Cam Todd Pro Basket Prototype

[broomerang]

Moving to the "next level" will require a significant jump in spectators to justify the cost to get there. A smaller basket could be even less interesting to watch than our current baskets (more misses) even if it turns out to be more challenging and interesting for the pros to throw at.

This was one of my points as to why I wanted to keep the current baskets as is. Growing the pro circuit means growing the spectator base as you pointed out. Keeping excitement high is an integral part of that. You will not see a putt from <30 feet making Sportscenter in the next 10 years no matter how difficult it is.

 

[tomdizzlefizzle]

That's because its not an anology.

 

[Emoney]

The memorial would be a perfect place to test a basket of this type. Those courses are basically wide open. To put these type of baskets at a heavily wooded course would not be an ideal experiment, imo.

 

[broomerang]

If your going to putt them at one NT event. You have to put them at all of them. I don't see how wooded a course is has anything to do with it.

I've heard some of the pros say they want putting to be harder. So let's see it happen at one of the true tests of disc golf, the usdgc.

 

[FranklinsTower]

If putting is so easy for everyone on here why don't we have more 1000+ rated players here then? The next time any of you play a tourney watch how many putts are missed inside the circle on the pro cards. It's a lot. Mcbeth and Simon are just freaks of nature. Make the greens/approaches harder=problem fixed....until everyone finds something else to complain about........

This ^^^^^ x 10.

 

[sidewinder22]

The best thing about smaller baskets is they should be less expensive and lighter than the current fleet of chained monsters. The worst thing about smaller baskets is probably having to putt on them in the wind and the lower visibility. I think the only time the current baskets would be considered easy is when there is little to no wind.

More obstacles in the airway of the basket would make putting more dynamic and challenging and interesting. Standard height and line on every putt is very static and routine and boring.

 

[New013]

^ bingo... i dont know what thread we were talking about this a few weeks ago in but i'll resay what i did say here again so you can read me say it if you didnt read me say it the first time.

making the baskets smaller shouldnt be how we go about making the sport more challenging until we've at first gone through and put the NT on proper courses that actually do create challenge on every shot. if a pro can throw a 400' relatively open hyzer approach to a green, land 40' in any direction from the basket and have a wide open relatively flat putt that is not a well designed green, and we see that time and time again.

people think scoring well on challenging golf courses in comparison to disc golf has a lot do with what is happening once you're putting. that's part of it but an even bigger part of it is that in golf it's insanely hard to get in position to have a good putt on challenging greens. if they're fast it's not only harder to putt it's harder to land soft in your chosen spot and the good spots to be are much smaller and challenging to hit. in disc golf in these big tourneys it's land anywhere inside of 60' and there's nothing in your way and hey if you land even further than that there's probably not much in your way.

we don't need to put 30 more trees per hole to make it more challenging like some suggest. all some of these more open holes they play need a few more strategically placed trees near the tee and along the fairway to force particular lines and then put more trees around greens forcing you to come in from a particular side if you want to have a cleaner look. players that good shouldn't be able to land anywhere and get the same look and they should be rewarded for placing their shot in a good position much more routinely than the current courses do. on top of that more needs to be done with how the topography of greens, ideally as top level disc golf grows and more money comes in the courses they play should be able to literally shape parts of the landscape by bringing materials and equipment in just as golf courses are built. i know that's not currently feasible but as things go forward that is the way to go not ****ing with the baskets because you dont like seeing paul mcbeth drain wide open fifty footers because nothing is in his way.

hell plant some 8' tall hedges out there around the green on one side so if you land outside of that you have a putt but it's not clean and it's not flat.

 

[Steve West]

Does everybody realize we can do more than one thing to improve disc golf?

Making the courses harder doesn't mean we can't set par correctly. Testing smaller baskets doesn't mean we can't make the approaches and greens harder.

Let's do all three.

 

[New013]

my point is the baskets shouldnt be smaller. it's not feasible and the only people who want to play on smaller baskets are pros who putt really well and people upset Paul McBeth putts so damn good. the majority of disc golfers don't care about this issue and probably wouldn't enjoy their monthly excursion out disc golfing if it meant they had to two/three/four putt all over the place because a small percentage of disc golfers wanted it to be harder.

honestly im not sure i'd still enjoy disc golf as much if i had to play on skinny ass baskets where that was the case. it would be taking away a healthy percentage of the most exciting shots in disc golf... ie.. aces, throw ins from distance, long putts. a very entertaining part about disc golf is you can make a bad shot and still recover with great one. if you make baskets skinny as hell you're taking that away from the game. now if i made a bad shot and i'm 80' out there's almost no chance it's going in at all, wow yeah that's really improving the game and making it more accessible and likeable to the mainstream public.

if the top guys want to do it go ahead but for the majority of disc golf it's not feasible to suddenly change the paramaters of what a basket is. i'd also be willing to be there's a solid amount of pros who don't want baskets to be smaller and are fine with the way they are. you're telling me all the pros who are on the lower side of putting consistency want smaller baskets?

this is just like the top guys saying they want more wide open longer courses... no joke you throw further and more accurate than most pros so of course you want another advantage to help you finance your disc golf job.

i'm convinced some of you don't even think about all of the ramifications of this. all you see is ten top guys making a bunch of putts on videos and think yeah it's to easy for them. when there's 80 other guys there thinking damn i wish putting was easier.

 

[Aim For The Chains]

Does everybody realize we can do more than one thing to improve disc golf?

Making the courses harder doesn't mean we can't set par correctly. Testing smaller baskets doesn't mean we can't make the approaches and greens harder.

Let's do all three.

#Par2DiscGolf

 

[coupe]

^ bingo... i dont know what thread we were talking about this a few weeks ago in but i'll resay what i did say here again so you can read me say it if you didnt read me say it the first time.

making the baskets smaller shouldnt be how we go about making the sport more challenging until we've at first gone through and put the NT on proper courses that actually do create challenge on every shot. if a pro can throw a 400' relatively open hyzer approach to a green, land 40' in any direction from the basket and have a wide open relatively flat putt that is not a well designed green, and we see that time and time again.

people think scoring well on challenging golf courses in comparison to disc golf has a lot do with what is happening once you're putting. that's part of it but an even bigger part of it is that in golf it's insanely hard to get in position to have a good putt on challenging greens. if they're fast it's not only harder to putt it's harder to land soft in your chosen spot and the good spots to be are much smaller and challenging to hit. in disc golf in these big tourneys it's land anywhere inside of 60' and there's nothing in your way and hey if you land even further than that there's probably not much in your way.

we don't need to put 30 more trees per hole to make it more challenging like some suggest. all some of these more open holes they play need a few more strategically placed trees near the tee and along the fairway to force particular lines and then put more trees around greens forcing you to come in from a particular side if you want to have a cleaner look. players that good shouldn't be able to land anywhere and get the same look and they should be rewarded for placing their shot in a good position much more routinely than the current courses do. on top of that more needs to be done with how the topography of greens, ideally as top level disc golf grows and more money comes in the courses they play should be able to literally shape parts of the landscape by bringing materials and equipment in just as golf courses are built. i know that's not currently feasible but as things go forward that is the way to go not ****ing with the baskets because you dont like seeing paul mcbeth drain wide open fifty footers because nothing is in his way.

hell plant some 8' tall hedges out there around the green on one side so if you land outside of that you have a putt but it's not clean and it's not flat.

Easy to say, a helluva lot harder to actually DO.

Are you volunteering to raise the funds necessary to implement these changes, pow-wow with the P&Rs for the necessary permissions, and marshall the volunteers, and organize and direct the workdays necessary to make them a reality?

 

[Slider]

my point is the baskets shouldnt be smaller. it's not feasible and the only people who want to play on smaller baskets are pros who putt really well and people upset Paul McBeth putts so damn good. the majority of disc golfers don't care about this issue and probably wouldn't enjoy their monthly excursion out disc golfing if it meant they had to two/three/four putt all over the place because a small percentage of disc golfers wanted it to be harder.

honestly im not sure i'd still enjoy disc golf as much if i had to play on skinny ass baskets where that was the case. it would be taking away a healthy percentage of the most exciting shots in disc golf... ie.. aces, throw ins from distance, long putts. a very entertaining part about disc golf is you can make a bad shot and still recover with great one. if you make baskets skinny as hell you're taking that away from the game. now if i made a bad shot and i'm 80' out there's almost no chance it's going in at all, wow yeah that's really improving the game and making it more accessible and likeable to the mainstream public.

if the top guys want to do it go ahead but for the majority of disc golf it's not feasible to suddenly change the paramaters of what a basket is. i'd also be willing to be there's a solid amount of pros who don't want baskets to be smaller and are fine with the way they are. you're telling me all the pros who are on the lower side of putting consistency want smaller baskets?

this is just like the top guys saying they want more wide open longer courses... no joke you throw further and more accurate than most pros so of course you want another advantage to help you finance your disc golf job.

i'm convinced some of you don't even think about all of the ramifications of this. all you see is ten top guys making a bunch of putts on videos and think yeah it's to easy for them. when there's 80 other guys there thinking damn i wish putting was easier.

You might be thinking a little extreme on the size of the basket. lets say you take off 2 inches off each side, we are not talking bullseye baskets either. Maybe next time you putt around, try watching where you hit the chains, my guess is well within the 2 inches. As for making harder courses, sure why not. but what about existing par 3 courses that you want to make more challenging but you don't have any additional land for that?

 

[Jenga54]

When people participate in a sport one of the coolest things is participating in the SAME sport as the pros! What changes is the environment the equipment is in, not the actual equipment.

If we can change the equipment instead of the courses, why not have the pros use smaller discs? Or really heavy ones? Or lighter ones? That should hurt the scores. 5" discs should do the trick to make it harder. (except for Lizotte he's an animal) Or make putters that are 100g or less for pros. That will definitely make you want to land close to the pin.

I think some folks believe this is to make scores less dramatic, so there's no more 40+ under par, so it "looks better to the outsider", that's not the reason.

The top pros are begging for a CHALLENGE to play! These guys and girls are deadly accurate with their plastic and all they have are the current courses. they want a CHALLENGE not an inflated score to fit a magic number that feels right. They want a challenge, and a smaller basket I feel is the easy way out. The quick way out. REAL COURSES are really what will feed the BEAST!

 

[AndyJB]

You might be thinking a little extreme on the size of the basket. lets say you take off 2 inches off each side, we are not talking bullseye baskets either. Maybe next time you putt around, try watching where you hit the chains, my guess is well within the 2 inches. As for making harder courses, sure why not. but what about existing par 3 courses that you want to make more challenging but you don't have any additional land for that?

Yeah, on this Cam Todd prototype it doesn't look like it makes the basket that much smaller. My biggest concern, as we've read here on several posts, is the gnarly top to that thing!

Like I posted before, I'm all for thinking outside the box. Sometimes it doesn't work, but like the old saying goes "if you don't try, you're doomed to fail." If these catch on, great. I don't think these will ever be widespread across disc golf, just from a cost perspective. It's similar to a small basket company here in Colorado, Disc-In Baskets. Great product, awesome people behind it, and not outrageously expensive. But they are small potatoes and just can't match the prices offered by Innova, DGA, Prodigy, Salient, et al. There are courses with Disc-In baskets, but those were put in by huge fundraising efforts to support the "small guys."

That's what I see with Cam Todd's baskets. To get them in a course you'd have to get a group who are fully behind it and willing to really pound the streets to get the money for them. Once a course or two gets these in and some pros endorse it, I could see it spreading out a little more.

But for right now, it's still in the prototype stage. I don't have more than a couple bucks to donate to get them made, but if I was a mean of wealth I'd kick in some moolah just to see where it goes and if the pros really like them.

 

[Slider]

Personally, I like the idea, but not Cam's design per se, nothing against Cam (wish you the best Cam!). Maybe something similar to the existing baskets with only one change, that would bring in the chains by 2 inches. I think it would be great to have the option to purchase smaller baskets and have the ability to run a tourney there. I am not talking about changing all baskets country wide, but allow for smaller baskets but maybe have the requirement for PDGA tourneys that all the baskets have to be the same on the course at hand.

 

[str8]

I've never been very good at putting (or driving, or...) but always thought that the baskets were too big. Just my opinion, ymmv. I think Cam's baskets are heading the right way.

If you want to make putting tougher for only the Pros just close the circle. Anything inside the circle that isn't in the basket gets move to the nearest point outside the circle. No mods required and no cost.

10 m not far enough? Make it 15m, 20m.

 

[Jenga54]

Maybe something similar to the existing baskets with only one change, that would bring in the chains by 2 inches.

Lots of people are talking about coming in "2 inches" on each side. Not sure where that came from but I didn't see specs on Cam's basket for dimensions. Maybe it's a feel good middle ground between standard baskets and Bullseye baskets.

Most PDGA baskets out there feature some kind of "sliding link" technology to catch putts just barely under the chain rack. Interestingly, they can slide about 2" up and in.

I'm about to combine 2 threads into one!

1) Please someone take a real basket (DisCatcher, Mach V, Chainstar, etc) and tie a light duty rope around the top link of each outer chain, and cinch them up tight to the top of the sliding link holder. This will thin up the basket from 21" total width to 17" total width (19% skinnier) I've seen people cinch up the middle of the chains around the pole, but for this experiment, bring in the top chains.
(Side note, this would be really easy to do on a standard basket, with multiple settings / loops on the chain rack that the outer chains can be hung on. You could slide them in for NT and slide them out for standard rounds)

2) Play 10-20 rounds of the Finnish Putting Game and record your scores. Then cinch them up from 21" to 17" and record your scores again. Same size basket as Cam's looks like standard bucket size, just slightly tighter chains.

 

[jmhoekst]

If the real issue is the definition of Par, why not have a Par for a course instead of individual holes? If the 1000-rated-player average on a layout is 50, then course par is 50. At the end of my round, I turn in my scorecard which reads 52 and I shot a +2. This kills 2 birds with one stone. (1) We don't need to change any equipment or course design or the like and (2) we can stop arguing over whether a hole is a par 2, 3, 4, 5, blah.

In all seriousness, I hate this^ idea. I think baskets like Cam's would be cool to have on some courses throughout the world. It would be cool if some tournaments just rented these baskets for the marquee events of the year. Maybe the NT events could do this?....

 

[Jenga54]

If the real issue is the definition of Par, why not have a Par for a course instead of individual holes? If the 1000-rated-player average on a layout is 50, then course par is 50. At the end of my round, I turn in my scorecard which reads 52 and I shot a +2. This kills 2 birds with one stone. (1) We don't need to change any equipment or course design or the like and (2) we can stop arguing over whether a hole is a par 2, 3, 4, 5, blah.

In all seriousness, I hate this^ idea. I think baskets like Cam's would be cool to have on some courses throughout the world. It would be cool if some tournaments just rented these baskets for the marquee events of the year. Maybe the NT events could do this?....

Sorry, I don't think this is the reason. This isn't about par and what the ending score numbers looks like. The pros want a more challenging putt. Read Cam's info. They are great putters and want a more challenging putt. Not just different numbers. They don't want everything inside 25' to be a gimme because they're all good enough to land there almost every time. They want a challenge, not a more acceptable par number.

..."I stongly believe it will change the dynamic of the game and make all shots have an equal significance, knowing the last shot will have to fall in a challenging enough target to make your knees buckle. "

 

[jmhoekst]

Sorry, I don't think this is the reason. This isn't about par and what the ending score numbers looks like. The pros want a more challenging putt. Read Cam's info.

I did - I was addressing two topics at once. I do think the baskets would be great for marquee events, such as NTs.