Mulligan McGee
Birdie Member
If production costs were the only factor in retail price discs would only be $5 and gas would be a $1 a gallon.
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specs and rules to move DG from kids game to pro sport
- Thread starter michael bacon
- Start date
If production costs were the only factor in retail price discs would only be $5 and gas would be a $1 a gallon.
The baskets themselves might cost less but the fact that every course that wants to have a tournament will have to replace their baskets is what sucks.
That's one of the reasons it won't happen in the current climate. Whatever money is spent on baskets won't be around for the tournament payout. Open players might like the idea of smaller baskets, but they like money more.
beereakfast
Eagle Member
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2009
- Messages
- 647
Weather the original intent of this thread was to have a reasonable discussion of ways to make the game harder (read: create scoring separation) or not, changing one of the most expensive single aspects of the game seems like the wrong way to go.
Trouble is, any other idea immediately meets with derision. I like the idea of throwing out new concepts but most folks (myself included) really don't think anything is broken. Tech spec's and/or rules seem like a far easier way to do it, but nothing is going to change with the current mindset.
Rabble Rabble Rabble!
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
The instant way to make the game tougher for pros only with little investment would be to require larger diameter discs to be used for putting inside the 10m circle. Maybe the circle even gets increased to 12m or 15m. No target change at all, just a different ratio of disc size to target size. Going a step further, design or modify current targets where just the basket can be moved up the pipe maybe 6-8 inches to another bolt position simply for tournaments and moved back down to its current position for daily play.
texhop58
Eagle Member
I actually would like to see the bulls eye tourney. But know it won't happen. I don't have a big arm. But usually my putts and up shots atleast lets me compete with the big arms. But like it's been said. To expensive to replace all courses. I do feel like the new Mach x are making the sport even easier. Maybe go back to single chain baskets.
I like this idea.
This is the most reasonable suggestion thus far for the targets IMHO. Minimal cost really as I would want to go out with a pack of new nuts and bolts just in case any of them need replacing. It would be labor intensive as someone is going to spend the better part of a day wandering the course with a socket wrench and a decent cordless drill making the mods. But once an extra hole is drilled then it's pretty simple. Would this work on all the baskets out there? I've assembled some Chainstars before but am not sure...
This would also change the catching characteristics as the chains would not hang the same and probably not as evenly but would certainly increase the challenge. Maybe if the PDGA would allow non/minimally destructive modifications to baskets by TD's we could come up with some interesting ideas to increase the challenge. Sounds like an opportunity for some interesting R&D...
What about zip-tying off the inner layer of chains on a basket? Low cost and not much work. A big bag of heavy duty zip ties are pretty easy to come by and to get rid of them all you need is a decent pair of side cutters.
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
Back in the late 90s when discussions about making baskets temporarily tougher for tournaments first started (yes, it's been going on this long), I twist-tyed the small ring holding the outer chain set on the Mach III to the top of the assembly. This worked pretty well as a quick change to make the target a bit tougher. However, this was just around the time Innova was allowed (one DGA patent expired) to add the inner set of chains to their target. That quick mod did not work when the inner chains were completely inside the outer chains unlike the Mach III pattern. It would also not work for the Chainstar. So the idea just remained a curiosity because it couldn't be universally applied to all top baskets at the time.
I've played on a few older courses, or ones with homemade baskets that only have a single set of chains. That is not fun (although I was able to get a nice ace on a single chain basket). It certainly makes putting harder, but it certainly does not make the game as much fun to play. There's something satisfying about being able to really zip a disc into the chains and have it just catch and drop.
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
The modified Mach III still caught well when you hit the target sweet spot, it was just a smaller sweet spot at the bottom of the chain assembly similar to the current Bullseye basket.
I've learned to putt softly with the nose down on single chain baskets. It seems to greatly reduce bounce outs.
John Rock
Double Eagle Member
Requiring a certain diameter disc inside the circle sounds fine until you start dealing with the huge number of folks who will be creating these circles. Some will mark the circles at the correct distance while others will mark the circle wherever they want because "that's the way we do it here". And then there will be those lazy ones who don't mark the circle at all and just rely on a guess.
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
Why would it be any different than determining where the circle is now for putt jumping? It's only when the player is close to the 10m line that you might make a more precise judgment.
Ideas are fine. They're cheap as long as they stay on the drawing board. Its the bringing of those ideas into reality where bumps in the road occur.
As one of the rabblers, let me state that I might be more open to some of these ideas if the people who present them on here didn't consistency and repeatedly have the following issues with the way they present them.
1. Some self-assured notion that the game as we know it is well...broken. Never mind the number of courses in the ground has quadrupled in the last decade or that PDGA membership is at an all time high. If a few elite players can't carve out a six figure living at chucking discs, then that's a problem for all of us. The title of this thread speaks for itself.
2. Another self-assured notion that their idea, even without a single case of real world application, is the bulletproof, be all and end all solution, and that no real world cost should be spared to implement it, especially since the burden of that cost would be placed upon someone else.
3. The inferiority complex. This idea that outsiders look down upon us and don't respect disc golf because of one specific nuance of our game, its rules, its culture, etc. (that in reality isn't even a thought in the heads of most outsiders because well, they don't play disc golf, or at least not regularly enough to care about these things). That somehow we have to bring that nuance into compliance and make our sport "more like ball golf" with the idea of bag limits (because ball golf does that) or smaller targets (because ball golf does that).
These folks don't seem to realize that if we continually try to do things like ball golf, we are always going to live in its shadow. The only way to really pull out of it is to distinguish ourselves from it.
Cgkdisc
.:Hall of Fame Member:.
Seems like the primary rationale for having an "improved" version of disc golf for pro play versus others is to differentiate Pro players from Am and Rec players. Other sports create that difference by requiring you to play well enough to qualify for the pro tour in individual sports like golf and tennis or be drafted in pro team sports. Disc golf currently has no qualification to enter pro divisions and a somewhat fuzzy process to be sponsored. In those pro sports there's no need to differentiate the pro game rules and equipment from non-pro play although there are some minor differences.
It's unlikely disc golf will need to set up a qualification process for players to turn pro any time soon. But it's a constant annoyance for many when players above a certain rating do not turn pro (at any age) or that pros can enter am divisions. If money or qualification does not differentiate our pros from ams, why not consider making the Pro game tougher in some manner so an Am shooting a 50 on their layout can't say they would have cashed in pro because the pros played under a more stringent set of rules and equipment?
The key that's clear in this thread is figuring out ways to create that difference temporarily without significant cost for the very reason that there's not enough money currently to differentiate pros from ams.
It's unlikely disc golf will need to set up a qualification process for players to turn pro any time soon. But it's a constant annoyance for many when players above a certain rating do not turn pro (at any age) or that pros can enter am divisions. If money or qualification does not differentiate our pros from ams, why not consider making the Pro game tougher in some manner so an Am shooting a 50 on their layout can't say they would have cashed in pro because the pros played under a more stringent set of rules and equipment?
The key that's clear in this thread is figuring out ways to create that difference temporarily without significant cost for the very reason that there's not enough money currently to differentiate pros from ams.
The continued effort to make disc golf more like ball golf is a fools paradise. Disc golf, with only basic corporate support and a lot of grass roots effort, has grown incredibly during the last 15 years. Right through the "Great Recession". Ball golf, is losing courses and players all the time. The total number of ball golf courses in the US is decreasing. The cost to build and operate a bg course has skyrocketed. Disc golf is all the things that bg is NOT, easy to build and play, inexpensive, quick to play, doesn't require as much land or upkeep.... 364 new courses went in the ground last year, one per day! Why do we want to be ball golf?
Who cares if a random Am shoots 50 says they "could have cashed in pro."
Until they do it, its all talk.
Seems like an ego issue.
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