[PDGA Major] Champions Cup 2024

[Cgkdisc]

Look at scoring data from the field of players at the distance/skill level the hole has been designed for. Determine the lowest score that at least 15% have thrown. That's a birdie since it's the score players and commentators would refer to as "scoring". On hole 12, about 1% score 4 and 20% score 5. Hole must play as a par 6 if you want enough players to have a reasonable chance to "score".

Note that even the PDGA Par guidelines show it's a par 6 when taking effective length into account. This hole has a 30-40' elevation increase from the creek adding up to 150' length equivalent to the 1050' overall laser length.

 

[glassila]

Eagle does not look good.

 

[Spectacledbear]

This course is so good that im watching live from start to finish for the first time. Imagine if this was the standard..

 

[Steve West]

Look at scoring data from the field of players at the distance/skill level the hole has been designed for. Determine the lowest score that at least 15% have thrown. That's a birdie since it's the score players and commentators would refer to as "scoring". On hole 12, about 1% score 4 and 20% score 5. Hole must play as a par 6 if you want enough players to have a reasonable chance to "score".

That's not how birdie is defined. Birdie is one less than par.

Par is the score that an expert disc golfer would be expected to make on a given hole with errorless play under ordinary weather conditions.

That's the official definition according to the governing body of the sport. Trying to claim par is something else is unethical and dishonest.

Just stop it.

You can continue to advocate for designing holes so that birdie is possible, but if you try to achieve that by breaking par, you'll destroy the very thing you sought to create. No one will trust par, and no one will care what score is a so-called birdie.

 

[Cgkdisc]

That's not how birdie is defined. Birdie is one less than par.

Par is the score that an expert disc golfer would be expected to make on a given hole with errorless play under ordinary weather conditions.

That's the official definition according to the governing body of the sport. Trying to claim par is something else is unethical and dishonest.

Just stop it.

You can continue to advocate for designing holes so that birdie is possible, but if you try to achieve that by breaking par, you'll destroy the very thing you sought to create. No one will trust par, and no one will care what score is a so-called birdie.

Your way is ineffective for designing holes in advance or correcting them when the data shows the design for scoring needs tweaking. Has nothing to do with our "official" par definition that we and all of the posters suffering through thousands of posts recognize doesn't always allow birdie scoring like ball golf. Every ball golf hole that meets their par definition is reasonably birdieable by players of the skill/distance level that hole was designed for. Our current disc golf par definition does not always allow that. Now, there's a better way being developed to design and make sure reasonable birdie scoring is possible by first designing for reasonable birdieability in your Par 3s, 4s and 5s. The parameters are not too different from existing DG par design parameters, just easier and likely more effective to apply in advance of scoring data.

 

[Hyzer Ale]

This event is the best example of the ratings system being broken that I have ever seen. There is not excessive OB the scew the ratings. Only 3 rounds over 1050? I looked at all of the ratings and 31 players shot above their rating, 60 shot below and 4 shot right at their rating. This is a major with the best players in the world and the rating system's response was that the field sucked today.

 

[Flick Maniac]

That was enjoyable.

I really like the course. Although Im gonna need the creeks on 16&17 to be OB. Cmon now. Loads of smaller ditches are commonly OB on any of the courses we see on the tour. Here, your disc is in wide running water and its fine? Yeah buddy whatever

Also talk to me how the way it played out for AB and Paul on 16 made any freaking sense. I'll wait.

Now, I'm not a vindictive man normally, but did I throughly enjoy Eagle struggling? Big yes. Guilty pleasure for sure but hey there it is.

Nice lead card for R2. Bring it.

 

[Spectacledbear]

It looked like Eagle was learning discs and recollecting his release as he was playing.

 

[Sewer bill]

That was enjoyable.

I really like the course. Although Im gonna need the creeks on 16&17 to be OB. Cmon now. Loads of smaller ditches are commonly OB on any of the courses we see on the tour. Here, your disc is in wide running water and its fine? Yeah buddy whatever

Also talk to me how the way it played out for AB and Paul on 16 made any freaking sense. I'll wait.

Now, I'm not a vindictive man normally, but did I throughly enjoy Eagle struggling? Big yes. Guilty pleasure for sure but hey there it is.

Nice lead card for R2. Bring it.

16 seems like an afterthought with the maybe drop zone and the fast camera switching didn't really help out with conveying to the viewer the shot shape of the hole and why some seemingly decent shots would filter left.

Personally I like casual water and how it can force players in to situations like off balance squishy footing or if they want to risk wet foot for a closer putt.

 

[bwgort]

This event is the best example of the ratings system being broken that I have ever seen. There is not excessive OB the scew the ratings. Only 3 rounds over 1050? I looked at all of the ratings and 31 players shot above their rating, 60 shot below and 4 shot right at their rating. This is a major with the best players in the world and the rating system's response was that the field sucked today.

Ratings are very broken especially on heavily wooded courses. 4 points a stroke compresses them so it's impossible to shoot high rated rounds and also very hard to shoot low rated rounds. -7 is 1058 and +16 is 953. Lol.

 

[Cgkdisc]

This event is the best example of the ratings system being broken that I have ever seen. There is not excessive OB the scew the ratings. Only 3 rounds over 1050? I looked at all of the ratings and 31 players shot above their rating, 60 shot below and 4 shot right at their rating. This is a major with the best players in the world and the rating system's response was that the field sucked today.

The ratings are produced from a relatively simple math formula that produces an adjusted scoring average similar to percentages. For example, compare rating stats from an SSA 56 course with one like Northwoods which came in close to 76. Subtract 36 from each SSA as the fixed number of strokes everyone has to throw on even the shortest 18-hole courses (barring the rare ace). That's 20 additional throws on the SSA 56 for a 1000 rating and 40 additional throws on the SSA 76 course for a 1000 rating. One stroke scoring difference on the SSA 56 course changes the scoring percentage by 5% (1/20) and only 2.5% (1/40) on the 76. That's a factor of 2 (5%/2.5%). In our rating system, a stroke is worth about 8.6 pts on the SSA 56 course and 4.3 pts on the SSA 76 course. The same factor of 2 (8.6/4.3).

From a practical standpoint, a player only has the potential to shoot up to 18 strokes better than the SSA (a birdie per hole). So, on the SSA 56 course, an elite player shooting the rare -18 below SSA (38) would get a world record rating around 1000+18x8.6=1155, with a more attainable score of -10 (46) rated 1086. Using the same -18 and -10 scores relative to SSA on the SSA 76 course would rate 1077 and 1043, respectively. Now, Casey White shot 62 which is actually 14 strokes under SSA 76. Using our formula, 1000+14x4.3=1060. Casey only got 1058 because the actual SSA was fractionally lower than exactly 76 in our example.

So, is the rating system broken or simply a consistent math calculation process where people need to better understand what the numbers mean?

Note that each hole design in terms of birdieability relative to the theoretical hole SSA determines how tough it will be for any player to shoot well under the overall SSA. The same wooded course can produce a narrow total scoring range or wider total scoring range simply based on the individual hole lengths being tweaked for more scoring potential (birdies) or less which compacts scores even more than a high SSA course already does.

 

[ChrisWoj]

This conversation got me to sort of try to mentally visualize the shape of the field in terms of performance relative to incoming player ratings. Here's what I came up with:

(this is all PLAYER RATINGS, none of this is using the round ratings from round 1)

Ranking	Ratings in Field by rating	Ratings in field by current place	Difference
1	1050	1020	-30
2-9	1044 (all 1040s)	1032	-12
10-19	1035 (all 1030s)	1034	-1
20-53	1024 (all 1020s)	1022	-2
54-81	1015 (all 1010s)	1014	-1
82-92	1007 (all 1000s)	1017	+10
93-95	998 (all 990s)	1011	+13
96	989	DNF (no impact)	x

Yesterday players 10 through 81 in the field - exactly 75% of the field and right in the meat of the field performed pretty close to their rating generally speaking.

Under- and over-performances in the top 9 players and the bottom 13 players (respectively) sorta neutralized each other.

Not sure yet how to think of this or if it matters at all. Just thought it could sit as food for thought.

 

[@CD-]

So, is the rating system broken or simply a consistent math calculation process where people need to better understand what the numbers mean?

Casual fans want to compare rounds on different SSA courses without having to perform any calculations on their own. I think players have experienced and can see that woods courses present as more challenging so they expect the ratings to be higher (even when the overall scoring separation and each throw's value are lowered). Probably why the comments keep coming in that the system is 'broken' in their opinion.

Thought experiment - what if every tournament round was played on a SSA 68+ woods course and produced similar ratings to what we are seeing at Northwood. Would fans still see the ratings system as broken? Would 1070+ rated rounds be treated like 1100+ does currently?

The focus on individual round ratings and comparing to the player's weighted average rating (product of a variety of courses) is probably not on the minds of the pro golfers out actually competing for the Major title this weekend. Tattar might be a bit more at ease seeing that her R1 had a few mistakes and she still met her current player rating - better than needed to get to 1000 rating next update. I think the PDGA has publicly calculated and announced a 990+ tournament average at Champions Cup gets her 1000 rated in the May update.

 

[Flick Maniac]

TL; DR

Anywhoo... any other tidbits you noticed during the first round? I saw Calvin going back to hiding the basket before going into the last swing in his putt. In Jonesboro he didnt do that

 

[Cgkdisc]

Casual fans want to compare rounds on different SSA courses without having to perform any calculations on their own. I think players have experienced and can see that woods courses present as more challenging so they expect the ratings to be higher (even when the overall scoring separation and each throw's value are lowered). Probably why the comments keep coming in that the system is 'broken' in their opinion.

Thought experiment - what if every tournament round was played on a SSA 68+ woods course and produced similar ratings to what we are seeing at Northwood. Would fans still see the ratings system as broken? Would 1070+ rated rounds be treated like 1100+ does currently?

Note that courses in PGA events have scratch course ratings in a tight 4-5 stroke range from say 68 to 73 and pars from 70-72 so their stats are fairly comparable. They would have the same level of stats confusion if they were playing courses over a much wider course rating range like disc golf. Most MPO courses on tour seem to be converging towards a tighter range from Par 60 to 66. I think the sweet spot in the long run would be shooting for a par 63 course with 9 par 3s and 9 par 4s or maybe one 1 par 5, 7 par 4s and 10 par 3s.

For PGA Majors they toughen the courses up by around 2 strokes versus the regular weekend courses. In the case of Northwoods, the SSA comes in at 75, 10 strokes per round higher than the 65 SSA at W.R. Jackson in last year's Champions Cup which was only 2 strokes tougher than the tour average last year. Think about that. Over 4 rounds, we'll have to watch? enjoy? around 40 extra 1000 rated throws per MPO player. Good? Too much? Our sport has a ways to go if the goal is moving toward more consistency in the courses presented for viewing, especially when the goal is to eventually have reliable and understandable stats for wagering. Properly scoring hole lengths are more important than overall length.

 

[seedlings]

So, for fun… an unfair question: if you had to choose between pros throwing 40% rain delayed, shortened tournaments at Northwood style woods courses …
-or-
Full tournaments at converted ball golf courses…

I can't stand rain delays, while I can tolerate loose park golf.

 

[Brychanus]

So, for fun… an unfair question: if you had to choose between pros throwing 40% rain delayed, shortened tournaments at Northwood style woods courses …
-or-
Full tournaments at converted ball golf courses…

I can't stand rain delays, while I can tolerate loose park golf.

All of these choices feel like a disc golf dystopian nightmare

 

[Flick Maniac]

Lead card and chase card moved to 7&7:20am. Sucks to be those guys

 

[zontar]

700am start would be my dream time.

 

[Jolt]

Wow, rain and crazy winds. . this round is going to be HARD