Cam Todd Pro Basket Prototype

[Emoney]

Easy courses are just that... Meant to be easy. You might shoot -12 at the local pitch and putt. A newbie, whom it was designed for by the way, might shoot +9 on a good day.

Challenging courses make Championship level events. Period.

Do they play The Masters at your local municipal golf course? The PGA Championship? US Open?

I think not.

If a noob starts with a basket like this , they won't know what they missed. It will also make them a better putter and maybe make them focus on putting, instead of buying a speed 18 driver.The short distances of the hole make it noob friendly. The baskets will add challenge to every division and keep the integrity of the game intact. Best way to add challenge to a course without a bunch of flags and OB rope.

Back to the basket. I don't care for the way it slides down. Seems gimicky. I would focus on making it very sturdy. These smaller baskets need to be able to handle the abuse.

 

[Highway Bill]

If the goal is to grow the sport to bigger stages, you MUST ensure there will be BIG moments for the camera...
Better Course design is the way to make the game more challenging and increase the WOW factor of big shots, big putts. Smaller baskets will only make learning the sport that much more difficult for newbies.

^this

It's probably a great practice basket though.

 

[thatdirtykid]

What these are really meant to do is stress the importance of a clean drive or upshot. The problem is two guys tied foe the lead. One shanks his drive and ends up 45' out the other pures the line and parks it. A lot of the top guys are 50% from 45', when often 45' is missing the green entirely.

I do think the amount of excitement the sport has is great, and I am unsure where I sit with the issue. More challenging but fair greens are ideal and more challenging coueses in general. That said I would love to see a lot of the courses around be more challenging. That's half the reason I love superclass.

 

[sjberry2017]

I'm not a fan of this smaller basket stuff at all. It will not make the game *that* much more challenging at the NT level. But it will make it MUCH less boring to watch. You will see less putts sunk from 50+ feet, you will also see a DRAMATIC drop off in aces. If the goal is to grow the sport to bigger stages, you MUST ensure there will be BIG moments for the camera to film and to keep the audience entertained.

Better Course design is the way to make the game more challenging and increase the WOW factor of big shots, big putts. Smaller baskets will only make learning the sport that much more difficult for newbies. It's completely counterproductive to the growth of the game.

This is after all, still a game designed to be FUN. I support innovation and it appears to be a nice enough target, its just not something that moves the game forward. If anything, as I have stated above, it moves the game backward.

I tried several times to type out what I thought of this basket but couldn't quite find the words, but this is pretty much it.

I like this basket alot . it's def the next step in disc golf. Look at it this way. Think about the easist course you have played, then imagine they replaced all the baskets with these. Turns your 12 under into half that possibly. Def makes the course all-of-a-sudden tougher

Yes, but that score didn't change because you made the drives any longer, the upshots any tougher, or the putting green all that more difficult. You've just made the target smaller. So the round isn't really any more fun or challenging, putting is just that much more frustrating. The solution to baskets isn't necessarily to make them more difficult to putt on, it's to stop making them easier. Look at the Prodigy monstrosity or the Mach X. There's almost no room for air between the chains with how many they've stacked in there. Chainstars, Discatchers, Mach II and III, even the Latitude Pro basket, are about where I think disc baskets should be and stay. They have enough chains to catch putts that belong in the basket, while leaving enough room for truly bad putts to still be missed. Don't make the basket more difficult, make the greens more challenging and the routes to the basket more difficult.

 

[thatdirtykid]

I am only half playing devils advocate, but am selling myself on the smaller baskets more and more.

How often I hear the top guys say "My comfort circle is 30' in, I know I have almost all of those. If I can take a less aggressive line and get to that circle I won't risk the tougher shot" Paul McBeth talks about that a bit. I think that it will even become a better spectators sport when the pros have to play more aggressive to get closer to the pin.

I don't know if my mobile post a minute ago posted, but to stress again I would rather see someone park a tricky hole and make up a stroke over the guy who hit the tree guarding the basket but was left with a circles edge putt keeping a stroke.

 

[Peterb]

Most pros I hear speak of too many chainouts on the existing baskets like Mach 3s. If that's the case, then the logic of making the putting surface smaller doesn't quite add up to me.

 

[thatdirtykid]

Smaller target same size tray. I bet you see less hit chains and miss. Most (not all) spits are hitting high or too far to the side.

 

[broomerang]

I am only half playing devils advocate, but am selling myself on the smaller baskets more and more.

How often I hear the top guys say "My comfort circle is 30' in, I know I have almost all of those. If I can take a less aggressive line and get to that circle I won't risk the tougher shot" Paul McBeth talks about that a bit. I think that it will even become a better spectators sport when the pros have to play more aggressive to get closer to the pin.

I don't know if my mobile post a minute ago posted, but to stress again I would rather see someone park a tricky hole and make up a stroke over the guy who hit the tree guarding the basket but was left with a circles edge putt keeping a stroke.

I agree with you that better course design that rewards players for hitting the best line and getting that 35 foot and in putt are the only way to truly take the sport to the next level. More risk/reward holes is another element that courses need, not every hole of course, but more of them. Safe shot = par. Risky shot equals birdie, bogey, or worse.

I don't see how smaller baskets factors into that at all.

Furthermore as an example let's look at an easy hole for an NT level pro . 300 feet, some guardian trees, etc.

95% of pros will opt for the Spike Hyzer because distance control is easier and they can avoid all the trees.

Pro 1 hits tree short, is left with a 35 footer and awkward putt under tree.
Pro 2 throws a spike hyzer, hits near basket is parked <10 feet.
Pro 3 throws a spike hyzer, same line as above but hits the baskets pole and it redirects oddly now he is left with a 25 footer.
AM 4 takes harder route because he doesn't have the power to throw the spike hyzer, avoids all trees, beautiful drive, is left with a 20 footer.

Results with Smaller Basket (effective gimme range of 15 feet):

Pro 1 = chooses to lay up because of distance/awkward putt and takes a PAR
Pro 2 = tap in BIRDIE
Pro 3 = misses due to distance/target size, PAR
AM 4 = misses due to distance/target size, PAR

Results with normal baskets (effective gimme range of 30 foot):

Pro 1 = Runs putt, but misses, taps in PAR
Pro 2 = Birdie
Pro 3 = Birdie
AM 4 = Birdie

As you can see all the smaller baskets did was reward the Pro 2 shot that didn't suffer the same bad luck of the Pro 3 shot, that turned a near ACE into a PAR.

The AM 4 shot was the BEST shot of the group that involved no luck. He hit THE line, truly beautiful to watch, but he is robbed of the birdie he would have easily had on the current baskets.

I won't disagree that smaller targets would increase spread among the field. My point is that it doesn't do it in a productive way, its less fun to watch people miss a 25 footer than sink a 50 footer, and its less rewarding for all players to hit the best line with the most risk and still have to look down a stupid challenging putt.

 

[Horsman]

Not a fan. All its going to do is make the scoring gap between pros and ams smaller. Putts from 40' which are normally missed by ams are still missed on the smaller basket. And putts from 40' from a pro are good a much higher percentage of the time on todays baskets. With the smaller basket they are going to miss a lot more. Thus the scoring spread between an am and a pro is much smaller. I think the basket is perfect how it is and the progressions that the MachX and the Prodigy basket have made are the way to go for baskets. There just needs to be harder courses for NT's and Majors.

 

[Jenga54]

You know what makes putts difficult in golf? Uneven Greens!! You always need to "read" a green before your putt. The cup is a little bigger than 2X ball width, but if it was a PERFECTLY FLAT GREEN then putts from pros would be boring!

What makes putts in disc golf difficult? UNEVEN GREENS! But we're dealing with flight, so put some TREES in the way! YES TREES IN THE CIRCLE. Want to see an awesome 25' putt? Give a pro a chance to read the green and make a bending putt! Bending putts in golf are awesome to watch -
"nice read!" Same here. Wanna make putts harder? Don't put the basket in the middle of a field.

Not a fan. All its going to do is make the scoring gap between pros and ams smaller. ... There just needs to be harder courses for NT's and Majors.

Exactly. You don't score higher at Pebble Beach than you do at your local CC because the cups are smaller, it's due to the difficulty of the course, not the catching device.

 

[MichaelWebster]

I think the baskets need to stay the size they are now, but we need to start understanding that the "green" from which top pros expect to have a reasonable opportunity to hole-out is around 80-100ft radius. Courses are designed to think of the 10 meter circle as the putting green, but courses used for NTs could be better designed to have good drives land 40-60 feet out and only spectacular drives land within the 10m circle. We are all applying pitch-and-putt mentality to great players, why not make a course for those players rather than make our targets rinky-dink?

 

[deadbody]

If we want to make putting harder go back to stupid cone baskets. Those are way more annoying, and less gimmicky than a changing height thing.

Otherwise what lots of people said before me. Watching pros miss putts isn't fun, watching them try to take lines on longer/more complex holes is. So make the NT courses harder, don't just make baskets suck more.

 

[pmay5]

Shout out to Can sporting the Walter's Disc Golf Emporium shirt. A great on course shop in Dover, NH. :thmbup:

Been there, dropped a few bucks there!! :hfive:

 

[JedV]

I just can't get over how low the thing is to the ground... Unless Cam Todd is 8ft tall.

Good concept, questionable execution.

 

[Chines]

Honestly I would rather see more O.B. at tourneys to make the course harder. I feel like the smaller baskets would just be a temporary shot in the arm to the pros. They would and will eventually get better as the sport progresses. The level of play has already improved from when I started following disc golf which has only been 4 years. I think taking the winthrop idea of taking a decently challenging course to a more challenging course is the better route. Atleast until we can get some more challenging championship calibre courses that these guys are craving.

All that being said these are just the growing pains of the sport growing and progressing. Players are getting better, there are more quality players and now the course design just needs to catch up. The baskets I feel would just be a gimmicky way to make the game more Challenging.

 

[DiscFifty]

I LOVE The idea of an adjustable basket for practice! However, we need the same exact baskets at every PDGA tournament in my opinion. Why some people focus on changing the "basket" I'll never know. In ball golf, if they want more challenge, is the first thing out of their mouth "change the hole in the ground" or "change the fairway", I'm guessing "change the fairway". The majority of existing courses are fine for 90% of the players. It would be very easy to make any course more difficult for the top players. Better designed ob's, mandos, islands, etc, etc. Those can be temporarily added to any course as needed.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Ball golf does change putting for the pros by cutting the greens lower (faster) than they do for rec play on the same greens.

 

[bballr4567]

Yes, the first thing in ball golf that is changed on Sundays is hole location. Just watch the Masters in a few weeks. You make the hole harder by making the putt itself harder. Disc golf doesn't give us that chance.

Making the basket smaller is that chance. You change the height on the last round and make it harder to nail that 35 ft putt for birdie. Just like changing the hole location on a Sunday in a ball golf major.

 

[Shipley]

I'd like to see a basket with a little more height then his prototype in the lowered position, and a slightly smaller diameter basket.

 

[dysmike]

What makes putts in disc golf difficult? UNEVEN GREENS! But we're dealing with flight, so put some TREES in the way! YES TREES IN THE CIRCLE. Want to see an awesome 25' putt? Give a pro a chance to read the green and make a bending putt! Bending putts in golf are awesome to watch -
"nice read!" Same here. Wanna make putts harder? Don't put the basket in the middle of a field.

Fully agreed. These are my favorite greens. The more the basket's buried, the better.