Great article about AM divisions.

[lyleoross]

The amount of divisions and reducing them is way over discussed and is a non-issue.

The only time you actually see a bunch of divisions is at really larger events, which is totally fine. The top events should showcase the best players in age brackets.

Local events mostly only have MPO, MP40, FPO, MA1, MA40, MA50, MA2, MA3 and FA1 which is a very good range of players.

If you have 6 guys in the their 60s that show up to your C tier and you don't let them play the division they want, you are missing the big picture.

I'm going to disagree, it is an issue, but only because so many think it is. People are quite adroit at thinking non-issues are all too real issues and this is one such case. It should be a non-issue but it never will be.

Folks want to beat other folks

Folks want to win more booty

Folks look at player brackets with too few players and conclude there are too many brackets.


I'm gonna point out that the problem with players writing articles is that they tend to write what they want without any real analysis. The reason there are so many brackets is that players want them. Those that don't have a vested interest in the outcome. Which is going to speak more to the PDGA, "I want this so I can win more," or "I want this cause it's fun and will keep me playing?"

 

[DavidSauls]

I don't think it is either of those things.
From my perspective, as a TD, it would be easier to host a tournament if there were less divisions. Yeah, yeah, offer less divisions then. Not that easy. You can say it, but doing so would earn you the scorn of the ams that wanted to play Novice. ).

I'm a TD, too, and understand that.

But the fact that you'd face scorn---or players not coming---says something about why it's not a good idea to mandate it.

The PDGA, a membership organization, seems to be guilty of giving the membership what it wants. At least in this case.

P.S. - I've restricted divisions, as a TD, and survived. But that was my choice.

 

[Lazerface]

I do think the shortening of the intervals in the aged protected divisions was silly, but generally, I think the # of divisions is a phase. It's all about growth and retention right now. As a competitive person by nature I was turned off a bit at my first PDGA event when I saw the number of divisions, and even more so when I saw members of each division complaining in some way - about how the divisions are set up. My first impression was "damn, no matter how bad some of these guys suck they still think they should be able to win something". But that's a minority perspective. If the PDGA did a poll I bet the majority of AM players would support more divisions over less, especially more recent members. When the goal is growth, that majority opinion matters.

25 years from now I hope you will have to earn a tour card in the PDGA and the AM tour will be a single division (pipe dream maybe). And an old people division of course, but it should start at 50 . We are not there yet and as much as it irks me, less divisions may in fact man less interest from new players - which is the most crucial group for the PDGA. I could understand not wanting to get into the competitive scene if you thought you were going to have to play with guys twice as good as you. But when the TD explains that you will be playing with 10 other guys that suck real bad too - well that sounds like a great time. For the record, I think the 40 year old not wanting to play with the 18 year old should have no bearing on the reasoning behind divisions. I get it, but it should about skill level, not fun level. It is a competition. Also, the PDGA needs 18 year olds way more.

The sandbagging thing in disc golf is the natural result of a crap ton of divisions. In sports where there is a real AM and Pro tour players spend their entire careers in the AM ranks winning multiple titles. But it's usually a single division, or 2 (old folks). There are huge incentives in turning pro, so sandbagging is not a big part of the culture.

I will say that compared to other competitive sports scenes I have been around disc golf is far and away the most "everyone gets something" culture. But maybe all sports had this phase - hard to know since all I am thinking of are super old. I'm the youngest of 3 boys and both my older brothers are much better natural athletes than me. Maybe it was my lifetime of getting my ass kicked at every pick me up game I played that shaped my perspective. When I was new to the game I 100% expected to be donating my entry fee, but every event I go to will have some guy all decked out in full disc golf gear with his Zuca cart and custom zippers whining about how they should of paid deeper in the REC division. It's comical. Dude, there are 250 humans hear and 236 beat your score - what are you expecting????

It's more about drawing people in than maximizing the competitiveness of it all. It makes sense.

 

[ToddL]

Basically the entire article was saying that TDs should use this already-existing option when setting up tournaments:

I don't vehemently disagree with the author, but I think he's making a stink about something that the players just flat out don't want. As a TD, I like having fewer large divisions. It makes registration easier, order trophies easier, laying out the players on the course easier. And I personally feel like winning a division of 3 players is a pretty empty victory. But if the 4 MA60 guys want to form their own division, I let them. My job as a TD is to provide an enjoyable day to my players. I'm not in the business of pissing off my customers. More happy players means more players at my tournaments. If I keep refusing to listen to what my players want, my attendance will suffer.

That being said, we're opening up registration next week for a tournament where we're only offering MA40 and MA55 divisions for the masters players. I'm sure the 52-year old guys will be a bit miffed that they're gonna have to compete against the 42-year olds, but we'll see how it works out. The experiment might fail or it might be a success.

 

[DavidSauls]

Up the road from me, this past Sunday, they ran an event with the color divisions---just 3 of them, RAH, RAD, and RAE. No geezer divisions.

The day before, was a tournament with 2 divisions---Pro and Am.

I hoped to drag my 59-year-old self to both, but things came up. But I played in one of the color-division events last year.

It's not all that hard to do; just needs someone who thinks it's a good idea, to step up and do it.

Without forcing those who don't think it is, to join in.

 

[Steve West]

There should never be any kind of disincentive or adverse consequences to winning.

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

As a player with plenty of experience, especially events that are now long since history, a topic frequently arose with players of that time, which was the inconsistency of tournament management.

Many thought this sucked, as their expectation was to know what to expect. Fair enough.
My contention was that even in outright cases of malfeasance and TD 'gamesmanship' (which were frequent), I enjoyed the variability and assumed that many TD's were also 'working things out' and trying to host events more custom tailored to their local situation.

Biscoe refers to the potential errors of top-down draconian rule-sets for tournaments in his post. At the current time, disc golf doesn't seem to have reached any critical mass of participation where such hard lines should be required. I don't agree with the article's author about how 'broke' this aspect of dg is...

I would also like to point out that in disc golf, as in many other areas of life, as one rises in the hierarchy, in this case 'tournament stature', the expectations and qualifiers of those tournaments become more rigid all by themselves...this phenomena is called 'gradual stiffening', you know, like when one meets a marginally attractive but very 'forward' woman...fwiw

 

[curmudgeonDwindle]

There should never be any kind of disincentive or adverse consequences to winning.

And yet in the real world, there always are, more often termed 'trade-offs'...TANSTAAFL.

 

[DavidSauls]

I can't dredge it up, but somewhere there's a Will Rogers quote to the effect of, "Every man knows what's wrong and what needs to be done to fix it. And it don't involve him doing anything different than what he's doing now."

I don't see a lot of "Somebody force me out of the division I'm playing in."

Instead, I see "Force those people into the division I'm playing in."

Along with a bit of "Force those people out of the division I'm playing in."

And a few TD's saying "I'm not willing to limit divisions at my events, because people won't like it, so somebody make me do it."

I've mocked all these divisions myself, and understand some people just have a sort of aesthetic objection that it just looks silly. I certainly get that. But I recognize that the players in all these divisions, seem to like them. They must; when we offer them they sign up, and they could move to larger divisions, but don't.

 

[DavidSauls]

. For the record, I think the 40 year old not wanting to play with the 18 year old should have no bearing on the reasoning behind divisions. I get it, but it should about skill level, not fun level. It is a competition. Also, the PDGA needs 18 year olds way more.

I don't know. Around here, it's mostly the 40 year olds who get things done, run tournaments, get courses put in, negotiate with the city, and teach those 18 year olds.

Except for the rare future McBeth, why does the PDGA need the 18 year olds more?

 

[wolfmandragon]

And yet in the real world, there always are, more often termed 'trade-offs'...TANSTAAFL.

Thumbs up for 'TANSTAAFL'

 

[LateWesternSky]

Not sure if it's a regional thing, but alot of local tournaments I play in have an MA3 field that's as large as every other field combined. Fields should be spread out to have a more equal number of players. What if your division was auto decided based on your rating and the ratings of other players? Like top third of am ratings play advance, middle third play intermediate and bottom third play rec? Wouldn't work well at large tournaments but I'm talking about tourneys of less than 100 people.

 

[ToddL]

Several people on this thread have already said it or hinted at it, but I'll chime in with my take as well:

The DG community is wildly different based on your location. In some places, the Open fields are full of 930-960 players. In some other places, the Open field is full of 970+ players. In South Carolina, we literally have <10 players who are >970. Because we have so few *actual* pros, we have a bunch of "should-be" advanced guys moving up. And now that the advanced field is empty, we have a bunch of "should-be" intermediate guys playing advanced. In some other locations, or for larger tournaments with a larger pull, these divisions play out completely differently.

With the current setup, the PDGA has allowed the local TDs to be able to adjust their tournaments to fit the needs of their local players. If a local TD wants to open more amateur divisions because those are the players he's targeting, great. If a local TD wants to open more masters divisions, awesome. The seemingly high number of divisions available through the PDGA is a feature, not a bug. If the PDGA laid down strict guidelines about precisely how every TD in the world should hold their events, they'd probably end up alienating >80% of their TDs.

If you have a large MA3 field, should you do something to split them up into more divisions? I dunno, but it's not the MA3 players' fault that there aren't enough pros in your region to make a good pro field.

 

[brutalbrutus]

The one thing I do think they need to do, is adjust the ratings cut offs. Drop Int Rec and Nov down to 910-925(anywhere in there would work, imo), 875 and 825. That would give a little more cushion from when you start playing adv till you move up to open.

 

[dreadlock86]

i don't understand why the author complains about payout, prizes, and the entitled expectations of AMs in an article about divisions. they are totally distinct. write an article about that if it's bugging you.

i also don't understand why anyone would think that limiting options and decreasing flexibility would be good for players.

i really don't understand sandbagging complaints as it is literally impossible to sandbag if you have a PDGA # but i do understand that we'll never stop talking about it. it's 100% a problem of unhealthy peer pressure not actual sandbagging.


how typically American to suggest that since the way things turn out are not ideal for you, that we should change the system from the ground up to make you happy.

 

[dreadlock86]

also, the suggestion of forcing players up into Open (even if they are still playing as AMs) is so absolutely ridiculous i don't even know how to respond.

 

[1978]

I don't think it is either of those things.
From my perspective, as a TD, it would be easier to host a tournament if there were less divisions. Yeah, yeah, offer less divisions then. Not that easy. You can say it, but doing so would earn you the scorn of the ams that wanted to play Novice.
Too, as someone that plays an age protected division, it would force me over to advanced and actually make me work on my game.I feel like my level of disc golf would go up. yes, I could do that now. But since I CAN play MP40, I do.

Trophy making. Payout. Organization. Cards at tournaments. The arguments about bagging and playing up and all that crap...all simplified or made to not exist if there are less divisions.
Also, and I keep saying it in my day to day conversations, so pardon me if I sound practiced, I think it is bad for the sport to encourage paying out 15 guys in a field of 35 disc golfers , in the lowest rated division. Maybe that's another discussion? But the payout situation is hilarious. Dudes getting 30 bucks in merch for getting 10th in Rec or Int has always rubbed me the wrong way. (I'll leave that alone and make the conversation about divisions. But it does tie in, IMHO).

I dont think I have played in any pdga, charity, ad hok, or any other type of event that has offered Novice. Can we just eliminate that division?

 

[1978]

Several people on this thread have already said it or hinted at it, but I'll chime in with my take as well:

The DG community is wildly different based on your location. In some places, the Open fields are full of 930-960 players. In some other places, the Open field is full of 970+ players. In South Carolina, we literally have <10 players who are >970. Because we have so few *actual* pros, we have a bunch of "should-be" advanced guys moving up. And now that the advanced field is empty, we have a bunch of "should-be" intermediate guys playing advanced. In some other locations, or for larger tournaments with a larger pull, these divisions play out completely differently.

With the current setup, the PDGA has allowed the local TDs to be able to adjust their tournaments to fit the needs of their local players. If a local TD wants to open more amateur divisions because those are the players he's targeting, great. If a local TD wants to open more masters divisions, awesome. The seemingly high number of divisions available through the PDGA is a feature, not a bug. If the PDGA laid down strict guidelines about precisely how every TD in the world should hold their events, they'd probably end up alienating >80% of their TDs.

If you have a large MA3 field, should you do something to split them up into more divisions? I dunno, but it's not the MA3 players' fault that there aren't enough pros in your region to make a good pro field.

You should practice more so you can make the 11th!

If there is payout in merch (allowing players to trial new discs and gain practice discs) having a giant intermediate division is beneficial. You still have to be under 935 rated, but the leaders of those events get a stronger payout.

 

[discgolfer25]

i really don't understand sandbagging complaints as it is literally impossible to sandbag if you have a PDGA # but i do understand that we'll never stop talking about it. it's 100% a problem of unhealthy peer pressure not actual sandbagging.

^^^^^ This

 

[krupicka]

I dont think I have played in any pdga, charity, ad hok, or any other type of event that has offered Novice. Can we just eliminate that division?

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. In my neck of the woods, we regularly get good turnout for our our MA4 (Novice) division.