feet, most shots I take are with Rattlers. The Rattler holds a straighter, cleaner line than any other disc. The key to this disc is to understand its strengths and weaknesses. The Rattler should never be thrown hard or into a strong wind. It simply is not made for that type of shot. But within 100 feet from the basket it will slowly float, hover and drop without gliding too far past the basket. The Rattler is also the best golf disc for playing catch. I carry two: one fresh and one beat up (it takes forever to beat up a Rattler so when you get one properly seasoned take very good care of it). Just recently Discraft produced a run of Rubber Rattlers. These feel great! As soon as it gets warm out (it is February as I write this)a Rubber Rattler is going in the bag.
D Banger GT and Soft Challenger (170 - 175 gm)	An upshot disc for big headwinds. In really strong winds I like a disc even more stable than a Magnet. Fresh Magnets are very strong but the margin of error is smaller with a more overstable disc. Depending on the weather I might instead use a Challenger in D, Soft D or CryZtal plastic for the same purpose.

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