18 Down @ Waco: Soft?

[Flick Maniac]

How many courses in the world is really made for the few +1000 rated players..and how fun would a course like that be to the average golfer?
Cant really build a course for play a few days a year by the top pros, well you CAN but how would pay for it

Tampere Disc Golf Center. Especially the tournament layout is such that anything close to double digits under par will be phenomenal. (Hot round at Finnish Nationals was -6 or so IIRC)

I am an Average Joe but I love to get out there and play the holes in person. Celebrate every par (par = ideal score?). Very challenging but fair. There are many more "easier" courses where there is random luck or needlessly punitive shule that make it much less fun.

 

[Jolt]

Tampere Disc Golf Center. Especially the tournament layout is such that anything close to double digits under par will be phenomenal. (Hot round at Finnish Nationals was -6 or so IIRC)

I am an Average Joe but I love to get out there and play the holes in person. Celebrate every par (par = ideal score?). Very challenging but fair. There are many more "easier" courses where there is random luck or needlessly punitive shule that make it much less fun.

It IS hard to build a course that the best players just dont destroy . . Ale Discgolf Center build a HARD course, but then Simon came and played -11 rated 1075 ( par was rated 993 )

I think Par at Waco was 976 rated. . . how many courses have a +1000 rated Par in
normal circumstances, not many.

 

[JC17393]

It IS hard to build a course that the best players just dont destroy . . Ale Discgolf Center build a HARD course, but then Simon came and played -11 rated 1075 ( par was rated 993 )

I think Par at Waco was 976 rated. . . how many courses have a +1000 rated Par in
normal circumstances, not many.

Maple Hill Gold's par was originally targeted to be 1020 rated. Ten years ago, it was on target (par 60 = 1020). At the MVP Open last year, after quite a few tweaks and changes through the years, par 59 was a 1006 rated round. Players and tech are getting better. The good thing is they are a course that has the carte blanche freedom to adjust holes to make them tougher if they want. A lot of courses (parks in particular) don't have that luxury.

The future of the pro game is not in public parks.

 

[Jolt]

Maple Hill Gold's par was originally targeted to be 1020 rated. Ten years ago, it was on target (par 60 = 1020). At the MVP Open last year, after quite a few tweaks and changes through the years, par 59 was a 1006 rated round. Players and tech are getting better. The good thing is they are a course that has the carte blanche freedom to adjust holes to make them tougher if they want. A lot of courses (parks in particular) don't have that luxury.

The future of the pro game is not in public parks.

Let´s hope it´s not just ballgolf courses

But it´s hard, McBeths -18 is in a way good for the sport, in another way it´s bad . . . .hard to tell which is best

 

[JC17393]

Let´s hope it´s not just ballgolf courses

But it´s hard, McBeths -18 is in a way good for the sport, in another way it´s bad . . . .hard to tell which is best

It won't be. Part of what makes private courses like Maple Hill the future for the pro game is that they are dedicated facilities for disc golf. They're not sharing space with ball golf or walking trails or picnic areas or baseball/football fields or playgrounds. Deciding to extend a hole 100 feet doesn't have to be run through eight government committees and be sure to not encroach on other activities with a private course. If the space is there, it's used.

 

[VictorB]

Harmony Bends gold is a 1002 rated round at par (68) according to Mid America Open results last year.

I don't think the -18 at Waco was soft. I think it was easier than the -18 at Toboggan, but Waco is rated higher.

 

[Jolt]

the -18 at Toboggan look basicly perfect. . not much more to possibly make there. . .the -18 at Waco can be beat, he missed one birdy and two eagles that other players got

But again, they slaughtered the course this year. . Koling played the same score as in 2018, that score gave him the win in 2018, now it gave him 6th

 

[wims]

I think par at DeLa is 1000 rated

 

[JC17393]

the -18 at Toboggan look basicly perfect. . not much more to possibly make there. . .the -18 at Waco can be beat, he missed one birdy and two eagles that other players got

But again, they slaughtered the course this year. . Koling played the same score as in 2018, that score gave him the win in 2018, now it gave him 6th

Well, at Toboggan he missed a birdie as well. One that I believe at least one of his cardmates got that round and one I think he did get in at least one of the other rounds. So even that round *could* have been better.

I think you're right, the whole field played the course better than before. I think a whole bunch of guys are elevating their game and this "slaughtering" of courses is probably a trend that will continue through the season. We may be entering a stage of the game where the level of play is out pacing course design by a greater degree than we've ever seen.

 

[chosenmatrix]

If you are mad that the players are shooting so far under par, just pretend that par is 54. Mcbeth's "perfect" round is now -5. He still beat the course record by 3 strokes which was then -2. He still wins the tournament and was better than everyone else for the weekend.

Better yet, pretend par is 49, and the "perfect" round is even. It doesn't change his score. It doesn't change the outcome.

 

[SD86]

After reading this and other threads, one thing comes to my mind: no matter what one does, it won't be right. By that, I mean that any course made for the TOP pros like McBeth, McMahon, Sexton, etc., will have way-over-par scores for even the 'normal' pros, much less casual players.

And any course that is par for even good pros will still be torn up by the very top level pros we see on these top cards. They're just that good. And I've come to the conclusion that that is not going to change, no matter what.

 

[esdubya]

Loved watching the Waco coverage, I wouldn't change anything.

 

[XC_Eddy]

Was it more windy at Waco last year? Wind can affect the scores significantly on the park section of the course. R1 this year had some serious wind but R2 an R3 didn't. Jerm throwing -15 in those conditions is almost as impressive as Paul's-18 the next day in better conditions.

I agree that we're entering a season of player development outpacing course development. We saw glimpses of it last year at places like Konopiste where Eagle, Ricky, and Simon all went -16, Eagle doing it twice. High level courses giving up -15 plus with any consistency is a recent development.

Without doing the hard research, it seems that it's the courses with very scorable par 4's and par 5's that are giving up the really big rounds. The easiest solution would obviously be to just tighten the par on a couple holes. Adjusting the holes themselves would be more fun, though, and I love some of the suggestions in this thread already. Making Waco 18 an island would be killer. Rope or wall?

 

[JC17393]

After reading this and other threads, one thing comes to my mind: no matter what one does, it won't be right. By that, I mean that any course made for the TOP pros like McBeth, McMahon, Sexton, etc., will have way-over-par scores for even the 'normal' pros, much less casual players.

And any course that is par for even good pros will still be torn up by the very top level pros we see on these top cards. They're just that good. And I've come to the conclusion that that is not going to change, no matter what.

I don't think you're wrong, but should that stop us from striving to build ever more challenging courses for pros and ams alike? Part of that building process is talking about (not complaining about) the way these players score so well and finding ways to design courses that better challenge them.

Frankly, I don't think we should be all that concerned if "normal" pros can't break par on courses used at elite level events. That's how it works in ball golf. The players who are on the PGA tour are all the equivalent of our 1030+ rated players, and they routinely shoot over par at tournaments. Their version of 990-1010 "pros" are the club pros...players who can't crack the tour if they wanted to. Someday we will grow to that point as well. It'd be great if we have courses to match the talent on tour.

 

[BuiltTooLong]

I think Simon tried to go over everything on that hole 17 at Waco one year. . but i dont think he ever made it

I believe it was last year when Ricky tried it and went OB, then tried it again from where he went OB (prob 40-50 ft closer) and he made it in bounds AND canned the putt. One of the silliest par saves I have ever seen.

 

[davetherocketguy]

This is an interesting read:

https://udisc.com/blog/post/which-was-perfecter-mcbeths-18-at-waco-or-glo

 

[dorseymatt]

I don't know that there is a problem, per se, but it seems some of the par 4s and 5s are a little too routine for the top players. Hole 18 at Waco is an example of that. Making it an island helps a bit, but the fact is it takes probably 450 feet of power with a hyzer to get an easy layup for deuce or a putt for eagle. There is no obstacle to throw around. Maybe there need to be some trees that prevent the power hyzer, forcing players to go straight at it or throw a turnover if they want to go for eagle? It has to be a par 4, because it is a two-shot hole for anyone with much less than 450 feet of power (I'm saying 450 because Uli parked it for eagle, and he has stated he has about 450 feet of power).

 

[Jolt]

This is an interesting read:

https://udisc.com/blog/post/which-was-perfecter-mcbeths-18-at-waco-or-glo

Wow, nice work.

Would be fun to see statistics like that for "the best round ever" . . I think the -18 at GLO should be the highest rated round of all time

 

[Steve West]

This is an interesting read:

https://udisc.com/blog/post/which-was-perfecter-mcbeths-18-at-waco-or-glo

They did a good job with that.

Of course, if par had been set correctly, GLO would have been -15 and WACO would have been -12 and we wouldn't need all this work and discussion to figure out which round was better.

 

[RistoS]

I think Simon tried to go over everything on that hole 17 at Waco one year. . but i dont think he ever made it

Spoiler

He actually did the over the top shot in the final round (maybe you already watched the Jomez video), and not only did he clear the woods, he threw OVER THE WATER onto hole 18! He saved the par and didn't even lose that disc.