Actually, I suspect the USGA/PGA are shooting themselves in the foot doing what they do in some Majors, tricking out the course to reduce birdies on holes.
Yes, the golf organizations that net millions and millions of dollars and have been running tournaments (the U.S. Open for example) for 113 years are doing it wrong, but disc golfers have figured it out. :\
Reducing scoring spread can compress scores in the field and increases the likelihood that a lower ranked player can win, which if you look at the results, does happen.
Lower ranked players win or place well at regular PGA Tour events too, quite frequently. Why? Because there are so many golfers, very, very, very little separate the best from the 200th-ranked players. Additionally, as we've seen even this year alone from Tiger Woods, there's a very fine line between playing darn good golf and playing so-so golf.
We would have to look and see the actual spreads but it just seems that in the case of ball golf hole design, they are better for high level competition with their baseline design versus the special tough bird designs.
I've seen studies done on this, largely as it relates to whether majors produce more "fluke" winners than regular PGA Tour events, and the result was a pretty resounding "no" (even with Tiger Woods in there skewing things). Higher ranked golfers win on tougher golf courses.
Tiger, for example, tends not to play in the low-scoring "shootout" type events because skill becomes de-emphasized, and a player who is simply hot for a few rounds can easily win (given how close everyone is to Tiger's level, a hot player will beat him unless he's also hot). Tiger plays well in events where par is a good score.
Ball golf tournaments at the highest level are extremely poor at separating players by skill.
I disagree, and I think that golf simply has far more players separated by far less differences in skill level than we currently see in disc golf.
There just isn't enough difference in expected scores to overcome the fluctuations, so it's the lucky golfer who wins.
Well gee, then Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus were awfully damn lucky then!
It's not the lucky golfer that wins. It's the golfer who hits greens in regulation (i.e. a good mix of driving, iron play, distance, and a little recovery skill when they don't find the fairways) and has a good week putting that will win or place very highly any given week.
I can't remember the last time "luck" played a dominant role in deciding whether someone finished in the top five or outside the top 10.
Disc golf, with how close you often play towards trees, seems far, FAR more likely to reward (or punish) luck than golf. It's not often that a golfer who is on the leaderboard plays Plinko with the trees, but you see it all the time in disc golf coverage.
My idea when posting the questions is really about working at making the Majors more of a challenge...adding to the interest of the overall event.
While I know a lot of players expressed frustration at Merion, as a fan I found it much more compelling to watch and know that someone from a couple of groups back still had the chance to win on the final day.
Consider that the scoring average on the barely 100-yard par three 13th was 2.814. There were no 1s. A few made 2, most made 3, and some made 4.
The hole was still very exciting because every player - and fan - knew there was a chance for a 1, or knew there was a chance for a tap-in 2, or a longer putt for a 2. The fact that almost everyone got a 3 was irrelevant. It was still an exciting hole and provided an opportunity to gain ground on the leaders if you could manage to birdie it.