A few things:
1. If ANY pro tour wishes to get "exclusive" on their choice of baskets, fine; it's their show.
2. During any play, EVERYONE has to shoot at the same baskets...so it really doesn't make any difference.
3. As much as some people want to distance dg from golf, it's not going to happen. They (bg) invented a game that 'starts at point A and goes to point B, repeat numerous times, and try to do so in the fewest number'. Since we copied that aspect of it it isn't going away.
3a. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck you can call it a hippo but it isn't...
3b. Since it IS a form of golf - and one of golf's challenges is in it changing physical dynamics (hard vs. soft), we too should have such...but we don't with the newer baskets.
4. Now-a-days it's "drive hard, putt harder". Maybe the PTBs WANT it to be considered "a totally different sport than 'golf'"
5. "Softer baskets" (less chains, etc.) require you to 'feather' a putt in.
6. The original purpose of the chains was as a 'deflection device' NOT as an entrapment device. The goal was "to toss the disc into the basket"! The basket is STILL the end-all (but we've allowed that a disc ensnared in the chains to count too).
7. As S. West pointed out previously, a 3 dimensional challenge is harder than a 2 dimensional one.
8. And since we have the oddest, most convoluted, misunderstood 'end point' in sports, perhaps we should just allow any baskets...after all, it really doesn't matter (again, see 2. above).
9. Another vote for "18 different baskets on a course"...and why limit them to "championship" baskets?
Ps: If your putt didn't go in the basket (or get ensnared within the chains) you did NOT,
NOT,
NOT throw a good putt! This is not a sport whose 'end point' is to "..hit a 22"x21" target.." (or whatever the size of a chain assembly is). It's amazing how many players fail to remember this :wall: