Nine-hole course or 18?

[Cerealman]

Yesterday, I stopped by Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., (despite the warnings about navigation, which were legit). It's listed as an 18-hole course. However, there are only nine baskets with allegedly two different tee areas. Finding ONE, let alone two different tee areas per hole, was difficult and resulted in me throwing from an area apparently near the originally intended tee area (much thanks to the DGCR photos and map).

Question: Should this be listed as an 18-hole course on DGCR? To me, it's a nine-hole course with possibly two different lengths, IF you can find them.

Similar question: Should courses with two tee areas and only one basket be counted as 18 holes or nine? (Courses like Heritage Park in Andrews, N.C., and Fayette City Park in Fayette, Mo., come to mind.)

I briefly searched the forum but didn't find a thread so please point me in the right direction if this topic has been hashed out before.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I think 9 baskets with 18 tees should be listed as a niner.

Sometimes the tees don't change things up that much, sometimes they really do. But for the sake of consistency, I'm in favor of saying 9 baskets + 18 tees is a niner.

I'm also in favor of calling 9 tees + 18 baskets a niner.

My main criteria for determining how the course should be categorized, "What traffic volume can the course accommodate?" Not how unique shots/looks/layouts it provides. That should be covered in a review.

Assuming you limit cards to groups of four, the maximum & of players you can accommodate with reasonable flow/ and wait times is 36 players (9 holes x 4 players/holes = 36). More than that and you start running into longer back up and other issues. One card waiting for another card to play the alt tee/pin on that hole, regardless of whether it has a different fairway.

With 18 baskets + 18 tees, you can accommodates twice as many players as either of the above, without running into any traffic flow issues. That's the difference between 18 hole and 9 holes courses.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

FWIW, here are two local courses that have 9 baskets + 18 tees, that were already listed as 18 holers before I even joined DGCR. It's very common to have to wait for people playing the "other hole."

Quite a few of the alt tees do a great job of changing things up, and they even have tournaments that play "all 18 holes," but I still think they should be called nine hole courses, because it would be a mucking fess to put a foursome on every tee.

Should I ask Tim if he wants to change the way they're listed. It really shouldn't invalidate any of the reviews or affect ratings, just how they're classified on the website. They've been listed as 18's forever... but is that valid reason to "grandfather" them in as such?

Wagner Park
Starr-Jaycee Park

 

[Cerealman]

Thanks for weighing in, Bogey.

Sure. I'd be interested in Tim's opinion.

As I was using my DGCR app to keep score yesterday, I think I was amused by the notion that I hadn't played the whole course because holes 10-18 were left blank, even though with such horribly marked tee areas, I would have been playing the identical course on the "back nine."

 

[Three Putt]

Citizens Park in Belleville, IL. is like that. It's listed as 18 but looks like a niner, plays like a niner, quacks like a niner...it's a niner. :|

 

[DavidSauls]

I'm generally in agreement with Bogey, not so much for course capacity as variety.

If the second set of tees (or baskets) offer a distinctly different set of challenges, then maybe. I've only seen 1 or 2 courses that might fit that bill. Otherwise, it's clearly a niner.

 

[Dcinmd]

Bluemont is listed as a nine hole course, with 4 tee pads per hole and 17 baskets on the course.

https://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=456&mode=ci

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I've played Bluemont. The multiple layouts create some pretty good variety.
It's one of the best niners I've played, but I still say, "It's a niner."


And for what it's worth, the two courses I linked are listed as "18 Holes/9 Baskets."

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Sorry for posting again but I got timed out.

Given that the Course Info page clearly shows:
Holes / Baskets: … with separate #'s for each ... 18 / 9


Carson-Newman is listed as 18/9, as are both of the courses I linked.

Any time the Course Info shows # of holes ≠ # baskets … it should be a tip off to the reader that something's a bit different.
A quick look at the course map should confirm what the deal is.

Does anyone really think we need to dig deeper?

 

[Three Putt]

It's a bit slippery because the course I linked is straight up a niner with dual tees, they just named the tees 1-9 and then 10-18 so there are 18 "holes" because when you shoot to basket 1 the tees are marked 1 & 10 instead of 1 red and 1 white. It's just a labeling thing.

I think the site allows that to show as 18 because I have played some private courses that had a shared basket. The old Molex course in Lisle, IL did that. Hole 3 and 9 used the same basket, but they shot at it from totally different directions and the flow of the course made them seem like unique holes even though in the end you were putting at the same bucket. That course I considered a niner even though there were only eight baskets.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I'll buy a different tees to the same basket as two holes, when they truly feel like a different holes. As I said, some alt tees really do change things up enough to merit being considered two unique holes.

That said, I've yet to see a set of dual tees playing to nine baskets, that does that consistently enough to be called an 18 hole course. And like I mentioned before, a legit 18 hole course can accommodate twice as many players for league, tournament, or even casual play.

Establishing how different the shots created by a set of dual tees actually are, is somewhat fairly subjective. How different do they l need they need to be to be considered "two unique holes?"

Whether a course can simultaneously acommodate 9 cards of players vs. 18 cards of players is much more objective.

When it comes to segregating items for classification, the more objective the criteria are, the less ambiguity there is, and the more meaningful the categories become.

OK. I'm pretty sure it's time to step down from this soap box.

 

[Cerealman]

Bogey, your soapbox is fine ... I agree with it.

This issues snags my attention because of a slight peeve. When I'm using the DGCR map to search for courses on future disc golf trips, I tend to search for "18 holes or more" ... these wannabe-18-hole-courses shouldn't fit that criteria since those courses are simply nine-hole courses with dual tees. Plus, in the scorebook, it shows as an incomplete round.

The Heritage course in Andrews, N.C. offers a different approach to its hole info (https://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=5052&mode=hi). It's listed as a nine-hole course, but the hole info tab displays holes as "Hole 1/10, Hole 2/11, etc." with two different distances listed on the DGCR site.

 

[giles]

I agree with what seems to be the consensus but don't follow the rule myself. My backyard course is, 15 baskets, 12 tee boxes to play 18 holes. It loops around and on the back 9 you have either a different tee or a different pin (never both) and only 1 hole has completely unique fairway coming in from a different direction (shared green). What I think everyone is missing is that if the majority of the people playing a course play it as 18 holes, they are going to want the scorebook for DGCR or Udisc to be 18 holes.

 

[Future_Primitive]

It's a bit slippery because the course I linked is straight up a niner with dual tees, they just named the tees 1-9 and then 10-18 so there are 18 "holes" because when you shoot to basket 1 the tees are marked 1 & 10 instead of 1 red and 1 white. It's just a labeling thing.

This post reminded of a course in Minnesota that was labeled like this on the tee pads.

Brockway Park https://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=3329&mode=ci

It looks like it is listed correctly on DGCR as a 9 holer with 9 baskets. But at the course if I recall correctly it had two pads and they had signs listing them as 1-9 and 10-18 but in a strange way. On holes #1-9 the odd holes played from the longs and even from shorts. Then for #10-18 the odd holes were the shorts and the evens were the longs. We played it this way instead of doing 9 long tees and then 9 short tees. First time I recall seeing 18 hole signs for a 9 hole, two pad per hole course.

 

[ToddL]

Would anyone ever try to claim they have a 36 hole course with 18 baskets and 36 tee pads? Is there a philosophical difference between 2x9=18 and 2x18=36 that would justify being able to claim one but not the other?

 

[DavidSauls]

Would anyone ever try to claim they have a 36 hole course with 18 baskets and 36 tee pads? Is there a philosophical difference between 2x9=18 and 2x18=36 that would justify being able to claim one but not the other?

It's a good question.

But there might be a case for it. There's an 18-hole course with two pretty distinct, overlapping layouts, much of which criss-cross like the other didn't exist. There are some shared baskets (generally thrown to from completely different directions), and a few shared tees (going to very different basket locations). And 4 holes that are on both layouts. As time goes by, it keeps getting more convoluted.

It doesn't fit into this site well as an 18-holer with 2 sets of tees, though that's how it's currently described. Is it 2 courses? One 32-hole course?

It makes me think that it's possible for a 9/18 or 18/9 course to have options so different, that it really seems to be more than just a 9-hole course. But I've only seen one or two that might be considered that way; just as almost all the 18-holers I've played with multiple tees or baskets seem to be just variations on the same course.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Would anyone ever try to claim they have a 36 hole course with 18 baskets and 36 tee pads? Is there a philosophical difference between 2x9=18 and 2x18=36 that would justify being able to claim one but not the other?

I've pondered this question myself, and honestly, and while it seemed to makes sense to ask the question....

I've never even heard of anyone claiming 2x18 as a 36 hole course. Is there any benefit or advantage of doing so, anyway?

I guess the argument basically comes down to truth in advertising: caveat emptor, if you will.

I mean, consider two highly rated courses:
Beast and Goliath. 36 individual baskets, 48 unique tees. 18 of the baskets are shared, with 6 unique to each "course.". Listed as two 24 hole courses... and certainly plays that way.

But you couldn't really have a decent number of players (e.g. league) play each of them at the same time

 

[tonyroberts]

This post reminded of a course in Minnesota that was labeled like this on the tee pads.

Brockway Park https://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=3329&mode=ci

It looks like it is listed correctly on DGCR as a 9 holer with 9 baskets. But at the course if I recall correctly it had two pads and they had signs listing them as 1-9 and 10-18 but in a strange way. On holes #1-9 the odd holes played from the longs and even from shorts. Then for #10-18 the odd holes were the shorts and the evens were the longs. We played it this way instead of doing 9 long tees and then 9 short tees. First time I recall seeing 18 hole signs for a 9 hole, two pad per hole course.

Brockway is designed to be played as an 18 and most locals play it that way. If playing 18, the flow is to alternate short tees and long tees throughout the round. This takes you around the layout twice. The tees on each hole are set up to take advantage of the terrain and surrounding woods so that you have a rather different tee shot and not just a longer or shorter version of the same shot. Playing this version of the course is much more satisfying to me that playing 1 round of the short tees and 1 round of the long tees.

To record rounds on the DGCR scorebook, a player has no option but to play either rounds of longs or shorts. There's no option to record scores based on the intended line of play. Although this course does not have 18 totally unique holes, it definitely has been designed to play as 18 and it would be nice to recognize it as such since 18 holes since that seems to be the standard unit of play.

Would anyone ever try to claim they have a 36 hole course with 18 baskets and 36 tee pads? Is there a philosophical difference between 2x9=18 and 2x18=36 that would justify being able to claim one but not the other?

I think that the difference is that 18 holes is a standard unit of play. Also, an 18-hole course with two sets of tee pads likely has longer teepads that are designed for players of a much higher level. In the case of Brockway, the "long" tees are playable by recreational and lower-level players.