2019 Utah Open - presented by Lucky Disc Golf

[aredoubles]

https://www.pdga.com/tour/event/39025
https://udisclive.com/live/utahopen2019

Preview of 2020 Worlds courses!
Rd 1 at Mulligans Creekside, Rds 2 and 3 at new course The Fort Buenaventura.

Rds 1 and 2 post-production already posted by Jomez.

 

[aredoubles]

I'm most interested in seeing what The Fort course looks like. We've heard a lot of buzz around it, supposedly justifying the awarding of Worlds here, since not everyone likes the Mulligans Creekside course.

A few of my notes from a half-distracted watch of Jomez's Rd 2 coverage at The Fort.

- The course is a bit of a mess, but that could partly be due to recent flooding that brought in a ton of debris.

- Too many holes seemed like pure luck to me. You hit a high window, and hope that it manages to crash through without hitting anything, but there's no way to purposefully pure it.

- Many/most greens were completely surrounded by small trees. One, that made approaches really difficult (slash lucky). Two, it created lots of obstructed putts. Not sure if I like that or not.

- Holy god, the view from Hole 16's teebox. Not sure if I actually like the hole design or not, but that rivals DeLa's Top of the World finisher as one of the most incredible vistas on tour.

- Hole 18 played as the easiest hole, and was a disappointing way to end the round.


Curious to hear others' thoughts on seeing The Fort on coverage.

 

[AHagglund]

Agree/agree/agree/agree/agree

 

[Hampstead]

Worlds caliber course? Hmmmmm....

 

[aredoubles]

Worlds caliber course? Hmmmmm....

Yeah. In its current (admittedly flood-damaged) state, this course is not Worlds-caliber.

I don't even think it's tour-caliber.

I'm not even sure if it's A-tier caliber.

With a lot of pruning, especially around the greens, plus adjusting some pin placements or OBs or mandos, maybe it could have the potential to get there. Like a flat version of Idlewild or something. But the more I think about the Rd 2 coverage, the less I like the course.

Where did all the glowing, reverent reviews come from? Does it play completely differently when it's cleaned up, or in a different layout? How did these two courses get awarded Worlds?

 

[Lazerface]

I watched the coverage - there were 2 "signature" holes per Jerm that were not used due to flooding (4 and 5 maybe). Regardless, I was very underwhelmed and echo some points above about lucky greens. Generally speaking, far from World's caliber. Cool views though.

 

[DanJon]

The wooded course seems very short.

 

[rocthecourse]

The course needs a lot of work to be good. It looks like it was just finished and opened up for testing.

Also, I am not a fan of surround the baskets with logs, particularly when the logs are only about 15 feet from the basket. On a bunch of holes you can just go hard at the basket and let the log backstop stop your disc and leave you with an easy putt. They need to push those logs out to ~40'.

 

[SD86]

Agree with all of the comments above that The Fort course is not ready for prime time. While I'm sure the flood damage did not help, what are they going to at Worlds if they have major weather the week before, and similar damage? The commentators were trying hard to say good things, but they inadvertently admitted that there are no consistent lines amongst all those trees, and that's it's better to be lucky than good. I was about to be very happy that it wasn't going to be all 'ball golf course' at Worlds... but now I'm wondering if it's going to be a disaster all the way around...

 

[JC17393]

The course not being "ready for primetime" is exactly the reason that the event was dropped from the DGPT (it's classified as a "test" event this year). They've got roughly 13 months to address the flood damage and general cleanup before Worlds. I trust they'll use the time wisely.

I'm not prepared, after watching two rounds involving four players, to say anything about the overall design of the course or critique any individual holes. The two that were lost to flooding could make a huge difference in terms of the course's quality in terms of how it will challenge the best players (the two temp holes were nothing special).

I will say I liked the logs and downed trees on some of the greens. Sure, it might provide a back-stop for some missed putts but they also serve as some reasonably obstacles when they stand between the player and the basket. The deadwood stacked on the sides of some of the fairways also wasn't the worst thing as far as added challenge, though the volume of it may have been higher than necessary and I imagine some if not most of it will be cleaned up over the next year.

 

[mopar]

My main critique was the course looked like it could use a lot of maintenance.
I'm not so concerned about the downed logs. That can be a design choice. Saplings, brush and tall grass being unchecked is another thing.

 

[eman6854]

I think the fort looked like it had good potential. They need that course to get played a ton to get it broken in though.

 

[brutalbrutus]

I actually like the course in general. Sure some of the holes are fairly short but they may be adding longer tees/baskets for Worlds. I like the idea of the open style course and a shorter technical woods course. As far as the trees near baskets go, that's just something people better get used to. Trees are our bunkers...


Any local guys actually know how this layout compares to the worlds layout?

 

[Flick Maniac]

52m hole has no business being in the same sentence as a Worlds layout. None.

 

[Streets]

The Fort is an improvement over that godawful BOLF course. Still though...Utah has a long way to go before hosting Worlds.

 

[Steve West]

52m hole has no business being in the same sentence as a Worlds layout. None.

It's better than the 91m Hole #7 which gave out scores that had almost nothing to do with skill.

 

[Nova P]

I love these diagrams so much.

 

[AshleyH]

The fort is a really new course. Flooding is really unusual for this area. I trust that it will look quite a bit different by the time worlds comes around.

 

[Whippetgood]

The fort is looking amazing right now. Crews have been working nearly every day since the Utah Open. The dock tee pads on hole 17 is almost finished.

 

[InDaWoodsDiscN419]

Looking good...

The fort is looking amazing right now. Crews have been working nearly every day since the Utah Open. The dock tee pads on hole 17 is almost finished.

Hopefully it is getting played a bunch! Please post more pics of the course, it is looking beautiful. Thanks. :hfive: