Best Tournament Practices

[Cgkdisc]

When you have 3 hour breaks between rounds at Worlds it's typically because the courses are hosting three rounds in a day. So rounds are scheduled 3 hours apart for everyone playing in the morning and afternoon on a different course.

 

[curt1]

Most tourneys have a lunch vendor that takes orders prior to the first round if you need to buy something, and it's waiting for you when you finish your round.

I don't think this is common practice in most places, and is the reason most tournaments need an hour after the last card is turned in.

 

[Mr. Wick]

Most tourneys have a lunch vendor that takes orders prior to the first round if you need to buy something, and it's waiting for you when you finish your round.

I don't think this is common practice in most places, and is the reason most tournaments need an hour after the last card is turned in.

That's strange, it's such a good thing to do. Brings business to a local restaraunt, makes them aware of disc golf, is convenient for the players, easy to set up (all they have to do is send someone to take orders in the AM, make the food and deliver it in a few hours, all the TD has to do is let them know there will be X number of hungry people that will order food from them). We usually use a pizza or sandwich place near the course. Plus after you use a place a couple times you can usually hit them up for sponsorship $$ as well, or gift certificates for prizes etc. I haven't been to a tourney in a few years that didn't have a lunch vendor.

So good tournament practice......have a lunch vendor

 

[Cgkdisc]

Rare to have a lunch vendor with pre-orders in Minnesota. A few annual events have onsite food availability. But most events it's fend for yourself. But then, food places are pretty close to most of our tournament courses.

 

[ferretdance03]

We always provide lunch, and we've always cooked it ourselves. Typically hotdogs and burgers on the grill, with a few side dishes. It's fairly inexpensive and easier for me to organize this than to try to organize with a restaurant. The combination of our course being a little off the beaten path and taking around 3hrs for a tourney round we try to keep everyone onsite and moving for a quick lunch turn around.

 

[steve a]

One of my pet peeves is the unfair treatment of the womens division by TDs. I have been trying to convince my wife that tournaments are fun and that there is a place for women players at tournaments but every tournament I have convinced her to play in has been horrible for her. The girls usually play at a slower rate than the guys do and the TDs seem to make their cards the largest ones to try and keep them all on one card. This has translated to them coming in an hour after everyone else on the first round. In order to make up for the mistake the TD usually tells them they only get 30 minutes or less for lunch so that they can keep the show on the road. It is unfair to cut their lunch shorter without letting them know prior to showing up. We didn't pack a lunch and now have no time to go and get lunch elsewhere. Both of these tournaments that we played also had raffle drawings where you got to pick out a prize if your name was drawn. The TD decided to start the raffle drawings before the last card had finished and the girls that won had to pick out their prizes from what was leftover. If you are going to host a womens division I suggest letting them know ahead of time if they will not recieve the same break as everyone else and also wait for everyone to be finished before starting other activities.

 

[osborne]

I have seen this a few times and it does help. Putting simple flags on the basket. Its nice to know what the wind is doing down there.

 

[Widdershins]

One of my pet peeves is the unfair treatment of the womens division by TDs. I have been trying to convince my wife that tournaments are fun and that there is a place for women players at tournaments but every tournament I have convinced her to play in has been horrible for her. The girls usually play at a slower rate than the guys do and the TDs seem to make their cards the largest ones to try and keep them all on one card. This has translated to them coming in an hour after everyone else on the first round. In order to make up for the mistake the TD usually tells them they only get 30 minutes or less for lunch so that they can keep the show on the road. It is unfair to cut their lunch shorter without letting them know prior to showing up. We didn't pack a lunch and now have no time to go and get lunch elsewhere. Both of these tournaments that we played also had raffle drawings where you got to pick out a prize if your name was drawn. The TD decided to start the raffle drawings before the last card had finished and the girls that won had to pick out their prizes from what was leftover. If you are going to host a womens division I suggest letting them know ahead of time if they will not recieve the same break as everyone else and also wait for everyone to be finished before starting other activities.

Women are a conundrum. Not just generally in life but in disc golf tournaments too.

It must be a cultural thing but women do not seem to be comfortable enough with competition to be attracted in large numbers to tournaments. Many Tournament Directors have tried many different inducements to make or keep women happy but nothing has ever worked, at least not enough to swell the ranks beyond the minimal numbers we see.

I have noticed that women are consistently slow when they play in groups with other women but not necessarily slow when they play with men. Obviously anyone can play slowly, no matter their skill level and some of the most talented players are inexplicably slow (ssslllloooooowwwww... godawful, unbearably slow). But a group of women, even if normal sized for the event (3 some or 4 some) is damn near guaranteed to be the slowest group on the course.

A TD's first responsibility is to make the process happen within time limits (finishing in the dark is not acceptable), not to make the slowest groups happy with their lunch break. I wish there was a good way to gently encourage slow players (of either gender) to speed things along.

 

[Widdershins]

I have seen this a few times and it does help. Putting simple flags on the basket. Its nice to know what the wind is doing down there.

Something I rarely see but genuinely appreciate, especially on long courses, are yardage markers in the fairways. Being half blind, my depth perception is poor. If I am at an out-of-town course, more so on hilly courses, I am too often guessing how far away I am from the basket. Sometimes I guess wrong by 100 feet. Nothing like throwing a shot exactly like you planned only to find you have landed in a different area code from the basket.

Flags designating 400, 300 and 200 feet from the basket are wonderful. If there was only a single flag, say at 250 feet, it would be immensely helpful. Instead we often have no tee signs and no yardage given for the hole or worse, wildly inaccurate hole distances (oh, sorry Dude, that distance was for the old hole location).

For the World Championships, the primary reason I need to play the courses in advance is to get a better feel for distances. It doesn't make sense to me why good eyesight should be a critical skill in disc golf. In ball golf, not only are there almost always accurate tee signs but also yardage markers along the fairways.

 

[Cgkdisc]

While it can be a good idea to have markers for distances to the pin if possible, the problem on many courses is they have multiple pin placements which makes fairway markers too confusing. If not for 2012 but hopefully by 2013, players will be allowed to use smartphones with GPS and rangefinders to determine distance to pins during rounds.

 

[Disc Golf Live1]

If not for 2012 but hopefully by 2013, players will be allowed to use smartphones with GPS and rangefinders to determine distance to pins during rounds.

Sounds like a speed-of-play nightmare in the making, if you ask me.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Nope. Players would still need to make their measurements before it's their turn along with their 30 seconds to throw.

 

[Vegan Ray]

Yep. If every player took the allowed 30 seconds between each shot, it would, indeed, be a speed-of-play nightmare. This proposal will encourage players to do just that.

 

[Cgkdisc]

If scoring apps are allowed during tournament play it would be difficult to monitor and disallow GPS apps from also being used. So dealing with it is coming whether we like it or not. There are players who currently take more than their allotted 30 seconds as it is. Once rangefinders and GPS apps are allowed, it may actually reduce time because more players will be monitoring 30 seconds than they did before. I didn't use to carry a watch. Now I have a stopwatch app on my iPod Touch and have monitored 30 seconds sometimes and 3 minutes for lost disc all the time when I'm carrying it.

 

[Widdershins]

If not for 2012 but hopefully by 2013, players will be allowed to use smartphones with GPS and rangefinders to determine distance to pins during rounds.

Sounds like a speed-of-play nightmare in the making, if you ask me.

But a nightmare that a TD can protect his/her tournament from. If distance flags were posted on the longest, toughest holes no one will bother with fancy devices and the delay they cause.

At the Amateur National Championships held at the Toboggan Course (long, tough, hilly) for the last decade, we put out distance flags. One tournament volunteer with a GPS gizmo and a bunch of flags can prep a course in a couple hours. This speeds up play because players take less time to visually estimate distances and when the flags give accurate distances it increases the likelihood of good upshots. The closer the upshots to the baskets the less time players will take putting out.

The overall efficiency of the tournament is the concern of the TD. An individual players' primary concern is their score. You can't fault a player for taking time to JUDGE a shot. For a tournament like a World Championship, the majority of players are from out of town and have little knowledge or experience with the courses. At a Worlds most competitors will play between 4 and 6 challenging courses (7 maybe including semis and finals). What percent of the competitors are playing any given course "Blind" (having never seen it before)? What percent have played any given course more than once?

If the top tournaments made a habit of using distance flags that practice will filter down to other events.

 

[Disc Golf Live1]

Mark, I agree that distance indicators (however implemented) are a great tourney asset. I'd add that those markers can in most cases (the Toboggan is an exception) be added permanently on holes where appropriate. Colored posts at fairway edges come to mind as an easy solution. The concept should be rolled into course design practice by designers who consider user-friendliness important. So rather than considering this only as a "tournament" practice, its a best design practice. The concern with alternate pin positions is managed by relating the markers to the shortest pin (or longest, doesn't really matter), and a player need only know the difference between pins to make the mathematical adjustment when necessary.

 

[MasterP97]

Mark, instead of doing that, why don't they just let us use a range finder or something. If you're marking stuff ahead of time, what is the difference (read as legalizing range finders)? Seems trivial at that point.

I guess this is a better question for Chuck.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Allowing rangefinders becomes incidental to allowing smartphones. If you're going to allow smartphones with internet access for posting scores and apps to track scoring, it will be hard to monitor those who might also try to use GPS for measuring distances. If you allow any form of measuring distances during a round then it doesn't make much sense to continue to restrict rangefinders since rangefinders will actually work a little faster and more accurately in most cases than GPS except for maybe blind shots.

 

[MasterP97]

I should've been more clear in my post about that Chuck, my apologies. I meant legalize "any" distance measuring device. Just curious, but what was/is the PDGA's logic on not allowing any such device? I've read the rule, but now I want to understand why.

 

[Cgkdisc]

When the rule was written, it was following the lead from the ball golf rule which still officially disallows rangefinders during events. I also think there was some consideration that rangefinders were expensive and not everyone could afford one. However, ball golf has relaxed their rule on rangefinders and have left it to the tournament committee for each event to allow them or not. In addition, caddie books have become so accurate for ball golf tour events that the distances can be estimated within a few yards from about every position. So rangefinders aren't even needed.