Do YOU agree with the "Top Course" list?

[Scoot_er]

One good question would be the ratio of 5's to 1's.

I know for a fact there should be more ones as I have played many courses below a 3 and even in nearly 200 courses I have yet to play what I would rate as a 5 and that includes some in the top 10.

 

[chow]

Beaver Ranch IMO should be higher than it is on the list. The problem is that when all the reviews were made they didn't have tee signs up and a lot of people rated the course lower for it (as I would have too). But now they have some sweet tee signs and since then, there has been a lot more 5's given in reviews. It might slowly inch its way up a few spots but never to the top, too many 4.5's (19) holding it back.

See that's the thing. Same as with discs, opinions are all over the board.

I played Beaver Ranch and to play it seriously or even half way serious from now until May makes me laugh. It's a cool course, don't get me wrong, and I have been holding back on this comment...but overrated....definitely should not be better than Milo, and in IMO should be rated as an asterix (unplayable in the winter). You could die out there and have an avalanche come down on your head. No teepads to speak off...just rutted out mud pits. Sure Rutted out mudpits nicely framed in 4x4s but still. But there would be no way to make teepads, which is where the quandry is. Every tee sign could have your favorite porn star with chin nuts, but that is never going to make up for the Pepsi Center Ice that is the teepads.

It's subjective to rate a mountain course that probably only has a realistic window of playing of about 5 months, to a course of caliber that is playable year long and has amazing challenge and variety.

I love to backpack and I love to play disc golf, and sometimes both together, but not all the time....and never will rate it at a 5 star disc golf experience. Sorry peeps.

 

[culinarywiz]

One good question would be the ratio of 5's to 1's.

I know for a fact there should be more ones as I have played many courses below a 3 and even in nearly 200 courses I have yet to play what I would rate as a 5 and that includes some in the top 10.

Well Mr. Scooter,

You started this thread. I took a look at your profile and you have only 1 course listed as played - and have rated that course as a 2 out of 5. I should continue to state that after 32 reviews this course has earned an overall rating of 4 out of 5...which is a very good rating.

You talk as though you are super savvy in the nuances of disc course design, but I see little evidence.

A 1 is barely a course. Hell, if you go through the effort to put up at least 9 pins and mark off tee's, you should rate at least a 1.

I say your expectations are unrealistic, and I am glad to not be joined with a sour puss like you during a round.

 

[Scoot_er]

Well Mr. Scooter,

You started this thread. I took a look at your profile and you have only 1 course listed as played - and have rated that course as a 2 out of 5. I should continue to state that after 32 reviews this course has earned an overall rating of 4 out of 5...which is a very good rating.

You talk as though you are super savvy in the nuances of disc course design, but I see little evidence.

A 1 is barely a course. Hell, if you go through the effort to put up at least 9 pins and mark off tee's, you should rate at least a 1.

I say your expectations are unrealistic, and I am glad to not be joined with a sour puss like you during a round.

I also recently started posting here and only rated that course because I felt it was far from a 4 and is basically like any other local pitch and putt. I will go back and see if you can give them 1/2 stars since it is truly more of a 2.5

I have helped design quite a few courses along with some if Houston does get a Pro worlds bid in 2011. On pretty much any given tournament I spend most my rounds playing with Mike Olse who is a top player and designer withing the state and has designed one of Nikko's favorite course in Manor Tx.

I also stayed with Dave McComack and had 1st hand experience in his design outside of my own region. Anyway I will get to reviewing as soon as I post this and will have 5 more by tomorrow ok?


Do i need to post a Video? lol

 

[grass_stain]

if everyone played flip city at least once they would know what a 5 is and they whould be able to review all other courses properly. than since they are in the area they should play branstrom and see what a 4.5 is.

 

[steven2361]

I also recently started posting here and only rated that course because I felt it was far from a 4 and is basically like any other local pitch and putt. I will go back and see if you can give them 1/2 stars since it is truly more of a 2.5

I have helped design quite a few courses along with some if Houston does get a Pro worlds bid in 2011. On pretty much any given tournament I spend most my rounds playing with Mike Olse who is a top player and designer withing the state and has designed one of Nikko's favorite course in Manor Tx.

I also stayed with Dave McComack and had 1st hand experience in his design outside of my own region. Anyway I will get to reviewing as soon as I post this and will have 5 more by tomorrow ok?


Do i need to post a Video? lol

Ha ha "post a video" clasic

u tell him apothacary

 

[mashnut]

A 1 is barely a course. Hell, if you go through the effort to put up at least 9 pins and mark off tee's, you should rate at least a 1.

I have to completely disagree with you here, if you give a course a full disc just for having baskets and places to tee from, you're doing the rating system a disservice by compressing it. When you don't use the bottom of the rating scale, you're just making it so it's basically a 4 point scale instead of a 5 point scale.

 

[Scoot_er]

Just rated 2 courses which are pretty sweet and noticed that a 4.5 is "Phenomenal". By that standard I have maybe 3 courses that make that list but have a hard time thinking of them. Pickard Park and Ewing are among some of the coolest courses but I would still only rate them as a 4 so I just don't see myself playing a 5 anytime soon.

 

[Three Putt]

You talk as though you are super savvy in the nuances of disc course design, but I see little evidence.

Scoot_er is Matt Hall. He is a 1000-rated Discraft-sponsored pro. He won Mid Nationals and was 2nd at Am World's in 2005 when he was 16 or something like that. He was a Junior World Champion sometime before that. He was on Team Gateway for awhile and worked with Dave McCormack on some course designs.

So despite his DGCR profile, he has some credentials.

 

[culinarywiz]

Scoot_er is Matt Hall. He is a 1000-rated Discraft-sponsored pro. He won Mid Nationals and was 2nd at Am World's in 2005 when he was 16 or something like that. He was a Junior World Champion sometime before that. He was on Team Gateway for awhile and worked with Dave McCormack on some course designs.

So despite his DGCR profile, he has some credentials.

This is precisely why my momma told me not to talk smack to strangers!

My bad Matt.:doh:

 

[Cgkdisc]

I've only rated five courses out of over 500 played and over 100 around the country where I either consulted to improve the design or completely designed the course. I'm just lurking in the weeds. I've never really seen a 5 based on some hypothetical ideal scale. But if some people believe certain courses are currently 5s I'm willing to go along with this group love fest and use it as my reference just for fun.

 

[Scoot_er]

Yeah and that means Chuck doesn't think he has designed a 5 which means none at Highbrige would be in his book.

My whole reason I started this was when someone asked about Highbridge I was going to post that the original Granite was my favorite and then saw Blueberry in the top 10. Basically it got me wondering what other thought of some of the courses. Blueberry is nice but not enough awesome holes to make me rate it more than a 4.

 

[Jimb]

I've only played the Woodshed in the top ten. It's the best that I've played. The holes themselves are great. But (I believe) due to limitations of it being a privately owned course, it doesn't have some of the perks that a "perfect" course would have. Concrete tees, clear signage, running water (ha, ha), etc. would all improve the course. But if it's just about the holes, then it has to be considered a great course.

I would love to hit some of the other top rated courses. Tyler and Idlewild are two possibilities for a road trip next Summer. I see these courses that are posted on Youtube all of the time and am very envious of the courses available in different areas... whether top rated or not.

 

[tomjulio]

if everyone played flip city at least once they would know what a 5 is and they whould be able to review all other courses properly. than since they are in the area they should play branstrom and see what a 4.5 is.

Branstorm is no where near a 4.5, sorry.

 

[Three Putt]

I've never really seen a 5 based on some hypothetical ideal scale. But if some people believe certain courses are currently 5s I'm willing to go along with this group love fest and use it as my reference just for fun.

That is all this site can be.

What happened to the program the PDGA was using to score courses a few years ago? There used to be links to those evaluations on the course directory, but I don't see those anymore. Anyway, a program like that was going to have a lot better shot at giving accurate data. The people who were scoring those courses were determined to be qualified in some manner, and there would be some criteria there. It may not have been stated this way, but those scores were PDGA members rating courses on how well they would host a PDGA event. There was a commonality in their background.

Here it could be anything. Scoot_er wants that challenging PDGA-level course. Some hacker with a 220' max drive wants a course where he can rack out some birdies and have a good time. Their rating of the same course are going to be different. Who is right? It depends on your point of view. That's why you can rate a course with an average score of a 4 and give it a 1.5 without it getting deleted. You are entitled to your opinion. That is all this site is, opinions. Nobody is claiming that our opinions are qualified.

I used to have a problem with all of this. I was arguing with someone on here (Internet fight!) about rating "fun factor." To me "fun factor" is so subjective that it creates problems for a review. The response I got was "This is supposed to be fun. How can you rate a course and NOT think about how fun it is? If you do that you have missed the entire point." That comment reminded me of something Ed Headrick said to me a long time ago. I was thinking about re-designing a pitch and putt because of the low challenge it posed even though I was easily running twice as many rounds as any other course in the area. Ed said "So you want to change the course because it's too much fun? It's supposed to be fun. I think you have missed the point."

So we can argue about the top 10 list. The top 10 list misses the point. The thing this site has done is excite new players to travel from their home course and check out how green the grass is in other places. That's a good thing. Then we post reviews of our travels and give uniformed, unqualified reviews of the courses we see. They are not perfect, but they feed the addiction.

Chuck has the right idea. Go along with the group love fest and use it as a reference just for fun.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Yeah and that means Chuck doesn't think he has designed a 5 which means none at Highbridge would be in his book.

Wait! I only design 5s. It's the course owners who don't develop the amenities, can't afford cement tees, benches, landscaping, pro shops or good signage, don't/can't remove fluky trees, don't clear brush, don't keep it mowed, prevent erosion problems or repair vandalism. Even tougher is when the owners don't "add" mountains on flat terrain, don't move big trees into open terrain or scoop out nifty ponds and shallow creeks on property with no hazards. Designers hopefully try to design 5s but it's almost impossible to have all the stars align when the site and circumstances don't allow for that potential. This is unfortunately still the case for our young sport.

 

[biscoe]

i have stated before that i have never played a 5 but you guys (dave242 in particular- the comment on a plus not needing to be 100%) are making me reconsider- particularly for the purposes of this site.

i have designed one possible 5 but it lacks amenities unless you consider cow manure an amenity.

 

[billnchristy]

Go along with the group love fest

I thought we were talking about disc golf....told you my hippie DG commune was a good idea.

 

[Three Putt]

Wait! I only design 5s. It's the course owners who don't develop the amenities, can't afford cement tees, benches, landscaping, pro shops or good signage, don't/can't remove fluky trees, don't clear brush, don't keep it mowed, prevent erosion problems or repair vandalism. Even tougher is when the owners don't "add" mountains on flat terrain, don't move big trees into open terrain or scoop out nifty ponds and shallow creeks on property with no hazards. Designers hopefully try to design 5s but it's almost impossible to have all the stars align when the site and circumstances don't allow for that potential. This is unfortunately still the case for our young sport.

From a course designers point of view there is some potential in a site like this to tap into the "common man" or "common golfer." Feedback often comes from that top 5% or 10% that play tournaments. This site gives a voice to the random recreational golfer who dropped in to play. I know of courses that originally were tournament courses that don't flow well. They didn't have to when it was a tournament lay-out because you just follow the card in front of you, no biggie. Once you made the layout permanent you end up with people wandering around looking for the next tee. If you are a designer and only talk to the "tournament players" you won't get that feedback. A site like this could help in that way.

That is if the course designer is open to feedback. :\ Probably the good designers are already talking to the "common golfer" and the ones who aren't don't care what they have to say anyway.

 

[Three Putt]

i have stated before that i have never played a 5 but you guys (dave242 in particular- the comment on a plus not needing to be 100%) are making me reconsider- particularly for the purposes of this site.

i have designed one possible 5 but it lacks amenities unless you consider cow manure an amenity.

That's what I was talking about before. You can't float a bond to pay for restrooms or pave a parking lot. I'm don't think that you can hold a private course to the same "amenity standard" that you would a course in a publicly funded park, but our review process really has no way to account for that. For a course like yours I'd note the lack of amenities in the "other" part of the review but I wouldn't list it as a "con."

I would mark you down for the rotting bovine carcasses, though.