How accurately can you possibly throw a frisbee?
And where are the viral frisbee accuracy videos?
I've always enjoyed watching incredible displays of accuracy in sports. For example, we recently had the Steph vs. Sabrina challenge at the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend. Steph Curry won, hitting 21 of 27 shots (scoring him 29 points—some shots were worth more than one point):
21 of 27 in 70 seconds with millions of people watching you is pretty impressive. Although the stakes were lower, I think this following video of Steph at practice might be even more impressive—he once hit 105 three pointers in a row:
A basketball hoop has a diameter of about 18 inches, and an NBA basketball's diameter is about 9.5 inches. So Steph reliably hits a target roughly 12 inches wide from 22-24 feet away. I say "roughly 12 inches wide" because if the center of the basketball is far enough from the center of the hoop, the 'sides' of the basketball will of course be bouncing off the rim—if all he had to do was hit the rim, he could easily 'make' hundreds of shots in a row.
In baseball, pitchers showcase incredible accuracy on a nightly basis. Home plate is 17 inches across, and pitchers can reliably throw pitches over a chosen portion of a plate from 20 yards away. This random message board poster claims they once saw a pro pitcher hit an 8-inch x 8-inch target 20 times in a row. Total hearsay—but believable based on what pitchers do every day at work.
I've never seen any viral videos of insane frisbee accuracy. A YouTube search returned this video that's been viewed 202 million times...but it's just a well done loop of a guy hitting a target once (throwing an index-finger-on-the-rim backhand, no less). My search also turned up a few videos (here and here) of an official WFDF accuracy challenge that I never knew existed:
I don't find these videos to be very impressive. Although the throws are longer than Steph Curry's three-point attempts, the target they need to hit is also MUCH bigger. And they're not even making as many as Curry—the two videos above set age-group records of 16/28 and 19/28.
It's a bit mean, and I don't like to be mean, but I can't really disagree with the gist of one of the YouTube comments: "I love frisbee but I didn't want to see this stupid nothing". The WFDF YouTube account has 30 thousand subscribers and these videos have only about 2 thousand views—they're not going viral because nobody is finding them all that impressive. (The world record in this event is apparently 25/28, which is at least sort of impressive).
On the other hand, there have been some examples of frisbee accuracy that I have found quite impressive. The New York Empire's recent game where they only had four total turnovers comes to mind. In 2023, Andrew Roy had a completion percentage over 98%, on 564 completions. In 2022, Solomon Rueschemeyer-Bailey had 484 completions and only 4 throwaways—right around 99%.
A friend I discussed this post with mentioned an AUDL player who plays in our local summer league. He's an incredibly good thrower—but on his AUDL team, he's nothing special. The elite throwers are that much better than him that it's clear to the coaching staff that he shouldn't be the one with the disc in his hands all the time. So those throwers must be pretty dang accurate.
How does in game throwing compare with target practice? And how is throwing a disc different from shooting a basketball?
Obviously the biggest difference between throwing at a target (or shooting at a hoop) and completing a pass in a game is that the receiver can adjust to your pass. You don't have to be able to hit an exact spot, you just need a good intuition for which locations your receiver can get to but their defender can't. A good receiver has a much bigger catch radius than the 1.5x1.5m square used in the WFDF challenge.
Shooting a basketball, even in-game shooting, is mainly hitting a target. Completing a pass in ultimate, in comparison, stresses understanding your receiver's momentum and positioning. But even in ultimate, more accuracy is always better.
Steph Curry also has some advantages over frisbee throwers. Obviously he's indoors—there's no wind affecting the trajectory of his shots. Arguably frisbee throwers also have more different throws (and release points) to learn—backhand, forehand, hammer, scoober. But Steph practices a number of shots, too—layups, lefty layups, floaters, fadeaways, etc—so I'm not sure this is a valid excuse for the frisbee throwers.
Another unique factor in frisbee is that an elite thrower is choosing the disc's flight path as well as its intended location (thanks to the same friend for pointing this out). Aside from releasing extra quickly or sometimes shooting a slightly higher arc, Steph's three pointers aren't taking drastically different flight paths. A huck in frisbee has to take the right path to the catch point, looping around defenders and hanging in the air long enough for the cutter to arrive—but not so long that the defense has a chance to block it. In this sense a thrower definitely has more 'throws' to learn than a three point shooter.
But overall, does shooting a basketball have any inherent accuracy advantages over throwing a frisbee? Or should we expect a world-class frisbee thrower to be able to reach the same level of performance that Steph can, when throwing indoors: hit a one-foot-wide target, from 7 yards away, 105 times in a row.
Accuracy on that level is pretty hard to imagine. But perhaps that's just because no one has ever thrown a frisbee as much as Steph has shot a basketball.
Disc golf is pretty similar to frisbee, and they keep lots of stats. This blog post says that the top disc golfers hit 90% of their putts from between 11 feet and 33 feet, and hit 36% of their putts from between 33 and 66 feet. This feels pretty impressive! Though it seems a bit less accurate than pitchers are at a similar distance (the mound is 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate). And the disc golf basket is of a similar width to home plate in baseball. It seems less accurate than basketball shooters as well: the world record for made free throws in a row—a 15-foot shot in basketball—is 5,221 in a row. I'd like to see a disc golfer hit 5,000 15-foot putts in a row.
Let's grade some YouTubers
Lacking any viral examples of frisbee accuracy excellence, let's look at what we do have—elite players doing accuracy challenges on YouTube.
First, we have Brodie Smith. "Brodie's Throwing Accuracy Challenge" was posted in January 2013. The drill involves him doing a repeated cutting pattern, catching a disc and throwing it at a mini lacrosse net.
By my count he shoots 5/10, with a few more throws hitting the posts. It's hard to say exactly how far from the target he was, let's say roughly 20 yards. It's also hard to say how much wind there is: although the noises picked up by the mic make it sound windy, the nets and trees in the video hardly seem to be moving.
(Bonus statistic: During Brodie's ten throws, the guy playing basketball in the background goes 3/3.)
My rating: I'm not even convinced I couldn't do better than this myself.
Next, we have Rowan McDonnell. "Great Ultimate Frisbee Hucking Drill + My 100 Throw Challenge!" was posted to YouTube in August 2023. He sets up four cones to make a 5x10 yard box, about 50 yards away from him (those numbers per his comments at the beginning of the video).
Four of his eight throws land in the box (one rolls out after landing). Another ends up near the edge of the box though I'd guess probably not in it. One lands "out of bounds" to the left side of the screen. One lands out of bounds past the bottom edge of the screen, though it would have been a great huck if there was someone there to catch it. One throw ends up off the screen to the right. (Note: he makes a comment about "throwing ten in a row", but he only actually throws 8.)
The results seem representative of the other sets he does in this video.
Let's do some quick math comparing Rowan and Steph. Rowan is shooting from 7x farther away (7.5 yards vs 50 yards). But Steph is shooting at a target that is 500x smaller ( 10"*10"=0.1 square yards vs 5*10=50 square yards). Even if we say accuracy gets harder in proportion to distance squared—lots of laws in physics depend on distance squared—Steph's skill still seems superior.
While the world record for free throws, as mentioned above, is 5,221 in a row, the record for three pointers (only about 7 feet longer than a free throw) is apparently only 209 in a row. Perhaps accuracy does just get way harder as distances increase.
My rating: He's definitely better at hucking than I am, but I'm not, like, blown away.
Jonny Malks posted "The Uprights Drill for Ultimate Frisbee Huck Precision" in February 2022. The drill involves trying to throw discs through a set of American football goal posts from different parts of the field. This site that sells sporting equipment suggests high school goalposts have a width of 23 feet, 4 inches.
Jonny throws from the 25-yard line, visiting different spots across the width of the field, meaning he's about 35-45 yards from the goalposts. He has a number of sets where he scores 4/5 or 5/5 from a particular spot.
My rating: Again, he's obviously a better thrower than me. But I find it hard to be blown away by a challenge where he's aiming at a space that's almost 8 yards wide (and of no particular depth). He’s not really doing much better than an NFL kicker would do on those same goalposts—and they have to use their feet. I think you'll need to repeatedly hit a much smaller target to have a shot at going viral.
Final thoughts
I've never seen any obviously jaw-dropping displays of frisbee accuracy. Of course, one possible reason for that is I'm not on Instagram (or Twitter, or Facebook). If you've seen any videos that really blew you away, please send them my way.
I want to see someone knock down ten beer cans in a row with a frisbee from ten yards away. I want to see someone throw five straight hammers into a basketball hoop from half court.
Are frisbees just inherently harder to throw than basketballs are to shoot? There could be an argument here. Something about how the "density"/weight distribution of a basketball or baseball make them more predictable? Or maybe the lift generated by a flying disc leads to some sort of unpredictability?
But maybe it's just that no one has ever practiced throwing a frisbee as much as basketball players practice shooting or pitchers practice pitching. Not enough people start throwing frisbees when they're five years old.
I really think this is an interesting mystery. If you have any thoughts on the topic, don’t hesitate to send me your hot takes.
So, how accurately can you possibly throw a frisbee? I don’t have a great answer, but I’d like to believe we can get closer to the jaw-dropping displays of accuracy we see in other sports.
Since there aren’t any great frisbee accuracy videos out there already, maybe I myself should create the content I want to see in the world. My accuracy isn't there yet but I'm working on it.
PS if you want to see something I *do* find impressive that I stumbled across in the process of researching this article, check out this disc golfer throwing a world record 176 meter thumber!
Update (2024-08-07): Here’s another Rowan video with a throwing challenge at the end. I don’t find this one particularly stunning either.