18 Down @ Waco: Soft?

[Cgkdisc]

Probabilities are tricky. It just takes a few unlikely events to crash the probability of them all happening at the same time. Doing anything 18 times in a row is unlikely.

Let's take the group: Paul McBeth, Eagle McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Calvin Heimburg, Seppo Paju, Simon Lizotte. None of them got a 2 on holes 2, 8, and 9 in either round. So, the best estimate is the chances are zero that any of them get a 2 on every hole. Actually, zero times zero times zero.

Plug any small non-zero number in there for those holes, and the probability that one player gets 2 on all three holes is still that number times itself three times.

Then, you still have to multiply it by the 1 in 381 chance that a player will get the other 15 holes all in one round.

So, getting a lot of 2s, sure. Getting 15, well... let them play 38 rounds each and you have a 50/50 chance of having seen one of them get 15 2s. Getting 18….

My calculations in the post above include a little bit of extrapolation based on the assumption of typical scoring distributions, which can include some possibility of scores that haven't been observed. So they may actually be a little optimistic.

Yes, the issue with shooting a perfect 36 on a course with an SSA less than 54 is that just one hole that's unreachable off the tee for even the longest throwers will make it near impossible. So I'm thinking the perfect round for those under 54 SSA courses would allow 3s on those unreachable holes. In the case of Fountain, I think 2 & 8 are the unreachable ones and 9 can be reached but is normally too treacherous to go for the 2. So maybe the perfect score there would be 38 versus the 39 Paul shot.

 

[Steve West]

Yes, the issue with shooting a perfect 36 on a course with an SSA less than 54 is that just one hole that's unreachable off the tee for even the longest throwers will make it near impossible. So I'm thinking the perfect round for those under 54 SSA courses would allow 3s on those unreachable holes. In the case of Fountain, I think 2 & 8 are the unreachable ones and 9 can be reached but is normally too treacherous to go for the 2. So maybe the perfect score there would be 38 versus the 39 Paul shot.

Anyway.....

to bring it all around to the main point. Par based on 1000-rated players is low enough to serve us for a long time. There will not be a need to go to par based on 1020 or 1025 rated players any time soon. At 1000 we'll see the same kinds of winning- and record- scores under par that golf does.

(For the Par Talk fan sticklers out there: Yes, I know par is not defined, nor should be determined by, the winning and record scores of the best players. No one did that. All that happened is that we adopted the 1000-rated player as the best interpretation of "expert" in the definition of par that is already in the rule book. It's just really nice that it works out to perform similarly to pars in that other golf game.)

 

[lyleoross]

Anyway.....

to bring it all around to the main point. Par based on 1000-rated players is low enough to serve us for a long time. There will not be a need to go to par based on 1020 or 1025 rated players any time soon. At 1000 we'll see the same kinds of winning- and record- scores under par that golf does.

(For the Par Talk fan sticklers out there: Yes, I know par is not defined, nor should be determined by, the winning and record scores of the best players. No one did that. All that happened is that we adopted the 1000-rated player as the best interpretation of "expert" in the definition of par that is already in the rule book. It's just really nice that it works out to perform similarly to pars in that other golf game.)

Mumble Mumble, torches, Mumble mumble, pitchforks.

 

[ChrisWoj]

Probabilities are tricky. It just takes a few unlikely events to crash the probability of them all happening at the same time. Doing anything 18 times in a row is unlikely.

Let's take the group: Paul McBeth, Eagle McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Calvin Heimburg, Seppo Paju, Simon Lizotte. None of them got a 2 on holes 2, 8, and 9 in either round. So, the best estimate is the chances are zero that any of them get a 2 on every hole. Actually, zero times zero times zero.

Plug any small non-zero number in there for those holes, and the probability that one player gets 2 on all three holes is still that number times itself three times.

Then, you still have to multiply it by the 1 in 381 chance that a player will get the other 15 holes all in one round.

So, getting a lot of 2s, sure. Getting 15, well... let them play 38 rounds each and you have a 50/50 chance of having seen one of them get 15 2s. Getting 18….

My calculations in the post above include a little bit of extrapolation based on the assumption of typical scoring distributions, which can include some possibility of scores that haven't been observed. So they may actually be a little optimistic.

My brain is just screaming the words "sample size" - can you get any real significance from such a small sample size? The probabilities you're describing as "zero" are meaningless probabilities from such a small sample size. I do understand that it fits right in with what you're saying regarding crashing the probabilities, I'm not arguing the general point being made. Just wanted to point out for general consumption how important sample sizes are to this kind of discussion.

 

[ChrisWoj]

Someone hand Kim Jong Un a disc...

Your creation of that post alone means Kim Jong Un has already carded the most hole-in-ones in disc golf.

 

[lyleoross]

My brain is just screaming the words "sample size" - can you get any real significance from such a small sample size? The probabilities you're describing as "zero" are meaningless probabilities from such a small sample size. I do understand that it fits right in with what you're saying regarding crashing the probabilities, I'm not arguing the general point being made. Just wanted to point out for general consumption how important sample sizes are to this kind of discussion.

I'm gonna get myself in trouble, but what the hay.

You can get some pretty significant results with very small sample sizes, if you understand statistics. It just depends on the data and what you're looking at. I know lots of folks hate statistics these days, but that came about because statistics often disagreed with what folks wanted to hear. Generally speaking, statistics match reality, and what folks want to hear doesn't. That's a bad situation.

If Steve did his statistics, using standard methods with the correct values, he will get a clear answer as to whether he had a large enough sample size and whether his result is meaningful. Besides the fact that Steve is an actuary (a very special type of statistician), statistical results have been balanced against real results for a very very long time and have been shown to be highly consistent. I suppose you could argue that Steve is... misleading us, but in real science, you publish your numbers (I think Steve does this) and anyone with a statistical calculator can check them.

When Steve tells us that something isn't statistically significant, presumably, he takes into account sample size (methodology does that) and that tells you how much you can count on the result. If the sample size is too small, then your margins of error become untenable, and the result is, you can't tell. Steve would presumably reveal that.

 

[Steve West]

My brain is just screaming the words "sample size" - can you get any real significance from such a small sample size?...

We can be 90% confident that getting a 2 on all three of these holes at the same time has a probability of less than 0.02%.

 

[wolfmandragon]

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

[OJnBasquits]

Why dont ya just reverse the order of tournaments during the calendar year? Then we can be done with all these great weather scores during the best weather across the country.

Weather watching trolls commence

 

[shanker156]

Par Convos

I just think we should leave the pars where they are and not worry about it, unless the holes are changed or molded into a hole that deserves a par change. My thing is that if I work my butt off and become the best at something with the tools that I have available to me, let me card a -18. BTW, everyone has the same discs so unless everyone else is carding a -18 it is not about the tech. I throw the same discs and I still suck...really bad.

 

[ChrisWoj]

I'm gonna get myself in trouble, but what the hay.

You can get some pretty significant results with very small sample sizes, if you understand statistics. It just depends on the data and what you're looking at. I know lots of folks hate statistics these days, but that came about because statistics often disagreed with what folks wanted to hear. Generally speaking, statistics match reality, and what folks want to hear doesn't. That's a bad situation.

If Steve did his statistics, using standard methods with the correct values, he will get a clear answer as to whether he had a large enough sample size and whether his result is meaningful. Besides the fact that Steve is an actuary (a very special type of statistician), statistical results have been balanced against real results for a very very long time and have been shown to be highly consistent. I suppose you could argue that Steve is... misleading us, but in real science, you publish your numbers (I think Steve does this) and anyone with a statistical calculator can check them.

When Steve tells us that something isn't statistically significant, presumably, he takes into account sample size (methodology does that) and that tells you how much you can count on the result. If the sample size is too small, then your margins of error become untenable, and the result is, you can't tell. Steve would presumably reveal that.

You CAN get what turn out to be statistically significant numbers out of smaller sample sizes, I agree. I know that there are pretty low bars to clear for many statistical tests. I'm not disagreeing with that. But looking at what we're talking about - a sport only just coming into its own - I don't think that we're looking at a professional field that looks like what one will look like in ten years, in terms of sheer talent level. Even Steve felt the need to do an optimistic extrapolation based on the fact that its hard to say what the professional field will one day look like. I believe we're looking at a very small subset of what will eventually be a robust professional population, and the chances that we're looking at little more than natural variation are hard to understand at this point with such a small group. The equivalent of trying to extrapolate modern three point shooting performances in basketball from performances in past decades.

 

[araytx]

I am going to make two posts and include data. I've been following these debates about the "soft par"over and over, and I don't see how you can draw good solid conclusions without data. I get that forums are about voicing opinions. These are just mine.

First this post, with the data of all the rounds of the 1000+-rated players who played W.A.C.O. Not sure if the O.P. saying players "routinely" shooting -13 to -18 meant that there's at least one or two such rounds every day, but the data show that not even most 1000-rated players shoot those numbers at W.A.C.O. "routinely".

For the 56 players rated 1000 or better (168 total rounds), there were 11 rounds of 53, -14 or better (6.5%), with more than half of those by three players -- Ricky, Paul, & Seppo.

Add in four more 54s makes 15 total rounds of 54, -13 or better (8.9%).

20% of these rounds were -10 to -13 and nearly 50% were -5 to -9. To me they were "routinely" shooting between -5 and -10. I don't think there can be any definitive opinion therein -- not mine or otherwise.

 

[araytx]

A lot, lot made of hole #18 and the "soft" par because the players were able to throw and easy hyzer and get in the circle for an eagle putt. True that happened this year. I've had discussions with several over what the pars should be, including Joey the course designer. His first thought that he told me way last summer was to make the two par5s into 4s and consider whether or not to make 18 a par 3.

This year the wind was very very atypical for this part of the country. It was windy on Thursday, but with the backwards direction wind out of the north at about 20-25mph. Then relatively calm on Friday and Saturday with N, then NE wind about 8-10 mph. When I played B.East on Sunday it was blowing about 10-11 mph out of the EAST, making that shot across the water pure tailwind; even better than the tail-cross which the pros had. It is typically played in a serious headwind, making the control much much more difficult to get the disc to the circle AND stay inbounds.

My opinion there, but lets look at the attached hole-by-hole data from UDISC. I loaded in Round 1 from 2018, Round 3 from 2018, and then Round 3 from 2019 for comparison purposes. (Note: I did re-number the holes on the 2018 data sets for apples-to-apples, since that's what they did for the event this year.)

With that typical headwind on Hole #18 in 2018, in round 1 that hole played third HARDEST at 4.38 avg, then in the middle of the pack in round 3 at 3.72. This year (without wind to speak of) it played as easiest at 3.38, one full stroke difference because of the very unusual wind pattern. I'm not sure I could ask the TD to change the par up or down based on wind; BUT... that's what the data say is a huge the factor in the difference.

And on other holes, making #12 a par 4 will make it the most difficult par 4 in disc golf. It played at 5.0 and 4.69 avgs last year, 4.89 this year. Shouldn't that legitimize the par setting there? What these data tell me is that this course is very different from its design without the pretty standard 20+mph wind from the south. Notice that the data show only holes 17, 10, and 4, and 11 (three of them wooded) consistently among the hardest; and only holes 16 & 13 (two of the park golf holes) consistently among the easiest. The rest move all over the place in difficulty for each round. That's NOT unusual for a course with significant woods; not at all.

That's my take.

With stats to back it up.

And no I don't think it's soft. When I talk to Joey there's often talk of making it a 64 or 63 par; the debate/discussion comes when deciding which holes.

 

[Emoney]

/thread

 

[Cgkdisc]

Here are some facts, followed by a question:

- Waco TD, Joey Harrell, stated the pars remained set at blue 950 level per the course design and tee signs since Ams were also playing the same course. TDs currently have the right to do that.

- Disc Golf Course Designers (DGCD) gold, 1000-rated par guidelines supported by the PDGA produce pars about 5-6 shots lower than Blue 950 level par guidelines for the same set of holes.

- With certain courses on tour relatively landlocked, not every course can be extended to gold standards.

The question becomes "Do we want to have par and our related statistics in our highest profile events be set inconsistently and not produced using standardized guidelines?" One solution, even if temporary, is just during those events, assign gold level hole par values for generating and displaying event statistics. Note that once event stats go "official" the PDGA doesn't even show over/under par anymore, just scores and ratings. These temporary gold par values would help increase viewer and commentator understanding during events plus provide feedback to the TDs and course designers for either changing some of their pars for future events, or even better, improving the design on certain holes to increase the challenge if the resulting gold par on the hole turned out to be lower than they desired.

 

[Steve West]

From JoeyH in the Par Talk thread: "I do think par for the course is setup for the 950 player."

So, for legit Open players (those at or above the 970 recommended minimum rating for Open) the par is soft. No question.

How soft is debatable, and whether it should remain soft is JoeyH's decision.

 

[DiscFifty]

Including the scores of 100s of ams, lower rated pros and saying the course is not soft seems a bit hyperbole to me. We're talking about the elite pro tour here.

So, for legit Open players (those at or above the 970 recommended minimum rating for Open) the par is soft. No question.

:thmbup:

Waco TD, Joey Harrell, stated the pars remained set at blue 950 level per the course design and tee signs since Ams were also playing the same course.

yah, I could see that being a problem for a TD, especially when you have 100s of am$ playing the same tournament. The problem now becomes if they ever change the par for this event, could Paul's -18 be challenged?

In regards to setting par, on the pro side you have to error on the side of the skill set. I think Nate Sexton said 302ft was the longest par 3. Is that correct?

 

[JC17393]

yah, I could see that being a problem for a TD, especially when you have 100s of am$ playing the same tournament. The problem now becomes if they ever change the par for this event, could Paul's -18 be challenged?

If they change the par but not the course, of course Paul's score can be challenged. A 48 on that course would be better than Paul's 49, whether they call it -19, -10, -2 or +47.

In regards to setting par, on the pro side you have to error on the side of the skill set. I think Nate Sexton said 302ft was the longest par 3. Is that correct?

It is, but woods make a difference. A lot of the par 3s were through extremely tight woods where as the par 4s, at least the soft ones, were more open. Open enough to make them easy to 3, but long enough to make many of them difficult to deuce. For the elite players, they were tweener holes and regardless of par, they'd remain tweener holes. They're either soft par 4s or they're extremely tough par 3s. Absent physically changing/tweaking the holes, it's pick your poison, I guess.

 

[mark996]

I think it could still be challenged if changed within 1 or 2 strokes. I think Paul left 2 strokes on the course didn't he? An Eagle and a birdie? Really only had one "bad" shot during the round where he got par. He could have birdied 11, and picked up the eagle on 9 boom he would have been -20 for the round, 12 was eagled I think 3 times? If he hits that he's -21. So yeah, I think even if par got changed a bit -18 is still possible for the elite of the elite (top 5 or so).

 

[DiscFifty]

If they change the par but not the course, of course Paul's score can be challenged. A 48 on that course would be better than Paul's 49, whether they call it -19, -10, -2 or +47.

True dat, I'm just mainly talking about the prestige of being able to simply post: "-18". Hey don't get me wrong..Paul's round was amazing and was easily the best round I've ever witnessed out there @ Waco. But like Paul said.. his other -18 was obviously a bit more challenging.