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DGC Rant: Course Ratings
- Thread starter Nemmers
- Start date
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Ya, definitely not a 2. A 2 is still a solid and fun course to play IMO. As I said, it is not in the shape it looks in the pictures. For whatever reason, the field it was in had hundreds of bugs flying on and around me, and there were waist-high weeds all through the tee pads and the baskets. The fairways were knee-high scratchy grass as well. All of this greatly impacted my round, which was played on a 9 hole course with no variation in it anyways. I do feel bad giving that course a .5, because there has been some effort with the tee pads and baskets, but it serves as a warning to the other players on here, and that is ultimately what the ratings are for.
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If we're talking about Arrowhead, I think it is overrated at 2.5.
It is probably the worst course design I've ever played on. Terrible waste of terrain and people just keep going out there and cutting down trees they don't like, so the course looks like it's been designed by a committee. I'll just quit or I'll just start saying some really cruel comments.
The good news is the local club (NHDGC) has FINALLY decided to start working on the layout. My hope is some unified design and maintenance work is going to be realized, and that is what the course needs.
My last point to the OP is that a lot of work does not mean good work. If a group of people work on a course and they think it suits their needs, then the reviewers on DGCR will give them an objective rating of the results. They'll review the results, not the effort.
It is probably the worst course design I've ever played on. Terrible waste of terrain and people just keep going out there and cutting down trees they don't like, so the course looks like it's been designed by a committee. I'll just quit or I'll just start saying some really cruel comments.
The good news is the local club (NHDGC) has FINALLY decided to start working on the layout. My hope is some unified design and maintenance work is going to be realized, and that is what the course needs.
My last point to the OP is that a lot of work does not mean good work. If a group of people work on a course and they think it suits their needs, then the reviewers on DGCR will give them an objective rating of the results. They'll review the results, not the effort.
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Bell Curve
seems to me that if the rating system 1-5 is conceptualized as a bell curve, some folks just have a steeper or flatter 'bell' when offering a rating. some folks 'bell' is a bit more to the right or the left. in addition some folks are fairly brutal with their 'constructive criticisms', which regardless of truth or untruth only leads to hurt feelings and little progress. reducing a complex play field with so many potential variables to one single number and completely relating the course's 'value' to said number is an oversimplification at best. it's simply not the best way to evaluate things. so there you have it.
really the more reviews you read, the more you learn about the reviewers and less about the courses.
seems to me that if the rating system 1-5 is conceptualized as a bell curve, some folks just have a steeper or flatter 'bell' when offering a rating. some folks 'bell' is a bit more to the right or the left. in addition some folks are fairly brutal with their 'constructive criticisms', which regardless of truth or untruth only leads to hurt feelings and little progress. reducing a complex play field with so many potential variables to one single number and completely relating the course's 'value' to said number is an oversimplification at best. it's simply not the best way to evaluate things. so there you have it.
really the more reviews you read, the more you learn about the reviewers and less about the courses.
Funny, because it sure looks like you are one of those "give everyone a trophy guys" when you put up things like "Hey, the dude's a nice guy....let's give him at least a three for effort."
This is truth. Scarpfish is 100% right about the review system being to help travelers pick out courses that they might actually enjoy. Not courses with over-inflated ratings. I went to one on my last big road trip (Rose Park in Bozman, MT) that I felt was way over inflated. It's alot like the course described by the OP in his post. 12 holes around an open field in town. No trees, no challenge. The best I could possibly see myself giving this course would be 1disc. And I think that's a stretch.
It sounds like you nailed it to a T. He doesn't think that anyone else should be able to have opinions. Typical politician thinking.
BTW, you won me over with the deuce comment.:thmbup:
I'm with ya Bogey. We can't continue to rate courses highly just because someone took the time to put it in. And I like your idea of patting the course designer on the back with the whole "A" for effort "D" for execution review. We don't want to break these peoples spirits, and have them stop putting in courses, but we don't want them putting in garbage course after garbage course.
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First, welcome to the site!
I have to say I disagree with you quite a bit though. There is a reason for the scores and they are very useful. There are legitimately bad courses out there. For example one of the closest courses to my home is so bad that no one even plays it. What is wrong with it?
- Every hole is a 10-20' wide strip of mowed grass for the fairway with either side being bordered by 5' high grass and thorns infested with ticks, poisonous spiders, snakes etc. I got my only DG tick here.
- The teepads are too short for using a run-up.
- The teesigns are off by well over 100' on the hole measurements, and the diagram of the hole often turns the opposite way of the actual hole.
- The holes are simply poorly designed. The majority of the course plays through an area with new trees at the time of the design. That was a few years ago. Now that some of those trees have grown, some holes simply have no real path to the basket except for throwing over the trees. In another ten years there simply won't be any routes at all. This is poor planning and poor design.
- The teesigns were all placed parallel with the end of the tee, about a foot to the right. Literally the worst possible spot. They were also angled so when, not if, your hand hit them, it would hit the sharp metal edge and get sliced open.
- Did I mention nearly every hole is bordered by a 5' wall of briars and ticks, and it is not possible to stay out of it during play?
- Hole 8 is just stupid. Its not even a real hole, someone just put up a teesign and a basket and payed no attention to what was in between and made no attempt to clear out a fairway. There is no fairway. If I play this course, I completely skip this hole.
This course does not deserve a three out of five just because the city bought baskets. I have heard from local course designers who have proven their competance with other local DGC's the the designer of Boettler had no experience and refused help when offered.
Personally I think its a shame because the rest of the park is beautiful and the baskets they bought are very nice quality. There are still two or three fun holes but they feel more like an accident than anything else.
People need to know this is a bad course and that there is literally no reason to play it, unless you just absolutely want a disc golf course to yourself. It is surrounded by not just better courses, but exceptional courses like Oak Ledges, Portage Lakes, Arboretum, and Wingfoot. Any beginner would be much better off going to Wingfoot instead of going to Boettler and hating life and disc golf. Any experienced player would have more fun and fair challenge at the others.
I have to say I disagree with you quite a bit though. There is a reason for the scores and they are very useful. There are legitimately bad courses out there. For example one of the closest courses to my home is so bad that no one even plays it. What is wrong with it?
- Every hole is a 10-20' wide strip of mowed grass for the fairway with either side being bordered by 5' high grass and thorns infested with ticks, poisonous spiders, snakes etc. I got my only DG tick here.
- The teepads are too short for using a run-up.
- The teesigns are off by well over 100' on the hole measurements, and the diagram of the hole often turns the opposite way of the actual hole.
- The holes are simply poorly designed. The majority of the course plays through an area with new trees at the time of the design. That was a few years ago. Now that some of those trees have grown, some holes simply have no real path to the basket except for throwing over the trees. In another ten years there simply won't be any routes at all. This is poor planning and poor design.
- The teesigns were all placed parallel with the end of the tee, about a foot to the right. Literally the worst possible spot. They were also angled so when, not if, your hand hit them, it would hit the sharp metal edge and get sliced open.
- Did I mention nearly every hole is bordered by a 5' wall of briars and ticks, and it is not possible to stay out of it during play?
- Hole 8 is just stupid. Its not even a real hole, someone just put up a teesign and a basket and payed no attention to what was in between and made no attempt to clear out a fairway. There is no fairway. If I play this course, I completely skip this hole.
This course does not deserve a three out of five just because the city bought baskets. I have heard from local course designers who have proven their competance with other local DGC's the the designer of Boettler had no experience and refused help when offered.
Personally I think its a shame because the rest of the park is beautiful and the baskets they bought are very nice quality. There are still two or three fun holes but they feel more like an accident than anything else.
People need to know this is a bad course and that there is literally no reason to play it, unless you just absolutely want a disc golf course to yourself. It is surrounded by not just better courses, but exceptional courses like Oak Ledges, Portage Lakes, Arboretum, and Wingfoot. Any beginner would be much better off going to Wingfoot instead of going to Boettler and hating life and disc golf. Any experienced player would have more fun and fair challenge at the others.
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1) I agree that a single number by itself doesn't really give you a feel for the course. Anyone who thinks it can is misguided. However it can (and should) provide a general idea as to the overall quality of a course, relative to other courses. Does it have shot variety? Is it well designed and laid out? Is it fun to play? If you can't answer "Yes" to all of those, why give a rating of 3.0 (good) or higher?
The rating(s) should provide pretty good idea of how a course stacks up in those aspects. But the facts and opinions stated in the review itself should paint a picture of the course and support that reviewer's rating. No one's debating that a rating alone is semi useless.
2) Definitely some truth to the underelined statement, however, as you read multiple reviews for a given course, patterns emerge. Chances are if 3/4 reviewers say something like "course felt repetitive" or "many of the holes felt the same," "somewhat lacking in shot variety,", you'll feel the same way, and hopefully the course's average rating isn't that high.
This isn't rocket science...
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I've gotten even harsher in my reviewing. I basically review like a food critic now. If I come to your course and get served a dead mouse in my lasagna, yeah, I'm going to give you a bad rating even though I'm pretty sure that mice aren't served regularly. That's why my rating of Mars Hill is so low, it was simply terrible that day I played it. I can't assume the course isn't normally covered in poison ivy or construction zones aren't directly in play because what if I'm wrong? Then I guided a person to a course covered in poison ivy and construction fences.
Basically, if you don't like a review/rating, you can do 2 things: If it's clearly written out of vengeance and not a valid critique, you can ask timg to remove it (this is rare). Or, you can submit your own review and let time decide if others think like you or like the bad reviewer and see which one becomes the outlier. So basically, just deal with it.
Basically, if you don't like a review/rating, you can do 2 things: If it's clearly written out of vengeance and not a valid critique, you can ask timg to remove it (this is rare). Or, you can submit your own review and let time decide if others think like you or like the bad reviewer and see which one becomes the outlier. So basically, just deal with it.
Perhaps a distinction between low ratings and harsh reviews is in order.
Low ratings are entirely justified. Some courses are going to be worse than others, some worse than almost all others, no matter what system you use. For our O.P. who likes any course because it has baskets and someone's gone to the effort, even an "0.5" is good. For most of us, it's a caution not to bother with that course unless we're really desperate.
Harsh reviews of poor courses may be part of the O.P.'s rant. As curmudgeondwindle pointed out, this may cause hard feelings, unnecessarily.
Low ratings are entirely justified. Some courses are going to be worse than others, some worse than almost all others, no matter what system you use. For our O.P. who likes any course because it has baskets and someone's gone to the effort, even an "0.5" is good. For most of us, it's a caution not to bother with that course unless we're really desperate.
Harsh reviews of poor courses may be part of the O.P.'s rant. As curmudgeondwindle pointed out, this may cause hard feelings, unnecessarily.
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I think if one of your first posts is self-titled a "rant", then I think you open yourself to rebuttals or some back-slapping. This time the noob got some rebuttals and corrections. no back-slapping on this one, I think.
If he's from Wilmington, NC, he's tough - he's played the Castle!
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This is a fine point.
I think it's good to keep a positive tone through reviews, even if you're panning the course objectively.
Who's flaming? I feel we are all just rationally explaining our actions. It will be beneficial for future reviewers to know that we're not in the feel-goodery business and to grade critically.
Exactly. I don't feel like anyone was flaming on him. If someone feels that my post was doing that because of my comment about him saying he wasn't one of those "give a trophy to everyone guys", then saying that you should give a 3 just for someone putting in a course, I wasn't flaming, simply pointing out hypocrisy.
BirdieMachine
Michael Moore Fan Club President
Bad/critical reviews can also serve to course improvements. If its missing benches, outhouses, trash cans, overgrown, bad design, etc, etc. Things can be done to upgrade a course. The only thing I do not like in the reviews is that older reviews may not be relevant anymore to a course that has been substantially upgraded. A course that may have avg. 3 could now be a 4 or higher course. It really pays to read the most recent reviews as well.
Portage Lakes is a beautiful 18 hole course with 36 paved tees, multiple benches and restrooms, beautiful scenery, new baskets, multiple pin positions etc. It's an amazing course. A lot of the review scores are from when it was a freshly cut 9 hole course with natural tees and no benches or signs.
Proactive park's departments and/or clubs do read the reviews and do try to address issues brought up in reviews to improve their course. I've gotten emails about that quite a few times and I'm sure that I'm not in the loop on many more occasions.
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No system's perfect, and courses certainly evolve, especially over time, so reviews can get very out of date and completely out of touch with the current course. Given that some reviewers were written by drive by reviewers, others by memebers who are no longer active, and some atcive reviewers who don't have the means to update reviews they wrote years ago because they aren't traveling there, I don't know what can be done about very out of date reviews other than: use the filters provided to check the more recent ones and base your decisions accordingly.
This also lends weight to people writing reviews for courses that have already been reviewed a ton... Let's say a great course with 50+ reviews deteriorates badly... if most of the reviews rated it highly when it was young, people's more recenet reviews help establish raelity check to pull the rating back down to earth, where it mprobabaly belongs in it's run down condition. Conversly, newer reviews can also show improvements the course has made since it was first installed. Don't be afraid to be the 78th person to review a course.
When a niner becomes an 18 hole layout, does it make sense to RIP the niner and start a whole new course page for the 18 hole layout? If so, at what point do you draw the line between a revised layout and new course? Personally I don't think Stony Creek warranted a new listing... most of the holes are completely unchanged. Black Locust needed a new listing because relatively few holes remained intact from the old layout. How much has to change before a new listing is warranted?
Actually, I can see this being a differenet discussion - sorry for the drift.
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