Jakub Semerád: the beginnings, offseason practice and much more

For today’s interview I invited Jakub Semerad, the best player in the Czech Republic and a new member of the proDiscgolf.cz Team. Kuba won the EuroTour in 2022, became Central European Champion and Czech Champion in 2021 and is the only truly professional discgolfer in the Czech Republic. In addition to European tournaments, he has also started touring in the USA and has been really succesful despite the great competition.

We will talk about Jakubs beginnings, about his offseason practice and much more. Enjoy!

Hi Jakub, could you briefly introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Jakub Semerád and I am 24 years old. I come from a small village called Žleby. I’m a professional discgolfer, but I also have a university degree, namely a bachelor’s degree at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies (FEKT) at Brno University of Technology. I originally wanted to continue to a Master’s degree as well, but in the end I didn’t enrol because I got a great offer from Latitude64, saying that they would support me in becoming a professional. I couldn’t refuse such an offer because I didn’t know if I would ever get such an opportunity again.

What made you decide to join the proDiscgolf.cz Team?

I joined proDiscgolf mainly because it’s currently number one in the Czech Republic, it has a lot of media power and we can help each other by me advertising for them and them advertising for me. In addition, Tomas Valik will be working there full-time now and he is helping me with social media, which means a lot to me and was one of the main reasons I made the move.

I was happy at Hunters Discgolf Club and my move to proDiscgolf was surely nothing personal. We parted on good terms.

When did you start playing discgolf?

Around 2014/2015 my brother introduced me to disc golf, but during the first year I played about once a month because I only went when he and his friends told me to. At that time I didn’t even know there were any tournaments so I didn’t take it too seriously and it was more of a relaxing activity for me. It wasn’t until about a year and a half later that I found out that disc golf was a bigger sport than I thought. By that time there was a first league tournament in Hostačov and after that I started taking discgolf more seriously.

What helped you the most in your beginnings?

Before I started playing disc golf, I would occasionally go to the park with my brother or friends to throw a Frisbee. We’d toss the trees, over the river or just between each other. At least that gave me a base. Then when I started playing disc golf, I didn’t want to throw anything but putters and midrange because the drivers would immediately fade out and fly all over the place. I’d say throwing a putter helped me a lot.

Back then, at a tournament in Hostačov, people recommended me to watch videos about discgolf technique to get better. For the next month I focused only on technique, and after I got back on the course, I moved from my previous 70-meter putter to 135-meter driver shots. I haven’t changed my technique since. The biggest thing that pushed me even further was the fact that I was really on the course every day at that time.

What is your favourite disc golf memory?

I like to look back on being on the Lead Card at the European Championships in Konopiště in 2021. That was something incredible for me. The whole tournament had a great atmosphere. I was also lucky that it was in my country, so I had a lot of Czech people supporting me. That was an experience of a lifetime for me.

What would you like to achive in your discgolf carrier? What is your biggest goal?

I’ve always set my goals gradually. For example, in Juniors my goal was to win a tournament, then in Opens it was the same, followed by the First League, Czech Championship, and so on. For this season, my goal is to make it to the finals of the Discgolf Pro Tour, where the top 32 players get to play. If I keep improving at this pace, maybe my goal will be to win the World Championship one day. But I certainly don’t have it in my mind. I’m just trying to get as high as I can in small steps and not have high expectations.

Who is your biggest role model? What motivates you?

I’ve played multiple sports in my life and never really had one role model. I’ve always looked at a few of the best players and tried to take the best from each of them. The same goes for discgolf.

What motivates me is that you can always push yourself further and further and there is always room for improvement. An example of this is the European Kristin Tattar, who has started to be sponsored by Porsche and other big companies and is nominated for Athlete of the Year in Estonia. These are exactly the things that motivate me.

What is it like for you to meet the best players in the world on a daily basis during the season? I guess you’re more used to it now, but how did you feel about it in the beginning?

Just like you said, I’m used to it now. When I started playing in America, I had enough big tournaments under my belt to prepare me for the leap to spending my time with the best. I was meeting players as a spectator and also as a player, so I prepared myself in baby steps, it was never zero to a hundred. In the beginning, of course, I also treated the pros like gods. Now I know they’re just normal people and I stay with them, like in their accommodation, travel with them, and so on.

Do you see discgolf more as a job or a hobby at the moment?

Discgolf is my job, of course, but fortunately I don’t really see it that way and I hope I never will. I see it more as a hobby, even though practically 90% of my life revolves around it. I think to see it as just a job would be really hard, because the mental pressure would be huge when in big tournaments one putt can mean several thousand dollars.

What do you do when something goes wrong? What helps you get through it?

The ideal is to take a break and chill out with friends, or maybe call someone and confide in them. Squeeze out some disc golf for a while and then it’ll settle down again. The worst thing is to wallow in it alone and think about it over and over again.

If I miss a putt in a tournament, for example, I don’t even think about it, because according to my stats I should make the one. Of course, it’s different if I miss 4 putts in a row. It’s hard to get out of that, but the ideal is to try not to think about it and trust your technique and what you’ve practiced.

What do you do during the offseason? How much do you play discgolf?

Last year, I took a break for about a month after the season, when I didn’t play much because I played almost every day during the season and I needed a mental break. I’m spending a big part of this offseason in Turku, Finland. I’ll be here for 2 months in total and then my tournaments in America will start soon. For example, I’m training here in the indoor arenas where I go to throw. There are some places that are only for Finnish national players, but there are also places where the public can go for a fee.

I also go to disc golf shops, where I throw in the nets and putt. The public can go there, but again, there’s a fee. I was lucky enough to get a deal with them and I can come there for free in exchange for social media promotion. Twice a week there is also a putting league, where even players with a rating higher than 1000 come (for example Väinö Mäkelä and Severi Saviniemi). Usually around twenty people sign up, with the sign-ups divided into groups where everyone plays with everyone else, and a different putting game is played each time. From that group they then advance to the playoffs. So far, I’ve gotten nervous every time I’ve been there, which is perfect practice for tournaments. I also practice putting every day at my accommodation, where I have a basket in the basement.

I also play outside sometimes. They have winter layouts here, which means that they convert the classic course to shorter holes (50-70 meters). Last year I had a problem with throws at that distance just because of power estimation, so now I’m comfortable with it and I feel like I’ve gotten better at it because of it. You do pay to play these courses, but they are very well maintained. Sometimes there are single round tournaments here.

Now I still go to the gym almost every other day, where I do strength training, mobility and speed training. I create these workouts myself. I take inspiration from the collaboration I had with a trainer last year and I also use exercises from the Disc Golf Strong channel.

If I compare it to last offseason, when I was at home in the Czech Republic, I didn’t have such opportunities. I practiced putting outside in the garden in the winter, which made me feel rather worse. I was also often working with players who were interested in training, so I didn’t have as much time to myself.

What would you say to the readers in conclusion?

Practice and enjoy discgolf. If you want to make it somewhere, it’s not that difficult. You have to work hard on yourself, work on your technique, and most of all, it takes time. I think anyone can take it as far as they can imagine.