Course design frustration.

[joshmo65]

Yes, you are right that we don't have any courses where you only throw 100- 200 feet per hole.

Schenley park has red tees that are nice level concrete tees averaging 174'. I have never seen anyone play them.

 

[Shamis]

And up it the ******* who starts the problem. Great I'm glad your having fun as 10 people decided not to play again because they did terrible their first time playing. You and your small group of players can build hard courses and circle jerk all day as our sport has no movement in popularity. If beginners don't like a challenge then they shouldn't play??? Your an idiot. How about I throw some pads on you and throw you in a nfl game when you have no training and are unprepared? That's not really a challenge is it more of setting up for failure. Maybe if you started at a lower level you could grow into it like every other sport. N

As mentioned previously, tons of people play ball golf. Most of them average about +25.

If you want a crappy little course to play there are tons of them out there, shouldn't be hard to find one.

Also, you are dumb. I give no ****s about growing the sport. I want good courses. And if balll golf is any example, people will go play good, hard courses and get totally destroyed, and love it.

 

[Puckstopper]

As mentioned previously, tons of people play ball golf. Most of them average about +25.

If you want a crappy little course to play there are tons of them out there, shouldn't be hard to find one.

Also, you are dumb. I give no ****s about growing the sport. I want good courses. And if real golf is any example, people will go play good, hard courses and get totally destroyed, and love it.

Not to mention paying more for the privilege. Simply playing a top notch traditional golf course is a status symbol. If you tell someone you played Pebble Beach they'll be so envious that they won't care how bad you shot. On the other hand I recently came back from playing Flip City and a couple other courses in Western Michigan and no one gave a crap. Not that I'm looking for validation, but I was a little surprised that no one I talked to wondered what made Flip so much more highly though of than some of our local courses.

 

[HarkeyPuck]

Have you ever seen how many girls play disc golf in Pittsburgh? There are lots and lots of them. And quite a few that throw farther than most men.

Almost every course has 3 sets of tee. Usually designed for certain ratings levels.

While I agree about the fence issue at SRU, a discussion was made a long time ago about making sure there is a short tee for that hole that will not have throws ending up over the fence.

We also discussed how the course needs to be usable for the Pro World Championships, while at the same time, cater for the beginner, college kids to play every day. Because of this, a few holes were redesigned, and considerations about proper tee levels for the people who would play the course the most were made.

Whereas Moraine has tees set at 900, 950 and 1000 rated levels. SRU will have 800, 900, and 1000 rated tees. Which will allow for all levels of players to play the game.

Also, we don't just play par 3 around here, so maybe your triple bogies are only actually bogies.


Have you ever seen how many girls, and families, and grandparents play Moraine on a daily basis. Yeah it's hard, but it's beautiful. And while they may shoot 30 over par from the short tees, I've never heard one person say they had a bad time playing Moraine.

Also, Moraine, Deer Lakes, Linbrook, SRU, were never designed to be the hardest course in the country or toughest course in the area.

They were designed with set skill levels in mind. Each set of tees were tweaked to play to the correct SSA for the level of players playing.

God tees at Moraine are 1000 rated. When a PDGA event is played, par ends up being 990-1010. Year after year. There was a method to the design.

Same goes for Deer Lakes, Linbrook and SRU. All have certain level tees that the par of the course is built around. We didn't just come up with the par numbers. We played the holes over and over. We kept results or players of different skill levels on all the tees, and then adjusted the pars of the holes to play to the correct skill level.

After years of results, the pars of the holes at Moraine all fall within 0.7 of the par of the hole. Meaning a par 4 plays between 3.3 and 4.7.

Yes, you are right that we don't have any courses where you only throw 100- 200 feet per hole. But we do have numerous layouts between tees and pin positions on every course. They are built for all levels of players. Albeit, they are not the easiest courses for beginners. But as the numbers of players that keep showing up year after year, in larger and larger numbers, tell us that we are not killing the sport.

In fact, many courses designed after Moraine and Deer Lakes, I've heard numerous times from people in other areas, that this course is "Their Moraine" or their "Deer Lakes" Meaning that these courses have made such a positive impact on players and designers, that they strive to achieve the quality that we have built here.

But what do I know, I've only been playing and helping out here for 20+ years.

Thanks for the detailed response Chris. I almost lost my head after reading what he posted. Thanks for your hard work, dedication & helping out all these years also!

:thmbup:

Schenley park has red tees that are nice level concrete tees averaging 174'. I have never seen anyone play them.

I played a Glo putter round once.


…once

 

[sidewinder22]

God tees at Moraine are 1000 rated. When a PDGA event is played, par ends up being 990-1010. Year after year. There was a method to the design.

Same goes for Deer Lakes, Linbrook and SRU. All have certain level tees that the par of the course is built around. We didn't just come up with the par numbers. We played the holes over and over. We kept results or players of different skill levels on all the tees, and then adjusted the pars of the holes to play to the correct skill level.

I want to play the God tees!

 

[chris deitzel]

Almost forgot about the red tees at Schenley.

When playing God tees. It's good to have a Zeus in the bag.

 

[Vorpaljesus]

.

I think your DG outreach falls apart with this kind of latent sexism. Don't design weak courses for weak girls. Strength and motivation are not the obstacles in the way of introducing women to DG. Women in DG, like all sports, are irritated at being treated differently.

QUOTE]

Paige clearly stated in one of her end of round interviews this year that she was annoyed they had to play from short tee pads. She wanted to play the Men's layout, now most of the woman's field would have struggled and played longer rounds...but I think she was echoing sentiment that the top women had...that they wanted to compete at the same level as the men.

She was also upset that they had inferior tee pads in the short positions.

If that's the case, shouldn't she just play Open?

 

[Curtis_Valk]

There is a course near me that I didn't like when I first started almost two years ago. I disliked it because it was long though, not because it was difficult. For the first six or eight months, I just avoided it and went to another nearby course that WAS difficult with just a few long holes mixed in. This one gave me much more enjoyment.

Since I've been throwing >300' the first course I mentioned has become much more enjoyable, but also much more difficult since I can reach some of the unpleasantness off the tee that I couldn't reach before!

Just another perspective.

 

[Curtis_Valk]

If that's the case, shouldn't she just play Open?

So are you saying her choice should be 1. play the desired course layout against a field not desired or 2. play against the desired field on a course layout not desired?

 

[Vorpaljesus]

I'm saying if she wants equal treatment, there it is. Same course as the men with the same competition.

 

[JeremyKShort]

One thing I've seen from looking at Houck's courses are his tee placements. I'll use McCord in Little Elm as an example. It has two tees. The pro tee, and the 'I've never thrown a disc in my life' tee. I think that this is a way to make it more open to the newbs. They have a tee they can play at with their skill level, and not feel like a complete beatdown. There's also a tee there that they can see, something to try to strive for.

And there's nothing wrong with pitch and putt, or a course that's just a pro level, but you need to have a mix of everything. People will get beat down playing ball golf, it's a sport of connections. You play it to hob nob with spiffy people. You play disc golf, you're playing with us. That's pretty much just for fun. And if it's not fun, do people come back?

 

[DavidSauls]

I played golf a couple of times, and probably shot in the 150s. I had a blast, and getting double-digit scores on holes didn't discourage me. I didn't continue because of expense and time concerns (sometimes I didn't have the money and, when I did, I didn't have the available time).

 

[sidewinder22]

I'm saying if she wants equal treatment, there it is. Same course as the men with the same competition.

Val Jenkins used to play Open in the USDGC and then also Women's Open.

 

[glassila]

Building a course strictly for beginners seems like a big waste of money and resources. The beginner will quickly move on to more challenging courses and advanced players will avoid it.
I'm not saying that all new courses should be designed to be as difficult as possible, but I don't think courses should be designed with beginners in mind.
And any veteran player who introduces a friend to disc golf by taking them to a very difficult course is an idiot.

 

[Curtis_Valk]

I'm saying if she wants equal treatment, there it is. Same course as the men with the same competition.

The post you quoted didn't say she wanted equal treatment, it said she wanted to play the same layout. Big difference there.

 

[DavidSauls]

Building a course strictly for beginners seems like a big waste of money and resources. The beginner will quickly move on to more challenging courses and advanced players will avoid it.
I'm not saying that all new courses should be designed to be as difficult as possible, but I don't think courses should be designed with beginners in mind.
And any veteran player who introduces a friend to disc golf by taking them to a very difficult course is an idiot.

The thing you may be missing about "beginner-friendly" courses is that not all disc golfers are on the fast track for stardom. These courses serve families with children, occasional players, the less physically gifted, aging players in decline, and others.

They even serve established, better players who may just want a quick, light round sometimes.

At this moment, I'm sitting at a very challenging course, lamenting that my hand injury has kept me out of this year's team event at the IDGC, and considering running over the local 12-hole, 2800-footer for a careful round of midranges and putters---a nice little course I've enjoyed by myself, and with a 5-year-old disc golfer.

The ideal is for an assortment of courses catering to the wide variety of folks who play disc golf.

 

[Tfire25]

Building a course strictly for beginners seems like a big waste of money and resources. The beginner will quickly move on to more challenging courses and advanced players will avoid it.
I'm not saying that all new courses should be designed to be as difficult as possible, but I don't think courses should be designed with beginners in mind.
And any veteran player who introduces a friend to disc golf by taking them to a very difficult course is an idiot.

I don't think that beginner courses are bad for more advanced players. I go to pitch and putts to practice my upshots or mid game.

I also think beginner courses are great for growing dg in small communities. By putting in a small course in a small city park you can grow the public interest enough to garner more help when trying to put a more advanced course in later.

:highfive: David.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Hard to find an example where a longer course with similar quality tee pads and baskets to a shorter course nearby will have more traffic than the shorter course. Anyone have examples? Does Easy Beaver get more traffic than Angry Beaver in Charlotte for example?

 

[MacDaddy]

Building a course strictly for beginners seems like a big waste of money and resources. The beginner will quickly move on to more challenging courses and advanced players will avoid it.
I'm not saying that all new courses should be designed to be as difficult as possible, but I don't think courses should be designed with beginners in mind.
And any veteran player who introduces a friend to disc golf by taking them to a very difficult course is an idiot.

IMHO, this is completely wrong. Do you think there is only one beginner and once they learn how to play, that's it?! We MUST have beginner friendly courses so that we are always ready for the next "new player". You even alluded to this in your last sentence. Were does an experienced player take a newbie to learn the game? The baddest ass kicker course around? NO!! they will never come back. You take them to a nice friendly little pitch and putt.

As a general rule, I always design a course with multiple tee pads to make it playable by as many players as possible (yes, that is not always possible). I also believe that we need about 8-10 rec courses for every 5-6 intermediate courses, for every 2-3 championship level courses (and those will be pay-to-play). The fact is, there are potentially many, many more casual players for this sport than top pros (like most "pro" sports). Not having places for them to play is a BIG mistake!

 

[BrotherDave]

Hard to find an example where a longer course with similar quality tee pads and baskets to a shorter course nearby will have more traffic than the shorter course. Anyone have examples? Does Easy Beaver get more traffic than Angry Beaver in Charlotte for example?

I lean towards yes, Easy Beaver seems more crowded than Angry the times I've been there but Angry is so long and wooded I might not be able to notice as many players.