Par Talk

[DG_player]

I didn't see it as ad hominem. Doofenschmirtz has repeatedly described Steve (and others) as trying to reduce the number of birdies. Presumably, Doof doesn't want to reduce the number of birdies. Steve is asking why that is important.

I didn't read it as the "You just want a bunch of birdies to feel good..." counterpunch, that would be unfair and unproductive.

Just a request for an opponent to state his position, not just his opposition. I'm curious, myself.

Perhaps Doof can clarify, but that's not how I read it at all.

I didn't get the impression he was for or against more or less birdies. I got the impression that he felt it was errant to adjust par simply to create the perception that disc golf is harder.

 

[DavidSauls]

Perhaps Doof can clarify, but that's not how I read it at all.

I didn't get the impression he was for or against more or less birdies. I got the impression that he felt it was errant to adjust par simply to create the perception that disc golf is harder.

....by touting SOCMOBR (and by "definition," I mean THE current and most recently promulgated definition - in full). After all, there must be a reason that birdies are bad and that any particular number of them is too many, right?

SOCMOBR is Doof's acronym for something like "Steve's Overly Complicated Method Of Removing Birdies".

Perhaps I'm the one misreading, but it certainly looks to me that Doof is arguing that it's bad to reduce the number of birdies.

Meanwhile, Steve and the rest of us have not been arguing that there are too many birdies, or that there is a good number or a bad number of them. The goal is not to reduce the number of birdies; that's a false charge. Only that a birdie on a hole should be a score better than the expected score of an expert---and whatever number that produces will be fine. Of course, in the current environment where some birdies are the expected score, correcting that would result in a reduction of birdies (though perhaps an addition of a few, too, if there are holes where currently bogey is the expected score).

Nor is anyone suggesting that we change par to make disc golf look harder, for that matter.

(And lest I mislead anyone, I'm only shortening Doofenshmirtz's name to "Doof" out of laziness.....as I might DG. No insult intended.

 

[Steve West]

Can we drop this line of argument already? All it is is a thinly veiled ad hominem attack.

Most of the people that are anti-pure scoring based par, have a golf background and recognize the aesthetic beauty of golf par. Given our golf background, certainly the last thing we expect or want are more birdies.

It wasn't meant as such, but my use of the personal pronoun certainly gave it that flavor. I apologize. I sincerely want to hear ideas on how disc golf is better served if we don't reduce the number of birdies.

As for your second point, if you google "official definition of par USGA" you get:

Par "Par" is the score that an expert player would be expected to make for a given hole. Par means expert play under ordinary weather conditions, allowing two strokes on the putting green. Par is not a significant factor in either the USGA Handicap System or USGA Course Rating System.

So, par is definitely a score, and it is definitely the score that an expert player would be expected to make. It is also definitely not a course rating or slope thing.

Note that the definitions of disc golf par and golf par only differ in the number of throws allowed at the end of the hole. For 2018 , disc golf took that part out of their definition; before that, disc golf used two "close-range" throws instead of two "strokes on the putting green" - which recognized the difference in how the games are played.

Disc golf is certainly easier. Just not as much easier as it would look if we pretended that we expect to make two more throws after reaching the target.

It turns out that all the talk about improving par is just moving it closer to actual golf par in two ways: setting par based on experts (as opposed to the general public usually targeted by tee signs), and getting away from the ever-false notion that golf par is "drives plus two".

It's certainly nifty that "drives plus two" works so well for golf, but there's no chance anything that simple can work for disc golf. The scores in disc golf are MUCH less closely tied to distance. (Peruse this.) Since our holes are not even close to being as homogeneous as golf holes, we don't have the luxury of using a simple distance-based formula to approximate the expected score of an expert.

I don't understand how using actual scores to determine expected score is invalid or something that should not be allowed.

 

[Steve West]

Oops, wrong link.

 

[Steve West]

This shows scoring distributions by length of hole.

 

[lyleoross]

If you constantly say disc golf is easier than ball golf, in the context of getting more birdies, it feels a lot like you're saying we get more birdies or should get more birdies cause disc golf is easier.

One position is, we get more birdies cause it's easier, the other is we should get more birdies cause our sport is easier.

I'd rather we ask a different question. How many birdies are good for the sport? Sports, all of them, balance their games to give a certain level of difficulty. In many cases that balancing occurred long ago, but they still tweak to this day. I presume they do this because their perception or surveys tell them that balancing ease against difficulty is what attracts participation and fans. Getting it right matters to every other sport, at least by the efforts they've put into it. If having lots of birdies is what's best for getting participation and fans, then we should have lots of birdies. But no other sport just goes for ease of play. Well, except for putt putt golf and other non-serious sports. We need to ask, why do serious sports balance difficulty? And non-serious sports with low barriers to entry and play, never develop into major sports?

 

[lyleoross]

Changing par so there are fewer birdies doesn't build the perception that disc golf is harder, it simply makes par reflect what an expert player would score on a hole as per it's dictionary definition.

Disc golf is what it is in terms of difficulty, that doesn't change.

On the other hand there are way too many holes in play at major tournaments that should not be there. They are fine for your local "muni" course but watching pros toss a two hundred and fifty foot lay up with a drop in putt is hardly thrilling, even if you call it par 3.

 

[Steve West]

...watching pros toss a two hundred and fifty foot lay up with a drop in putt is hardly thrilling, even if you call it par 3.

Perhaps it be more thrilling if it was called a par 2?

 

[PMantle]

What? Par in golf isn't "scoring based"? Now you've really lost me.

It never has been. It's design based, pure and simple. The holes go in the ground as a 3/4/5, and are never changed unless the USGA gets a hold of them, and then, it's always to change a 5 to a 4, not based on anything at all.

 

[PMantle]

It wasn't meant as such, but my use of the personal pronoun certainly gave it that flavor. I apologize. I sincerely want to hear ideas on how disc golf is better served if we don't reduce the number of birdies.

As for your second point, if you google "official definition of par USGA" you get:


So, par is definitely a score, and it is definitely the score that an expert player would be expected to make. It is also definitely not a course rating or slope thing.





I don't understand how using actual scores to determine expected score is invalid or something that should not be allowed.

* That definition might as well not exist-it's never actually used.

* Expected is pre. Score is post.

* I call him Doof too, because I cannot spell it otherwise. He doesn't care.

Tee boxes/ease of putting/par 2s. These are your problems in disc golf. Nothing one can do about it with the economics of the game, and the current demensions of the basket.

 

[roggenb3]

It never has been. It's design based, pure and simple. The holes go in the ground as a 3/4/5, and are never changed unless the USGA gets a hold of them, and then, it's always to change a 5 to a 4, not based on anything at all.

So you are saying they randomly change those 5s to 4s, just for no reason whatsoever. Not because par was incorrectly set too high?

* Expected is pre. Score is post.

This is what I don't get. Why do you take issue with using the numbers to determine what we should expect an expert to get? How do you know until you watch experts play the hole?

 

[Steve West]

...
* Expected is pre. Score is post
...

And then next year's expected is pre again, only better.

 

[DavidSauls]

The pre/post issue is insignificant.

First, because golf the experience and ability to design holes so that the results will match the expectations. We haven't shown that we can do that, yet.

Second, because it's golf. We're talking disc golf.

 

[PMantle]

So you are saying they randomly change those 5s to 4s, just for no reason whatsoever. Not because par was incorrectly set too high?



This is what I don't get. Why do you take issue with using the numbers to determine what we should expect an expert to get? How do you know until you watch experts play the hole?

* It's not random. It's always two 5s to two 4s to get a par 70. If they have ever said why, I have missed it. In the same tournament, they will allow driveable par 4s that get eaten alive, so it cannot be due to score. It's only the US Open. The PGA Tour, The Masters, and The R&A(British Open) never do this.

* Because it doesn't fit the language of the definition.

 

[PMantle]

The pre/post issue is insignificant.

First, because golf the experience and ability to design holes so that the results will match the expectations. We haven't shown that we can do that, yet.

Second, because it's golf. We're talking disc golf.

So now we are talking design and not par. We could go on and on about that lol

 

[roggenb3]

* Because it doesn't fit the language of the definition.

There's nothing about the word "expect" that means you cannot use past experience to form your expectation.

I could see your argument if it was worded "the predicted score of an expert", but expectations are always a result of past experience.

 

[PMantle]

There's nothing about the word "expect" that means you cannot use past experience to form your expectation.

I could see your argument if it was worded "the predicted score of an expert", but expectations are always a result of past experience.

OK. :thmbup:

 

[DavidSauls]

So now we are talking design and not par. We could go on and on about that lol

We certainly could.

But in disc golf, we have to set par on the course as we find it, whether the design is good or bad.

So what expectations do we use? The designer's original expectations, which---presumably unlike in golf---may have been proven unrealistic by subsequent results?

Or do the actual results of actual players playing the holes in previous years, give us a better idea what to expect?

I know, if I'm betting on results, which expectations I'd go with.

If I'm setting par, and want the expectations to be as realistic as possible, I know, too.

 

[PMantle]

Whatever reduces birdies I guess lol

 

[DavidSauls]

Whatever reduces birdies I guess lol

To just the actual ones, yes.