We hear the term "scoreable" used by many disc golf commentators in both live and post-production formats. I'm going to argue for an alternative method of using the data from which most commentators currently employ.
From my experience as a viewer it seems that most commentators use the relative ease of birdying a hole as its "score-ability". I suggest that birdie-ability may or may not correlate strongly with scoreability.
Birdie-ability depends on par. Score-ability has NOTHING to do with par. Players do NOT compete with par. Players compete with each other through THROWS.
I will suggest this definition:
"Score-ability is the likelihood that players of equal abilities will have different scores on a particular hole."
Let's consider a "tweaner" hole with a 3.5 average for a certain group of players with exactly 50% 3's and 50% 4's. The hole is obviously scoreable as there is a 50% chance that any two players will have different scores on the hole. If the hole's par were listed as 3, then commentators would describe the hole as very difficult. If the hole's par were listed as 4, then commentators would describe the hole as easy or "scoreable".
Again, score-ability has NOTHING to do with par.
Before I suggest one method of quantifying score-ability, let's consider which data to use. I have found, as I imagine many commentators have, that it's cumbersome to use hole stats following a cut in big tournaments. There's always the caveat that needs to be mentioned that the score distributions discussed have been drawn from a set of players with better abilities (at least on the weekend under consideration.)
Way back in the day when I designed and subsequently modified holes for a PDGA Major, I only used data from players rated 975 or higher. I chose that number as it reflected the average cash line from A-tiers of the day. Today, I would suggest only looking at data from rounds rated 1020 or higher for MPO divisions at DGPT events. (This was the cash line for the recent LVC.) Note that I said rounds rated, rather than player ratings. Player ratings reflect the past. Round ratings better reflect the present. Using this data set, commentators would have no need to qualify their post-cut commentary.
Once having established a standard for data sets, score-ability could be calculated in a number of ways. For convenience, I utilized the standard deviation of scores on a particular hole for all players who shot a 1020 or better rated round.
I analyzed the first round of the recent LVC. (I would have done more, but it's cumbersome to extract the data from the results page.) Holes 11 and 16 were the easiest, relative to par, but not the most scoreable in terms of variation in scores among the rounds rated 1020 or higher. Hole 10 was the most difficult, relative to par, but the second most likely to produce variation in scores.
Revisiting the choice of 1020+ rated rounds: it's more than simply to avoid the inconvenience of comparing pre and post-cut data. While the overall quality of play in DGPT events has taken a big jump up over recent years, there are still a number of players in the events who are not on the same level of play as the touring players. I wouldn't argue that these players should be dismissed at the level of course design, but for commentary purposes they may skew data on certain holes.
In the grand scheme, these thoughts are just a minor suggestion. As a viewer, I am extremely grateful to all the hard-working video crews. I get a lot of enjoyment from watching disc golf on my devices and feel that the hard work, especially from Jomez Productions, has made a very significant contribution to the recent growth uptick in the sport.
As a final note to those on the dgcoursereview forum: I am glad that the moderators afforded me some time off the forum to reflect on the nature of my postings. I had a very bad year last year with my online behavior. I was abrasive to many and abusive to some and I made the moderators' lives more difficult than they deserved. I am grateful to dgcoursereview for being a resource as a player. I cannot change the past, but I promise to do better in the future.
From my experience as a viewer it seems that most commentators use the relative ease of birdying a hole as its "score-ability". I suggest that birdie-ability may or may not correlate strongly with scoreability.
Birdie-ability depends on par. Score-ability has NOTHING to do with par. Players do NOT compete with par. Players compete with each other through THROWS.
I will suggest this definition:
"Score-ability is the likelihood that players of equal abilities will have different scores on a particular hole."
Let's consider a "tweaner" hole with a 3.5 average for a certain group of players with exactly 50% 3's and 50% 4's. The hole is obviously scoreable as there is a 50% chance that any two players will have different scores on the hole. If the hole's par were listed as 3, then commentators would describe the hole as very difficult. If the hole's par were listed as 4, then commentators would describe the hole as easy or "scoreable".
Again, score-ability has NOTHING to do with par.
Before I suggest one method of quantifying score-ability, let's consider which data to use. I have found, as I imagine many commentators have, that it's cumbersome to use hole stats following a cut in big tournaments. There's always the caveat that needs to be mentioned that the score distributions discussed have been drawn from a set of players with better abilities (at least on the weekend under consideration.)
Way back in the day when I designed and subsequently modified holes for a PDGA Major, I only used data from players rated 975 or higher. I chose that number as it reflected the average cash line from A-tiers of the day. Today, I would suggest only looking at data from rounds rated 1020 or higher for MPO divisions at DGPT events. (This was the cash line for the recent LVC.) Note that I said rounds rated, rather than player ratings. Player ratings reflect the past. Round ratings better reflect the present. Using this data set, commentators would have no need to qualify their post-cut commentary.
Once having established a standard for data sets, score-ability could be calculated in a number of ways. For convenience, I utilized the standard deviation of scores on a particular hole for all players who shot a 1020 or better rated round.
I analyzed the first round of the recent LVC. (I would have done more, but it's cumbersome to extract the data from the results page.) Holes 11 and 16 were the easiest, relative to par, but not the most scoreable in terms of variation in scores among the rounds rated 1020 or higher. Hole 10 was the most difficult, relative to par, but the second most likely to produce variation in scores.
Revisiting the choice of 1020+ rated rounds: it's more than simply to avoid the inconvenience of comparing pre and post-cut data. While the overall quality of play in DGPT events has taken a big jump up over recent years, there are still a number of players in the events who are not on the same level of play as the touring players. I wouldn't argue that these players should be dismissed at the level of course design, but for commentary purposes they may skew data on certain holes.
In the grand scheme, these thoughts are just a minor suggestion. As a viewer, I am extremely grateful to all the hard-working video crews. I get a lot of enjoyment from watching disc golf on my devices and feel that the hard work, especially from Jomez Productions, has made a very significant contribution to the recent growth uptick in the sport.
As a final note to those on the dgcoursereview forum: I am glad that the moderators afforded me some time off the forum to reflect on the nature of my postings. I had a very bad year last year with my online behavior. I was abrasive to many and abusive to some and I made the moderators' lives more difficult than they deserved. I am grateful to dgcoursereview for being a resource as a player. I cannot change the past, but I promise to do better in the future.
