How many times should you play a course b4 reviewing it?

[LeewayeDiscGolf]

As long as you played the whole course at least once, go ahead and write a review. As long as you put in your review conditions and weather and things when you played it, it should be fine.
Granted some courses have only one or no reviews. But if you read all the reviews for a course, good or bad, you end up with a very good idea of what to expect.
Plus, the reviews have the little area where you see how many times the reviewer played this course.

 

[sloppydisc]

Once, but I won't review every course I play. If I didn't pay attention to details or didn't take at least a few notes to help me write the review I won't waste anyone's time. Sometimes I am just playing to practice or I am polaying quick due ot time constraints. If that's the case I usually won't write a review. I'll forget or miss too much and do a poor job.

 

[mashnut]

Once, but I won't review every course I play. If I didn't pay attention to details or didn't take at least a few notes to help me write the review I won't waste anyone's time. Sometimes I am just playing to practice or I am polaying quick due ot time constraints. If that's the case I usually won't write a review. I'll forget or miss too much and do a poor job.

I think that's a good way to look at it, as long as you either have the course in recent memory or took notes on your thoughts and feelings about the course one round is enough to write a comprehensive review.

 

[Jukeshoe]

One time is enough for a decent review. Twice is needed for a good review. Anything more is probably good, but also risks missing things due to familiarity. It's kinda hard to review a course critically and objectively if you're always playing it.

 

[stsren]

I'm with the review after playing it once crowd, as long as you put thought into the review and pay attention to your surroundings when playing.
Now if you go back and play it more and decide that you should add things or adjust things, go ahead...but a course review (to me) is meant for people who have never played the course to get a flavor for it and to see/read about the general pros and cons as seen through fresh eyes [not the eyes of a player with tons of exp (and comfort) on a course].

 

[reallybadputter]

I think once is fine for: experienced players who have played not only a large number, but a wide variety of course types.

But, do not write a review if the conditions are completely abnormal for a course. If you thought the teepads sucked because there were 3 inches of rain the night before... or a tropical storm hit and there are trees down everywhere... or its the dead of winter and the tees are covered in snow. Unless you can completely detach yourself from the transitory nature of the problem. Remember that you are writing a review that will stay up for a long time... long after the snow melts.

The best reviews aren't the locals... they are the almost locals... I have a course 15 minutes and one 25 minutes away... but there are 15 or so that are within a 2 hour drive that I've played at least four rounds on... I've played them under tournament conditions and I can tell you which ones I'd be stopping at if I'm driving in any direction and I have the time...

 

[Hangtownie]

You should play enough times to have had some good rounds and some not so good rounds. Learn the course, don't just play it once and have a negative experience and say it sucks. Most good courses take a few rounds to really get the feel and the know.

 

[cheddapig]

i said that you should play a course a couple of times because.. as a person your reveiw is partially based on how you performed on that round... case in point my home course just went through a mayjor renvovation (French Creek) we had to remove our pervious two courses and replace it with one bahemouth of a course... now our course designers didnt have free rain there were may limitations put forth by the park administration.... anyway it truly is a world class course that gets bad reveiws because its hard... i believe that it is harder then ironhill in de. players beware alot of champians will be born from this course... in short though you shouldnt just use your first impressions on a review... on a heavily wooded course your disc as a good chance to hit a couple trees.. i think you should have a chance to do good on it b4 you condem it eturnilly online.

 

[mashnut]

i said that you should play a course a couple of times because.. as a person your reveiw is partially based on how you performed on that round... case in point my home course just went through a mayjor renvovation (French Creek) we had to remove our pervious two courses and replace it with one bahemouth of a course... now our course designers didnt have free rain there were may limitations put forth by the park administration.... anyway it truly is a world class course that gets bad reveiws because its hard... i believe that it is harder then ironhill in de. players beware alot of champians will be born from this course... in short though you shouldnt just use your first impressions on a review... on a heavily wooded course your disc as a good chance to hit a couple trees.. i think you should have a chance to do good on it b4 you condem it eturnilly online.

You're assuming that not only will anyone who plays a hard course instantly hate it because it was difficult, but also that playing a course multiple times will change the mind of someone who thinks that way, and I think both of those assumptions are incorrect. Personally, of all the courses I've played multiple times (48 out of 172), none have changed my mind with a second or more rounds on the course significantly. That tells me I can trust my initial impression, and that I can feel comfortable rating those other 126 courses based on a single round where I took notes and pictures.

 

[scarpfish]

Some of you suggesting that multiple, if not many plays are required to adequately review a course, perhaps aren't realizing that if everyone on here adhered to that rule, half the reviews posted wouldn't be there.

Also, the crappy HBB reviews a lot of people despise would have more prominence. Traveling players often aren't going to have time to play your course multiple times, unless they visit your area multiple times.

 

[Dave242]

Also, the crappy HBB reviews a lot of people despise would have more prominence. Traveling players often aren't going to have time to play your course multiple times, unless they visit your area multiple times.

This is a very key point to maintain and grow the "integrity" of the data on the site.

Travelling players who have played in several areas of the country and have played a lot of courses have a perspective that will give uniformity to ratings .....and ratings are the things that quantify what is good and bad on a course.

As an example of unintentional regional bias here is an example I was looking at recently. This course is rated way too low in my opinion. Having played a decent number of courses spread over a pretty wide area, I promise you this course is NOT well below average (2.5 discs) - which is what the other raters/reviewers rated it (the best rating it got was 2.5 discs).

If you look at each of the reviewers' played lists/maps (half of them are TRs) you will see none of them are widely traveled. They are fortunate that they live in an area that has a ton of high quality courses....and their perspective is biased by that. I do not dispute that Davidson is on the bottom end of most of their played courses list and therefore deserves a lower rating than the other courses.

It is just a matter of perspective....and their perspective is limited to where the worst courses they have played are really average courses in a larger view of things.

 

[mashnut]

This is a very key point to maintain and grow the "integrity" of the data on the site.

Travelling players who have played in several areas of the country and have played a lot of courses have a perspective that will give uniformity to ratings .....and ratings are the things that quantify what is good and bad on a course.

As an example of unintentional regional bias here is an example I was looking at recently. This course is rated way too low in my opinion. Having played a decent number of courses spread over a pretty wide area, I promise you this course is NOT well below average (2.5 discs) - which is what the other raters/reviewers rated it (the best rating it got was 2.5 discs).

If you look at each of the reviewers' played lists/maps (half of them are TRs) you will see none of them are widely traveled. They are fortunate that they live in an area that has a ton of high quality courses....and their perspective is biased by that. I do not dispute that Davidson is on the bottom end of most of their played courses list and therefore deserves a lower rating than the other courses.

It is just a matter of perspective....and their perspective is limited to where the worst courses they have played are really average courses in a larger view of things.

Exactly the opposite of what happens here in Chicago where the courses that are a little better than the others get rated highly where they are still way below average when compared to courses in other areas. I tend to look at ratings more as a comparison to other courses in a specific area or region as opposed to a really good comparison across the board at this point. As you say, the more people that have wide experience across many parts of the country that rate and review the better the system will get, but currently most courses are mainly rated based on comparison with other local courses.

 

[bikinjack]

I stated somewhere earlier in this thread that I would want to play a course at least twice before writing a review, but I have no problem with someone writing a review after only one review. There are plenty of people on here who are plenty qualified to play once and write a great review. Also, I'm sure some folks go to a course with the objective of writing a review, and I'm sure they are paying a lot of attention to details that I don't even know exist, much less know to look for, even if I've played it 10 times.

 

[Dave242]

Yup - I was planning to use this site to prove a point when proposing the expansion of Danny Cunniff. I compared the north shore courses to each of the Charlotte, Joliet, and Milwaukee areas......but the data showed that the courses around here were only marginally worse than those areas. Yeah right! :gross:

 

[smyith]

more important than the amount of times you've played a course is the amount of courses you've played. people who've only played less than 10 should have no right to leave a review of any course. really i think somewhere in the 20-30 range of different courses played should be required. i value somebody who has played 100+ courses way more than someone with less than 50. simply because they've seen many different designs and hole varieties therefore (theoretically) giving them greater insight. ive only played 60 some courses almost all of which in the midwest. i wouldnt feel right evaluating a course outside the midwest because i dont have a feel for the designers intention. maybe after playing several courses in an area id feel that my assessment would be more accurate.
playing once is really not enough to evaluate a course. unless you take extremely copious notes on each hole as you play. i think many reviews dont factor in mother nature when they review a course. wind is a huge factor and i think there are some designers (few and far between) that actually design a course with that in mind. you need to play a course in many different conditions to properly review it. on the other hand if the course was god-awful do you really want to play it again? probably not. but that should be included in your review. living in IL there really isnt such a thing as no wind (strangely except when its 90+ degrees out and humid as hell) so many of our course are an increased difficulty because of that wind. without it they arnt really all that challenging.

*side note* i forget to mark how many times ive played a course on several reviews...im sure many otheres forget as well.

 

[JMONEY]

IMO if you are going to review a course only after playing it once there should be at least a dozen other courses that have been played. If you have only played one or two courses I would have to question the integrity and thouroughness of the review.

 

[underpar24]

Only once if i am actually going to review it. I review a very small portion of the courses that i play. 64 played and 9 reviewed.

 

[prerube]

I stated somewhere earlier in this thread that I would want to play a course at least twice before writing a review, but I have no problem with someone writing a review after only one review. There are plenty of people on here who are plenty qualified to play once and write a great review. Also, I'm sure some folks go to a course with the objective of writing a review, and I'm sure they are paying a lot of attention to details that I don't even know exist, much less know to look for, even if I've played it 10 times.

yup, I take notes even if I am not going to review it, just incase I change my mind. I take pictures and document hole distances just incase either are needed.