What do beginners value most on tees- distance or par?

[John Theiss]

Could you clarify who you are defining as beginners? If a beginner is someone you are expecting to take up disc golf competitively and be involved in tournaments or league play then par is important because that is how they will be measured.

I would rather use the term REC than beginner.

Thanks for so many responses. My goal is to build courses that allow all types of players to be successful at their present skill level. And success on a course to me means that there are opportunities from different tees to achieve some pars, have looks at birdies if making great shot` (which is very exciting) and definitely have bogeys and doubles due to poor decision making or poor execution from whatever tee you choose. I want the sign to express REC not beginner. Lots of folks are casual golfers even though they have decades of experience, but they are not a blue level player and their skills align more with Red level play.

I am following several different guides/experience to base appropriate distances off the tee i.e. the PDGA distance guidelines for Red level tees (which i believe provides good distances for beginners/kids/older adults), Close Range Par which uses the average maximum distance folks can drive off the tee, my personal experiences as a physical educator working with thousands of beginners over the last 11 years and learning the distances that kids can achieve with proper instruction. So when designing tees for RED, BLUE, or GOLD play, there is a science to it. RED level tees are very important for me in course design due to my profession-physical educator My job involves skill mastery linked with skill progression and i strongly believe in adapting activities to achieve mastery, hence a short tee. Individuals that master a skill feel success which leads to enjoyment and the likelihood that the beginners will take part in disc golf again and that is how the sport grows.

Thanks for the responses. I would rather not have a thread drift debating par and everything being par 3 since that has been extensively covered on this forum and other forums.

 

[joecoin]

Get bigger signs

 

[Olorin]

So what is most important info for a beginner on the tee sign, the distance or par? The reason i ask is because we will not have separate tee signs at the red level tee

John,

First of all, it's great to see you posting on DGCR! I've always enjoyed playing your solid course designs. (William Yates Sprint is one of the best Green level Rec courses I have ever played!)

2) I'm glad that you clarified the difference between "beginner" and "Rec" players because I think they are different demographics for your question. A beginner may only play once and I think they care more about par first and distance second. A Rec player may play regularly and it depends on the person, so they may value either length or par. I would guess that most casual Rec players would pay more attention to par than lenght, if there was a consistent reasonable standard fir par. (But since sign par is so often a joke it is often useless and self-defeating.)

3) Every time I take a beginner to play for the first time they ask "what is the par on this hole?" Since we have the word "golf" in the name of our sport "par" is an intrinsic part of this game. Beginners want to know how their play compares to a standard.

4) At a minimum the tee sign MUST have the length, though. That is crucial to any player, even if beginners care about it the least. But a competitive beginner probably wants to know how far they throw, and a regular Rec player probably wants to see if her/his length increases over time.

More to say, but I will post this first...

 

[Olorin]

So what is most important info for a beginner on the tee sign, the distance or par? The reason i ask is because we will not have separate tee signs at the red level tee

REC ADV PRO
A. 300 3 3 3
B. 360 3 3 3
C. 505 4 4 3

Or maybe if my sign guy works his magic it could look like this but i still wonder if this will be too much info

REC ADV PRO
A. 175 3 A.300 3 3
B. 225 3 B. 360 3 3
C. 400 4 C. 505 4 3

John,

I don't think that you should even use 3 pars per hole. There should only be ONE par for each tee. That par should be for the player level that the layout is designed for. (You can see a longer explanation at my DG Course Design page.) If you have a Green level layout, and legit Green Close Range (CR) par 4s, so what if a Blue level player always gets an easy 3? This course is not designed for them! Of course a Gold level player will shred a Red level course; they might even be 18 under par. So what?

If you put 3 pars for each layout on the signs that would be confusing and way too much information to sift through.

REC ADV PRO
A. 175 3 A.300 3 3
B. 225 3 B. 360 3 3
C. 400 4 C. 505 4 3

This second option is WAY too much information and is thus potentially very confusing. I assume this is for 3 tees and 2 basket positions per hole. I would only put 1 par per layout and only use 2 pars in the rare cases where the Alt basket changes Level CR Par for that layout.

 

[DiscFifty]

Every rec played I've played with wants distance first. They all just want to bomb straight out of the gate. In a tee sign, distance & par (for regular tees) is all you need.

 

[scarpfish]

Another thing to point out is, beginners being beginners, they're going to play from the first tee they see, not necessarily the one that you want them to play from.

 

[Olorin]

John,

On the Red tees would have enough in your budget to just make small, very simple signs, preferably in red, that only have
-Hole number
-Length
-Level Par?

That would keep Rec players from having to go another tee to find the info they need.

 

[MarcQueen]

This thread has reminded me of something I have considered. Here's my situation...

I'm working on a gold level course, which yeah I know that's what they all say, that will have red tees in addition to gold. But, I also want to have a kid course, or maybe a wooded hiking trail/kid disc golf course. So, as you walk along the course,you will find small wood posts with green circles on them. When you are beside the green post, that is the tee. Maybe the green holes will all turn out to be 150 feet, then I wouldn't even needto label distance. And players on the gold our red layouts would be able to spot them as distance markers.

But if I want thinking of the possible use as fairway distance markers, I'd be happy to just have a green dot. The kids wouldn't care if it's 125 or 130. I just don't want to have junior tees sticking out of every fairway. I'm also wanting a very short putter course nearby, but this green trail would introduce the big course to new players.

Anyways, your discussion on signage minimum got me thinking about it, and I thought I would share.

 

[Dan Ensor]

What I absolutely hate though, are two different kind of tees. It feels like a "tee for the physically impaired" or "the lesser people". And it takes away pretty much the whole meaning of having a par number. If you need two different kinds of tees the course design as a whole might be broken somewhere else.

I know ball golf has this as well - but discs have an invisible string - balls don't.

Houck disagrees with you, and so do I. 400' drives and 300' drives on the same hole, from the same tee, will make 1 person play a good hole, and the other play a bad hole. Quite often, anyway.

 

[pmatt1969]

Just use Red, Blue, and gold. I would stay away from beginner, pro, etc. Put distance and par for the first 2 and just distance for gold. No need for par from the Gold. People playing the longs most likely play all par threes. Just make sure your tees are clearly marked on the signs and the tees themselves are painted with some of the correct color.

Red Blue gold
Distance 240 275 360
par 4 4

 

[John Theiss]

I have thought about this and this would be the easiest way to go. However, as the project progressed they quickly realized that my ambitions for unused land involved reclaiming it with a track excavator. So there were some additional costs. I do agree with you on this idea and believe it is the best way to go if the funds are available.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[RUSSELL]

par is irrelevant.
distance is key.

 

[Olorin]

par is irrelevant.

I disagree. Par is very necessary.
But lets respect the OP and not derail this thread by debating par. You can go to any one of the DGCR Par threads, esp. the Par Encyclopedia, to discuss par elsewhere.

 

[Tfire25]

I think both are important for beginners and experienced players alike. While the experienced players may play all par 3, it still feels good to know if my 3 was better than the norm.

I've had an idea about placing tee signs as of late. Why can't we place them on the trail to the next pads rather than on one pad? You could have a different color line from each pad to the basket and have a legend that tells the distance/par of each line.

Or why not put a metal marker in the concrete of each pad that has distance/par?

Heck, I like the 4x4 post with the distance, hole number, and par carved out of it on each pad.

I know the signs are nice and I really like them, but I've yet to see a course that some aren't damaged on.

 

[Kenny53691]

I think both are important for beginners and experienced players alike.

I agree 100% I remember when I started playing, I first looked at par to see what I should be able to get it in. Then I liked to look at the distance to try to figure out how far I was throwing.

 

[John Theiss]

So this post started as a way for me to try to solve the problem of an over crowded tee sign with too much info for rec, adv and open skill levels. I have found over the years that when installing a course we have goals and aspirations for how special we can make our courses, but often times due to funding issues our goals are not fulfilled, we lose certain sections of the property due to the cost of clearing, grading etc. Well, this issue was resolved and i am thankful that we will have multiple tees and multiple signs. I did not expect the park to follow my recommendation due to budget issues, but they have been pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback from the dgc users. I also recommended users on the KCFDC forum to please email the park department and thank them for their hard work. Sometimes we forget how such small actions of gratitude can lead to bigger and better things. So, if anyone is still interested in this thread, maybe you can email your favorite park dept and tell them thanks for what they do and how much you enjoy their park. Then the next time your club rep contacts them, maybe, just maybe, something will go your way.

 

[Olorin]

John,

I imagine that you resolved this question long ago, but for sake of closure, here are some pictures of a Red tee at Apex Nature Park in Apex NC. The signs measure about 4in x 4in.

 

[HB553]

In areas that I have developed courses where there was no disc golf - par seems very important to the new disc golfer. Trying to get even par is always a goal for new disc golfers. But: distance is a requirement in my opinion.

In a low budget course - like a summer camp - I have the hole number, distance, and par painted on a 4"X4" post.

On most of my courses I use a sign package like the one I just did for an existing course near Nashville TN - tank top frame, number is on all sides, glass to protect the sign . . . and of course score cards with all info on it as well.

The photo of the hole 13 graphic shows how I color coded the pin placements (most on this course have 2 pin positions). Also, I use the term "Recreational Tee" for the shorter tee pads - and have a sign there as well.

 

[brutalbrutus]

Hey HB makes an appearance! Cant wait til april......

 

[BuzzSharpe]

Both are indeed important to be posted on tee signs. Distance is, of course, the primary parameter on which par is based. Par is probably much more important to the newer player than the experienced one, especially an upper tier skill level player. While it's true in competition that it is the actual numerical score that counts the most, in casual play, whether alone, or with friends enjoying the collegial and congenial camaraderie over the competition, we always measure ourselves against ourselves and the course we're playing.
As examples I'd cite that shooting a 54 on the Cedarock or Johnson Street Gold layouts would be a pretty decent score, whereas a 54 on their Red layouts would be pretty crappy. Likewise, shooting a 54 from Springwood's Blue tees would be decent, while a 54 from a couple of circuits around Beth Schmidt a couple of miles up the road would be really crappy.