Ledgestone 2017

[lyleoross]

People keep talking about Mach X like that is the gold standard. I don't throw any Prodigy but I find the Prodigy baskets to be the very best. I'm always impressed when I play a course with those.

Mach X has huge problems. Any shot that hits soft center gets pushed out. Left side chain outs are common too. The chains are set to catch rockets making it so they will only catch center hit rockets. You get what you design for.

 

[Streets]

Maybe Ricky should sponsor a basket designing contest. Winner gets 5 discs for their hard work.

 

[F. Howl]

To my eyes: We need to start the discussion at "What weak spot is acceptable?"

Any basket that accommodates rising or nose up putts at the expense of falling or nose down putts is a bad design. If you're going to have a weak spot on the chains, it should be one that punishes rising or nose-up putting.

What is wrong with nose up putting?

 

[F. Howl]

Mach X has huge problems. Any shot that hits soft center gets pushed out. Left side chain outs are common too. The chains are set to catch rockets making it so they will only catch center hit rockets. You get what you design for.

I putt on Mach Xs and soft centers go in fine. It's soft highs that have no chance of going in. They always get pushed out. Mach X has a huge benefit though: no spit throughs.

 

[lyleoross]

I putt on Mach Xs and soft centers go in fine. It's soft highs that have no chance of going in. They always get pushed out. Mach X has a huge benefit though: no spit throughs.

Essentially what you're saying is I like this basket cause it suits my style of putting. I'm simply repeating what pros have said during tournament play. You've given up one thing to get something else.

I've said this before. You only really know if ya do the experiment with a throwing device.

 

[F. Howl]

Essentially what you're saying is I like this basket cause it suits my style of putting. I'm simply repeating what pros have said during tournament play. You've given up one thing to get something else.

I've said this before. You only really know if ya do the experiment with a throwing device.

Then essentially any complaints are saying they don't like it because it doesn't suit their putting style?

I'm saying bounce outs (like the ones on the Chainstars at Ledgestone) and spit thoughs (that happen on any basket without linked or interwoven center chains) feel more fluky than unauthoritative putts being pushed out.

 

[lyleoross]

Then essentially any complaints are saying they don't like it because it doesn't suit their putting style?

I'm saying bounce outs (like the ones on the Chainstars at Ledgestone) and spit thoughs (that happen on any basket without linked or interwoven center chains) feel more fluky than unauthoritative putts being pushed out.

Absolutely, are you saying they aren't?

The Fluky argument, Thanks, Chuck, is baloney. It's a physical device with physical parameters. If you supersede it's physical ability to catch, the disc is going through. That isn't fluky, it's mechanics.

We've already revisited the cup, let's revisit basketball. If I take a shot, and I throw it hard as heck into the square, it isn't going to fall in. It's going to bounce way out. I can fix that by making the square concave or by making the basket five feet in diameter. Or I can tell players, you have to have a soft touch to get the ball to fall into the hole.

The balance between strength and skill is met in the size of the hoop, its height and the parameters of the backboard. You can make it easier all you want. The hoop set up is what it is to provide an adequate challenge to show player skill.

Throwing a disc straight for sixty feet isn't that hard. Getting it to stay in the basket is harder. What some want is, "if I thow that disc on a line at full strength for 60 feet, I should get a score." You can do that, but it takes less skill. That might be okay, but it should be acknowledged, that is what you're aiming for.

I've written this before too. If you got the pros together, all of them, and had them design a basket that fits their play, and we voted on it, and it was the Mach X. That is fine. Since they represent the best, we should see what fits what they do. But is is silly to not acknowledge what baskets are and how they work. What are you getting and why?

 

[lyleoross]

BTW, I can use a baseball style thumber, and deliver a disc at full speed into a two foot square from thirty to forty feet, The speed I have to put on the disc to keep it in the two-foot square means that on most baskets, it skips through. Funny enough, it stays in the cross linked baskets.

 

[roggenb3]

If the world's best putter can't adjust his putting to the targets on a given course, then he's not the world's best putter.

 

[ChrisWoj]

What is wrong with nose up putting?

If the goal of the game is to place the discs in the basket, with the chains serving as an apparatus for aiding in that task - a nose up putt is then the lesser likely of the angles to aid in the goal of the game, its success dependent more on the convenience of the chain structure. I'm not stating that the chains should be structured in a way that eliminates the nose up Putt from the game - just that if we are looking at an either/so situation - falling and nose down should be given the maximum chance for success over rising and nose up.

It isn't a matter of trying to eliminate one or the other, so much as figuring out exactly what sort of putts we should worry more or less about when designing an optimal structure for the chain assembly.

 

[F. Howl]

The Fluky argument, Thanks, Chuck, is baloney. It's a physical device with physical parameters. If you supersede it's physical ability to catch, the disc is going through. That isn't fluky, it's mechanics.

Dice rolling isn't fluky, it's mechanics: We just don't know the velocity, angle, etc. needed to obtain a certain result and even if we did, humans are too sloppy to control said parameters.

Of course there are many ways to get a disc to stay in a basket, and a certain variation of putt that has the largest margin of "error". The problem is that within that ideal target area there are ways a nearly identical putt can turn sideways and slide through the other side or hit the pole and bounce out, and it would be impossible for any human to understand the exact parameters that differentiate the perfect putt and that apparently near perfect putt that spit through, and that, as I said, "feels" fluky. I'm not advocating to make the game easier. Just to feel less....like this:

https://youtu.be/xXiHDORLjq0?t=7m56s

And it's not just Chainstars:

https://youtu.be/Ur_3_1Md8rg?t=6m51s
https://youtu.be/0gxm_1riKnk
https://youtu.be/VTD8iVOkJpI?t=17m15s


At any rate, in response, Discraft has said it would release a championship level basket in time for next year.

 

[Aim For The Chains]

Respectfully, I disagree. I've heard this argument before, but the truth is if you build them correctly, maintenance is quite easy and minimal. I can't speak to all turf solutions that exist out there, but this is true for DiscGolfPark at least.

Our TeePads require infill, so all you need to do is brush additional sand in occasionally, or when you see it getting bare. It's minimal maintenance, and the turf survives winters covered in ice (Finland), or being flooded (Louisiana) with no problem.

I think use of turf that doesn't require infill has the issues you're describing, because while it seems logical that infill-less turf is less work, it actually wears much quicker. What the sand infill does for ours is allows the player to rotate their heel or toe on the sand itself, not on top of the blades of turf, so as long as that infill is present it keeps the friction consistent and doesn't wear the mat out as quickly.

Where the workload is more difficult than concrete is during the installation. Properly installed TeePads take more time and careful attention to get right. No arguments from me there...concrete is easier and quicker to install.

Id be more curious to see what the turf pads look like 20+ years down the road.

The concrete will still be there.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Id be more curious to see what the turf pads look like 20+ years down the road.

The concrete will still be there.

Very true but a lot of the 20+ year old courses I've seen either have gone through or need to go through a redesign.

 

[discvalet]

Eliminate chains and pole

I have read most of this thread. If this has already been mentioned then I missed it.

The goal in disc golf is to get a disc to "come to rest in the basket". The chains and pole are there to make this easier. This design is a tremendous scoring aid, helping a vast majority of putted discs to "come to rest in the basket". Perhaps disc golfers should appreciate this reality because in no other sport that I can think of are the scoring areas designed to aid a player in scoring. In soccer, there's the net, kick it in. There's no intricate deflection device setup to help a ball get into the net. Same with the goalposts in football, the cup in ball golf and so on. In basketball there's a backboard but that's a lot simpler and more predictable than the suspended chains and pole of a target.

I say remove the chains and center pole. Then it's up to the disc golfer, not the chains and pole, to get the disc to "come to rest in the basket".

Yes, putting would be harder and it should be. "Deuce or die" holes would be largely eliminated and they should be. Aces would be much less frequent and they should be. In ball golf an ace is almost always a perfect shot but in disc golf an ace is almost always an imperfect shot that would not be very close to the basket were it not for the chains and pole.

Elimination of chain and pole would make targets a lot cheaper and current courses could be changed pretty easily. New targets could have colored bands around the basket with a number on them.

 

[onemilemore]

I have read most of this thread. If this has already been mentioned then I missed it.

The goal in disc golf is to get a disc to "come to rest in the basket". The chains and pole are there to make this easier. This design is a tremendous scoring aid, helping a vast majority of putted discs to "come to rest in the basket". Perhaps disc golfers should appreciate this reality because in no other sport that I can think of are the scoring areas designed to aid a player in scoring. In soccer, there's the net, kick it in. There's no intricate deflection device setup to help a ball get into the net. Same with the goalposts in football, the cup in ball golf and so on. In basketball there's a backboard but that's a lot simpler and more predictable than the suspended chains and pole of a target.

I say remove the chains and center pole. Then it's up to the disc golfer, not the chains and pole, to get the disc to "come to rest in the basket".

Yes, putting would be harder and it should be. "Deuce or die" holes would be largely eliminated and they should be. Aces would be much less frequent and they should be. In ball golf an ace is almost always a perfect shot but in disc golf an ace is almost always an imperfect shot that would not be very close to the basket were it not for the chains and pole.

Elimination of chain and pole would make targets a lot cheaper and current courses could be changed pretty easily. New targets could have colored bands around the basket with a number on them.

I feel like this would take away from the excitement of the game. Eventually you'd just have a bunch of lay-ups and tap-ins instead of the possibility of those huge 80-footers.

 

[lyleoross]

Dice rolling isn't fluky, it's mechanics: We just don't know the velocity, angle, etc. needed to obtain a certain result and even if we did, humans are too sloppy to control said parameters.

Of course there are many ways to get a disc to stay in a basket, and a certain variation of putt that has the largest margin of "error". The problem is that within that ideal target area there are ways a nearly identical putt can turn sideways and slide through the other side or hit the pole and bounce out, and it would be impossible for any human to understand the exact parameters that differentiate the perfect putt and that apparently near perfect putt that spit through, and that, as I said, "feels" fluky. I'm not advocating to make the game easier. Just to feel less....like this:

https://youtu.be/xXiHDORLjq0?t=7m56s

And it's not just Chainstars:

https://youtu.be/Ur_3_1Md8rg?t=6m51s
https://youtu.be/0gxm_1riKnk
https://youtu.be/VTD8iVOkJpI?t=17m15s


At any rate, in response, Discraft has said it would release a championship level basket in time for next year.

As I've written before, until you actually test you don't know where you are. I can post four or five vids of discs bouncing out of, or off the sides of Mac X's too. And I can call them fluky. Or I can say, the extra chains added to Mach X baskets make the assembly heavier. It takes more kinetic energy to push the chains in far enough for the disc to stay in the basket. However, that also means that shots to the left and right are more likely to skip off the heavier assembly. You say fluky, I say physics.

Discraft isn't putting out a better basket. They are responding to a market niche and market demand. The basket might be better, but I suspect that like the Mach X, it will trade one set of problems for another. For players like you, that trade works, for others, it won't.

Innova has over 100 discs in six or so plastics. That's cause it pays, not because there are giant holes in their lineup.

 

[Flick Maniac]

Exactly. Like those advocating for a narrower chain setup or some other way to make putting more difficult, that would also greatly reduce aces and other throw ins that offer exciting moments on the course whether throwing or watching the throw.

 

[lyleoross]

I feel like this would take away from the excitement of the game. Eventually you'd just have a bunch of lay-ups and tap-ins instead of the possibility of those huge 80-footers.

I agree. The object should be to get a design that balances skill and power. It isn't hard. Build a putting machine and test baskets. Decide on what is acceptable based on the results. "Shots thrown at x velocity in this area should stay in.". Put that standard in and let manufacturers meet it with any design they choose.

 

[F. Howl]

....However, that also means that shots to the left and right are more likely to skip off the heavier assembly. You say fluky, I say physics.

.....

No, I say both. I clarified what I meant with "fluky". Two nearly identical shots, indistinguishable to the human eye, where one stays in and one spits through isn't random/fluky in a literal sense, but it will always feel as such because we could never understand what parameter, which was x-number of degrees off, caused the disc to spit through rather than stick. Nothing is truly random, yet "randomness" does exist as a human perception. The target area (not the entire chain assembly, but dead center) shouldn't allow a disc to slip through when it "randomly" gets turned sideways.

 

[JTacoma03]

Wait, did you just tell a school administrator who has artificial turf fields, that he's wrong? Even you gave some caveats, necessary to decrease wear and tear.

No...I didn't...I gave my experience based on a product that I've sold, installed, and stand behind. There's many different types of turf.

Let's not create drama where there is none. I was having an insightful discussion.

The turf tees don't have the crushed rubber in them that might be linked to cancer, do they?

No, I'm pretty sure the sand is in place of "crumb" rubber. Not to say the turf tees don't contain rubber or other harmful stuff, of course.

But crumb rubber is ground up tires, and a cursory look into tire compounds will tell you that the stuff is toxic. Not saying that proves a link between those fields and cancer, either. But tire dust/particles are not healthy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_turf–cancer_hypothesis

Correct, we use sand. If I'm not mistaken, that crushed rubber was used in NFL stadiums because if they used finer grain filler (like sand), players would get it into their eyes, nose, mouth, etc. due to the violent nature of being tackled.

Also those types of synthetic infill are much more expensive and harder to source. The goal with DiscGolfPark is to add minimal work/maintenance while maximizing the benefit of the equipment.