Distance????

[beereakfast]

I'd be shocked if more than 5% of players can consistently reach 300+ feet off the tee. For every one person posting here, there's probably 20 huckers out walking their dog and drinking a beer with their buddies while they play.

Sanctioned tournament players? I'd bet at least 70% of players consistently throw over 300 feet, probably 90-95% of Advanced/Open! But that wasn't the OP's question. It was what percent of disc golfers. And I see plenty of huckers out there that can't hit even 250 feet on a consistent basis.

Wanna drive a guy with 425-450 foot drive crazy? Beat them, round after round...when you can barely hit 330-340 feet under optimal conditions. Drive for show, putt for dough. Drive doesn't NEED to be that long unless you're playing Advanced/Open! But if you can get "surgical" in your approach and putting game, you'll kick 95% of people's ###es on the course. Regardless of how far they can throw it off the tee.

Yallzies play better courses than me. If I had to guess based on my local course, it's far less than 5% of players are over 300'. It is rare to see anyone even out of the regulars who hits the bushes on hole 1. Around 6 feet above the tee and about 280 to the pin with the bushes at 300-310.
There are a lot of folks who say they can do it, but it never plays that way in the game.

 

[zjones9]

Yallzies play better courses than me. If I had to guess based on my local course, it's far less than 5% of players are over 300'. It is rare to see anyone even out of the regulars who hits the bushes on hole 1. Around 6 feet above the tee and about 280 to the pin with the bushes at 300-310.
There are a lot of folks who say they can do it, but it never plays that way in the game.

Yeah, I play this one hole that is about 120 ft to the basket, but there is a road behind the basket that is around 300 ft from the pin and I have literally NEVER seen anyone throw it that far...:\

Seriously though, why would you judge someone's ability to throw over 300 ft when the hole is only 280 ft?

 

[Steve West]

'Nough with the speculation, time for some data. I looked at the throw measurements (the actual throws, not the model) that went into my Throw Simulator and came up with the percent of players whose throws went a certain distance by rating.

I combined that with the distribution of ratings as of the end of 2012.

For tournament-playing PDGA members, the percent of throws that go at least a given distance is as follows:

[FONT="Courier New"]Dis Female  Male
150 100%   100%
200  88%   100%
250  62%   96%
300  27%   82%
350   6%   55%
400   0.5% 24%
450   0%    5%
500   0%    0.3%[/FONT]

These are throws from the tee on a wide open flat long hole: the 750-foot "driving range" hole at Blue Ribbon Pines, before the elevated tee pad was installed.

This is based on how far the throw went, not how far a player "can" throw.

 

[mashnut]

Thanks Steve, nice to see some real numbers. That's a hole without a ton of trouble so most players are probably throwing relatively close to full power (though at the top end that creek can come into play, isn't it around 450' off the tee?) :thmbup:

 

[BionicRib]

^pretty sure that creek is just under or just over 400

 

[Chain_Bangers]

I believe you were taught by you tube videos. So I don't think you can claim self taught unless the videos were of you.

Yes your right. I was taught by youtube. The videos were not of me.

 

[Steve West]

Thanks Steve, nice to see some real numbers. That's a hole without a ton of trouble so most players are probably throwing relatively close to full power (though at the top end that creek can come into play, isn't it around 450' off the tee?) :thmbup:

Well, full power while still trying to get it to go in the direction of the hole, not just for pure distance.

That creek is kind of diagonal out there. I could find no indication in the data that throws were avoiding that creek.

 

[agibson]

Fascinating!

Is "850 Male" "less than 850"? And "900 Male" "male 850 to 900"? Or something else?

One view of the data, below. With numbers read roughly from the graph.

About 2/3 of players in each particular group threw it at least as far as:

850 Female 290 feet
850 Male 310
900 Female 310
900 Male 340
950 Female 330
1000 Female 350
950 Male 370
1000 Male 400

So, "most" players in a particular group threw it at least that far.

Very interesting to see the male-female difference for players of about the same rating.

The women manage to shoot the same scores with less power, apparently. (Or maybe men with the same level of other DG skills manage a higher rating because of their longer throws.)

For the men 30 feet of distance is worth about 50 rating points (or is it the other way around?) while for the women it might be a bit less, maybe 20 feet of distance for 50 rating points.

 

[Steve West]

"850 Male" is a male rated exactly 850.

You're reading the rest right.

It's nice to think that all I need to do to gain a rating point is throw a few inches farther.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Steve do you remember if the tee was flat ground when we did this? I'm thinking it was before they built the current elevated tee on this hole.

 

[mashnut]

Steve do you remember if the tee was flat ground when we did this? I'm thinking it was before they built the current elevated tee on this hole.

His earlier post says it was pre-elevated tee.

 

[Steve West]

His earlier post says it was pre-elevated tee.

...and it was a non-worn-out grass temp tee.

 

[HiFi]

"Creek"... lol

You are being generous. It's a sludge trough.

 

[mashnut]

"Creek"... lol

You are being generous. It's a sludge trough.

When I played there was definitely enough nasty water to lose a disc in.

 

[HiFi]

When I played there was definitely enough nasty water to lose a disc in.

Oh there was water there when I played it as well, but it was black as the night itself.

edit - don't get me wrong, the place is amazing, but those irrigation ditches or w/e they are running through the course were truly a hazard.

 

[DerekTonn]

'Nough with the speculation, time for some data. I looked at the throw measurements (the actual throws, not the model) that went into my Throw Simulator and came up with the percent of players whose throws went a certain distance by rating.

I combined that with the distribution of ratings as of the end of 2012.

For tournament-playing PDGA members, the percent of throws that go at least a given distance is as follows:

[FONT="Courier New"]Dis Female  Male
150 100%   100%
200  88%   100%
250  62%   96%
300  27%   82%
350   6%   55%
400   0.5% 24%
450   0%    5%
500   0%    0.3%[/FONT]

These are throws from the tee on a wide open flat long hole: the 750-foot "driving range" hole at Blue Ribbon Pines, before the elevated tee pad was installed.

This is based on how far the throw went, not how far a player "can" throw.

Good info. There's one key piece of information missing, however:

What % of male and female disc golfers out there have a rating of 850 and above?

A related question, that you might have accounted for: What about players who have never played a sanctioned league/tourney round, and/or are not a member of the PDGA (players who have no rating)? Are they simply omitted from the findings?

 

[Agricolae]

Who is (are) the 1000-rated female(s) in Steve's graph?

 

[DerekTonn]

Has anyone ever done any surveys/studies on courses out there, asking players:

1. Have you ever heard of the PDGA?
2. Are you a member of the PDGA?
3. Have you ever heard of __________ (State or local disc golf groups, vary by location)
4. Are you a member of __________ (State or local disc golf groups, vary by location)
5. Have you ever played in any disc golf leagues?
6. Have you ever played in any disc golf tournaments? Tournaments sanctioned by the PDGA?

Of the ~20 regulars who frequent our local course (that I know of, anyway), excluding the "course collectors" or passer-throughs who only play once every so often, the answers to those questions might look about like:

1. Yes 5 / No 15
2. Yes 2 / No 18
3. Yes 5 / No 15
4. Yes 2 / No 18
5. Yes 5 / No 15
6. Yes 5 (~2 sanctioned) / No 15

And FWIW, our course has hosted a C-Tier in the past. So...with those types of numbers, *excluding* all the casual players (maybe 40+ people?) who just like to throw a little plastic with their kids/grandkids or when a buddy comes back to town to visit, how many of them would have a rating of 850 or above? And related to Steve's previous quants, that data (I believe) was gathered on a pay-to-play course. How many casual players (players with no rating, who rarely compete in leagues/tourneys) pay to play disc golf?

I stand by my previous assumption that less than 5% of (all) players out there can consistently hit 300+ feet off the tee.

 

[Halcón]

^^ I keep saying that I'm going to do this, but never get around to it. I want to walk up to everyone and ask them who the current World Champ is also.

 

[Steve West]

Good info. There's one key piece of information missing, however:

What % of male and female disc golfers out there have a rating of 850 and above?

A related question, that you might have accounted for: What about players who have never played a sanctioned league/tourney round, and/or are not a member of the PDGA (players who have no rating)? Are they simply omitted from the findings?

The percentages shown do account for the number of tournament players at 850, 900, etc.

Here are year-end 2012 figures, from a pdf Chuck put together (which is somewhere on PDGA.com, I presume):

[FONT="Courier New"]
Skill Level  Women  Men Girls Boys
GOLD 980+       0%    6%   0%   4%
BLUE 930+       2%   30%   0%  19%
WHITE 880+      7%   39%  10%  32%
RED 830+       20%   18%  10%  22%
GREEN 780+     26%    6%   3%   9%
PURPLE 780>    28%    2%  19%   8%
YELLOW 700>    17%  0.3%  58%   6%[/FONT]

And as you can see, there were no 1000-rated women. That line on the graph is for x=1000 in the linear fit formulas for each percentage.

As for non-rated or non-member players, I'm not aware that anyone has measured their throws. Heck, we can't even figure out how many there are.