2019 United States Disc Golf Championship Oct 2-5

[Lazerface]

If you land in the lake, you don't move up to a 80' jump putt drop zone. That's the biggest issue with 4, people miss the mando on teeshot and get rewarded with an auto par. The teeshot has zero risk at all (other than somehow throwing so left that you get on other side of pine trees). The teeshot at Maple Hill has all kinds of risk. As does the upshot.

That's a really good point.

 

[biscoe]

As for viewer emotions, I don't think they are enhanced by piling on penalties. The most emotional part of watching is cheering for the flight to be good; especially that moment when you can finally tell whether a throw was bad or good. (Usually when it leaves the hand for James!)

There is no "thrill of victory" without the "agony of defeat". The fact that Hole 17 at Winthrop has for years been the most engaging hole to view on the Tour belies your belief. Many people like to see wrecks in nascar and fights in hockey. As with all other things there is a balance to be struck.

 

[SD86]

As for viewer emotions, I don't think they are enhanced by piling on penalties.

^^^ Absolutely this. We want the players to be challenged; I doubt anyone seriously wants to see players simply beaten down by an artificially harsh course. It's like the ball golf U.S. Open course one year when the greens were so punitive that good shots were rolling away, and players and fans alike bitterly complained.

To emotionally engage in a throw, we need to be able to see what's coming during the flight so we can "help" the disc fly with our cheers. The fields of septic tank vent pipes didn't do that. Even the commentators who had played the course didn't know which side of the pipes was good.

Agreed again, and this was my biggest complaint when watching the video: we simply could not tell if a disc was coming to rest inbounds or out of bounds, and what looked like a great shot that barely crossed those pipes ended up being a punitively punished OB shot. That really was a bad viewing experience.

Oh, one last thing: I'd rather have Old #1 or Old #2 than New #3 with the tiny double mando in the middle of the huge field. That hole truly was a 'windmill putt-putt' gimmicky hole. I don't think it can be saved with changes; it was poorly designed. Get rid of it.

 

[bhadella]

^^^ Absolutely this. We want the players to be challenged; I doubt anyone seriously wants to see players simply beaten down by an artificially harsh course. It's like the ball golf U.S. Open course one year when the greens were so punitive that good shots were rolling away, and players and fans alike bitterly complained.



Agreed again, and this was my biggest complaint when watching the video: we simply could not tell if a disc was coming to rest inbounds or out of bounds, and what looked like a great shot that barely crossed those pipes ended up being a punitively punished OB shot. That really was a bad viewing experience.

Oh, one last thing: I'd rather have Old #1 or Old #2 than New #3 with the tiny double mando in the middle of the huge field. That hole truly was a 'windmill putt-putt' gimmicky hole. I don't think it can be saved with changes; it was poorly designed. Get rid of it.

Old 1 and 2 are pretty much gone forever. Innova had smartly realized that food and beverage sales plus a sitting area help to offset the costs and make it a better spectator environment.

 

[notroman]

This coincides with Steve's point 2 stroke vs 1 stroke penalty or the higher possibility of good strokes being punished (unfortunate kicks/uncontrollable bounces/skips off fallen twigs leading to OB roll aways etc.) The level of punishment this year felt like it had tipped to far away from enjoyment for the player/spectator. watching one after another tournament hopeful tincup on hole 17 was painful to watch.

Can someone please point me to the footage of all these good shots that ended up OB? I feel there isn't a lot of that at Winthrop. Players can control how much action their disc has once it hits the ground. The guys at the top can control the full flight of their disc including the landing, not just the initial release angle. The hard part about Winthrop is that you need birdies to win, and to get birdies on many holes you need to be able to control the flight of a disc for much longer distances than you probably are capable of. It's a game of playing within your limits and unfortunately a lot of the top players are trying to bite off more than they can chew because they want to birdie every hole. This aggressive play is where the strokes add up and where luck may come into play. Sure a player can land a disc softly on a slope from 350, but here we have players trying to do the same from 400 and they can't control the angle or spin of their disc at that distance anymore so they're just hoping the disc doesn't get an unfavorable reaction. Some get away with it, some don't. This doesn't mean the hole is based on luck, it just means the players are playing outside of their ability to control the disc and are creating the random results. Mental pressure makes people miss their timing and spray shots as well. Hole 17 is not that hard. The mental stress standing on that tee is what makes the hole hard. Guys that tin cup hole 17 do so because they mentally lose focus. You're talking about top level pros failing to land a disc in a landing zone that's about 50 feet across from maybe 280 feet away. It's a shot most rec level players can execute.

 

[Steve West]

There is no "thrill of victory" without the "agony of defeat". The fact that Hole 17 at Winthrop has for years been the most engaging hole to view on the Tour belies your belief. Many people like to see wrecks in nascar and fights in hockey. As with all other things there is a balance to be struck.

When 17 was first set up, the only rule which would allow for re-tee was OB. That's no longer the case. Don't you think Relief Area (re-tee throwing 2, instead of re-tee throwing 3) would be enough risk to generate interest? Doesn't the engagement come from seeing the player standing on the tee throwing again and again? And from being able to clearly see whether the throw will or won't land on the island. Without the penalty, viewers might be even more engaged because they could count the throws directly.

How much more interest do you think is created by that made-up invisible extra penalty for each miss?

Is it enough to be worth the cost of giving this one little hole so much influence over final standings? Doesn't it reduce interest in other holes?

 

[rhatton1]

It's a game of playing within your limits and unfortunately a lot of the top players are trying to bite off more than they can chew because they want to birdie every hole. This aggressive play is where the strokes add up and where luck may come into play. Sure a player can land a disc softly on a slope from 350, but here we have players trying to do the same from 400 and they can't control the angle or spin of their disc at that distance anymore so they're just hoping the disc doesn't get an unfavorable reaction. Some get away with it, some don't. This doesn't mean the hole is based on luck, it just means the players are playing outside of their ability to control the disc and are creating the random results.

There is a logic fail in here somewhere.

If you need a birdie to get ahead but the only way to get a birdie is for the top players to consistently execute shots beyond their abilities then....surely the winner is the least unlucky player?

 

[davetherocketguy]

More lulz

 

[notroman]

There is a logic fail in here somewhere.

If you need a birdie to get ahead but the only way to get a birdie is for the top players to consistently execute shots beyond their abilities then....surely the winner is the least unlucky player?

Yes, but the course isn't making them throw these shots. You can dumb the course down a bit to suit their game and then people will be shooting 14 down and everyone will start complaining that USDGC isn't testing people hard enough. You can try to penalize them even more than they are being penalized now to maybe force the player to throw a shot they are in full control of to test their true skill, and that was tried before with stroke and distance for the entire course. It was too boring to the player and to the spectator. As Harold pointed out, it's tough to get a balance of risk, reward, and to keep things exciting for the players and the spectators.

 

[ThrowBot]

There is a logic fail in here somewhere.

If you need a birdie to get ahead but the only way to get a birdie is for the top players to consistently execute shots beyond their abilities then....surely the winner is the least unlucky player?

Only true if you take strategy as an "all or nothing" proposition. You don't HAVE to go ultra aggressive on every single hole, but you do need SOME birdies to win...but obviously, less bogies!

The trick is figuring out where to be aggressive and where to play safe. Knowing the limits of your skill, and applying them as you can to score well while also minimizing risk. That's course management. And I think that Winthrop tests that decision making process more pointedly than any other course on tour (albeit with miles of rope and lots of harsh penalties).

That having been said, I don't like the idea that OB lines are being repeatedly tightened on a year-over-year basis. Squeezing the safe zones like that does create unfair challenges, especially in adverse weather conditions.

 

[Lazerface]

So does the 80 foot layup zone off of 17s tee still exist? Do players even practice that as a Plan B, say for windy conditions, or going into the hole on the final round with a 4 stroke lead? It still baffles me that after all these years, we never see this, at least on lead cards.

Did Feldberg do it this year? I guess not as he got a 2 in round 2. He shot 1 down on the hole overall so good for him.

It's almost a guaranteed island hit on that 2nd shot because it opens up and allows for a wide hyzer (left or right) coming in. It's much easier to control speed coming into the green. 4 seems to be worst case scenario there. Is it an ego thing?????

 

[Steve West]

So does the 80 foot layup zone off of 17s tee still exist? Do players even practice that as a Plan B, say for windy conditions, or going into the hole on the final round with a 4 stroke lead? It still baffles me that after all these years, we never see this, at least on lead cards.

Did Feldberg do it this year? I guess not as he got a 2 in round 2. He shot 1 down on the hole overall so good for him.

It's almost a guaranteed island hit on that 2nd shot because it opens up and allows for a wide hyzer (left or right) coming in. It's much easier to control speed coming into the green. 4 seems to be worst case scenario there. Is it an ego thing?????

Hitting the layup is almost as risky as trying for the fat part of the island. The laid up disc could go too far and into OB. If you want to play safe, going for the middle of the island is the smarter choice. If you can reach it.

 

[BuiltTooLong]

Hitting the layup is almost as risky as trying for the fat part of the island. The laid up disc could go too far and into OB. If you want to play safe, going for the middle of the island is the smarter choice. If you can reach it.

Is it stroke and distance also on your approach from the safe zone? Or can you play it where it went out from there?

 

[Cgkdisc]

If you believe the 3-pt shot in basketball is aggressive play and exciting for spectators, why would the NBA change the rules where if you miss a 3-pointer, your team loses 1 point on your score? As a general sporting guideline, shouldn't scoring be biased toward encouraging aggressive play to where elite skill can be demonstrated, with lack of execution not so severely punished as to make conservative play the better choice? Severely punishing aggressive play simply pulls the scores of the truly better players back to less skillful players, reducing separation and increasing randomization in final rankings.

Of course, the good thing about randomization is more players have a chance of winning which can be exciting for fans who are simply watching the real-time UDisc rankings move up and down, not live coverage. Perhaps the less desirable thing (for fans) is how players, like Koling and Brathwaite in the last round, could move up the leaderboard simply with conservative play, making fewer mistakes and hoping the leaders falter with mistakes and aggressive play (Nascar crashes). Likewise, it's conservative play that keeps the leader(s) on top in the last round. "Did you see how well Conrad threw that lay-up? Impressive!"

Our reality is scoring in the game of golf is more about minimizing mistakes that cost strokes than it is about making exceptional shots that save strokes. Exceptional shots like aces, albatrosses, eagles and throw-ins are rare relative to the hundreds of poor throws, missed putts and penalties. If we could add scoring options where players could reduce their score with exceptional throws that could be executed more often, like the 3-pt shot shot in basketball, then scoring would become more balanced with increasingly more positive throws to offset the mostly negative throws.

For example, imagine a design tweak on hole 9 where landing safely on the first (but smaller) IB area meant you could "teleport" forward to a DZ on the green where you were playing just your second throw that was a 45 ft putt close enough to make? Now you have a hole where an eagle is possible with skill rather than distance like hole 10. Seems more interesting for spectators and gives players more chances to reduce strokes with skillful play versus tacking on more with riskier, aggressive play.

Teleporting is certainly not traditional golf, but then neither is padding scores with compound OB penalties. On courses like Eureka, Country Club and Winthrop, players averaged over 6 penalties per round. In PGA play, players average less than 1 penalty stroke per round. We don't have to be as good as the ball version of golf, we have the power to be even better as the disc version of golf if we simply look at creative ways to make the game more skillful and interesting to watch than just solid play and punishing crashes.

 

[bwgort]

If you believe the 3-pt shot in basketball is aggressive play and exciting for spectators, why would the NBA change the rules where if you miss a 3-pointer, your team loses 1 point on your score? As a general sporting guideline, shouldn't scoring be biased toward encouraging aggressive play to where elite skill can be demonstrated, with lack of execution not so severely punished as to make conservative play the better choice? Severely punishing aggressive play simply pulls the scores of the truly better players back to less skillful players, reducing separation and increasing randomization in final rankings.

Of course, the good thing about randomization is more players have a chance of winning which can be exciting for fans who are simply watching the real-time UDisc rankings move up and down, not live coverage. Perhaps the less desirable thing (for fans) is how players, like Koling and Brathwaite in the last round, could move up the leaderboard simply with conservative play, making fewer mistakes and hoping the leaders falter with mistakes and aggressive play (Nascar crashes). Likewise, it's conservative play that keeps the leader(s) on top in the last round. "Did you see how well Conrad threw that lay-up? Impressive!"

Our reality is scoring in the game of golf is more about minimizing mistakes that cost strokes than it is about making exceptional shots that save strokes. Exceptional shots like aces, albatrosses, eagles and throw-ins are rare relative to the hundreds of poor throws, missed putts and penalties. If we could add scoring options where players could reduce their score with exceptional throws that could be executed more often, like the 3-pt shot shot in basketball, then scoring would become more balanced with increasingly more positive throws to offset the mostly negative throws.

For example, imagine a design tweak on hole 9 where landing safely on the first (but smaller) IB area meant you could "teleport" forward to a DZ on the green where you were playing just your second throw that was a 45 ft putt close enough to make? Now you have a hole where an eagle is possible with skill rather than distance like hole 10. Seems more interesting for spectators and gives players more chances to reduce strokes with skillful play versus tacking on more with riskier, aggressive play.

Teleporting is certainly not traditional golf, but then neither is padding scores with compound OB penalties. On courses like Eureka, Country Club and Winthrop, players averaged over 6 penalties per round. In PGA play, players average less than 1 penalty stroke per round. We don't have to be as good as the ball version of golf, we have the power to be even better as the disc version of golf if we simply look at creative ways to make the game more skillful and interesting to watch than just solid play and punishing crashes.

For comparison sake, how many OB penalties did players average at Maple Hill this year? (I chose Maple because it has a large amount of natural OB and is universally regarded as one of the best courses on tour).

 

[Cgkdisc]

For comparison sake, how many OB penalties did players average at Maple Hill this year? (I chose Maple because it has a large amount of natural OB and is universally regarded as one of the best courses on tour).

Looks like an average around 2 penalties per player per round. As I pointed out in the Rules thread, we/UDisc don't yet track the extra throw made when the penalty includes a re-throw from previous lie or from a DZ where making the next shot is unlikely.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Just curious - can anyone tell me how much of the $10 PPV actually went to the EDGE program? Or has that question been answered already and I missed it?

 

[PoorPutter]

Here's what place the top 10 would have finished if they would have gone par-par on #17 in rounds 1 and 4.....and everybody else shot what they actually shot.

Place	Player	ParPar
1	Conrad	1
2	Koling	5
2	Nikko	1
4	Clemons	1
5	ChrisD	1
6	Philo	5
7	Russell	7
7	Eagle	7
9	Queen	6
10	Hammes	10
10	Freeman	10
10	Sexton	13
10	Tamm	4

On the other hand, if ALL of them had gone par-par, then it goes:

Place	Player	ParPar
1	Conrad	1
2	Koling	6
2	Nikko	4
4	Clemons	2
5	ChrisD	3
6	Philo	6
7	Russell	9
7	Eagle	9
9	Queen	8
10	Hammes	12
10	Freeman	11
10	Sexton	13
10	Tamm	5

By the way, Russell, Eagle, and Hammes all did go par-par.

 

[Lazerface]

Hitting the layup is almost as risky as trying for the fat part of the island. The laid up disc could go too far and into OB. If you want to play safe, going for the middle of the island is the smarter choice. If you can reach it.

Do you know from experience? I mean, if it's really 80 - 100 feet downhill, distance control should be a non issue, especially with an opportunity to practice. What makes it difficult?

 

[Steve West]

Is it stroke and distance also on your approach from the safe zone? Or can you play it where it went out from there?

The caddybook says: "For the first three OB throws from anywhere on the hole, OB options limited to previous lie. Throws landing OB must throw again from the previous lie with a one-throw penalty. This applies to all throws, even those from the green."