It's just a matter of how much emphasis you want to place on putting.
In golf, stats show us that driving and approach shots account for about 65% of the separation between any two groups of players (i.e. if you have scratch golfers that average 74 and 10 handicappers that average 84, 6.5 strokes will be lost due to the full swing). 20% or so from the short game. 15% or so from putting.
Disc golf doesn't really have a "short game" so maybe the majority of that gets folded into putting - so you have roughly 2/3 of the game for the "shots" and 1/3 for "putting" - IF your target size played as effective as in golf.
In golf, if you make the hole 10' across, basically any ball anywhere on the green will go in, and the percentage separation between players drops. Someone who used to gain 1.5 strokes per round putting against some other opponent is now going to gain close to zero, because the hole is so big anyone can make a putt from anywhere.
As you shrink the size of the hole, the better putter gains a growing advantage - until you get to the point where the hole is too small. Maybe that's 2", maybe it's 3" or the 4.25" we have now… nobody really has measured that side of things. It might not even level off per se - it might flatten out slightly but continue to increase: a 2" hole may benefit those who have the
best speed control and green reading and line control.
But generally speaking, the larger the target, the less advantage good putters have over poor ones.
Right now on the PGA Tour:
- Players average about 1.5 putts from 8'. From only 8', they're basically 50/50 to one-putt. That's pretty short.
- From 33', players average 2.0 putts. They're as likely to make as they are to miss. (About 4% of each, 92% to two-putt.)
Putting from various distances in golf looks like this:
https://cl.ly/3h0d2N2s3V2F (it's a bigger image so I won't embed).
Now, the trick to determining whether DG targets should be made smaller is simply a matter of doing two things:
- Making a chart like the one above for, say, 1040-rated players, 1000-, 900-, and 800-rated players.
- Determining whether you like the chart or not - and if not, what changes basket size would have. Generally, increasing the basket size is going to lead to more putts made and less "separation" from good putters to bad.
That's likely true for the same reasons as in golf - if the basket were huge - nobody would miss from even 20'. Pros would make a few more 70 footers than ams, yes, but how often are they 70' out, and so how many opportunities per round would they have the chance to exercise that advantage? Bigger baskets = less separation, generally speaking.
I honestly don't know what DG's curves would look like. In golf, the hole is SO small that there's not a ton of separation. I think that if the hole were 6" in diameter, that might be the ideal size
if you were looking to maximize separation. Good putters would make a lot more from 10' and 15', while poor putters would make barely any more putts. Just an opinion.
In DG, is the basket size right at the sweet spot where putting separates players the right amount?
I don't know.
John Houck talked about how he hates areas from 100-180 feet as well as the 20' or 25' around the basket, because he feels those are basically 2.0 and 1.0 strokes for good players. They don't lead to any separation among good players, and I'd imagine most regular players can get up and down from 120' almost at the same rate as pros.
On the face of it, those distances seem too big. Some tournaments don't even show people putting once everyone's inside 10' - they just let you assume those are gimmes. 10' is pretty far away, and yet at the same time it's pretty close, and most DGers can make those putts the vast majority of the time.
Perhaps as others said above there's more to it than that. Perhaps a DG basket shouldn't necessarily be installed vertically: perhaps, at the discretion of the course designer, a tilt of up to 20° would/should be allowed? Maybe the answer isn't to change the basket or target size at all, but to more clearly emphasize putting from a preferred angle?
I'm not a big fan of the three posts or poles every 120° because someone could be four feet to my left or right and have a completely different looking putt. If the basket was angled 20°, though, those four feet would only slightly change the angle of the putt.
Imagine a basket leaning directly toward you - all you can see (almost) is the top of the basket. Your opponent, who knew the basket slanted this way and played accordingly - sees a much bigger target.
That seems to me to be perfectly fair (everyone plays the same holes), while still increasing the challenge AND reducing the size of that "2.0" zone where two shots is a foregone conclusion.
That said, DD just had a tournament with their Marksman baskets on the course for two days, and IIRC, it affected scores by 2-9 shots. That seems about right, and it lead to more people trying to get their approaches closer. Yes, it lead to more two-putts, but it also pushed the advantage back to those who could truly park shots. Nowadays, if even an 850-rated player gets within 15' or 20', they're feeling pretty good about their chances.
So what's my final opinion? I don't have one. I'd want to see the plot curves for makes, and then debate whether that placed enough, too little, or just the right emphasis on putting. I'd want to consider other options like allowing baskets to be installed/designed on a slant.
