They are the only roller friendly teepads really.. I disagree with that one goose. They also can make for great "shared" teepads.
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When building teepads, consider creating a "foul area" for to provide players room to follow through while remaining on the hard surface. This helps prevent erosion at the front of the tee pad. This photo shows one of the new pads at the Kenwood Middle School course in Lakeville, MN. The pads are build with an extra 3 feet at the front which is stained blue for the blue tees and red for the red tees. The hole numbers is also stamped into the runout area. A legal throw must be taken from behind the colored area.
ii don't think round are loved by the PDGA though...?
Who is the "PDGA" you speak of when you say this? The PDGA does not have teepad shape regulations. As long as the borders are clearly defined so you can tell "on the pad" from "off the pad", they can be any shape you want. There's no preferred shape and no frowned upon shape.
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5. TEES: Hard surface tee pads of textured cement or asphalt are preferred. Typical size for pads at the longer tee positions is 5 ft (1.5m) wide by at least 12 ft (3.5m) long. Maximum size at the front line of the pad is about 6 ft (2m) wide with a length up to 20 ft (6m) long. The back end might flare out to 10 feet (3m) wide. Minimum rectangular size is 4 feet (1.2m) wide and 10 feet (3m) long. If you need to conserve materials, make tee pads shorter on short or downhill holes and longer on long holes. For example, a hard surfaced tee pad at the top of a hill on a short hole might only need to be 8 ft long because most players will just stand at the front edge of the tee to make their throws. Non-hard surface tee areas should be even surfaced and not contain protruding rocks or roots. Tee areas should be level from left to right. They should not slope too sharply from front to back. Without hard surfaced or rubber tee pad, the front edge of tee area must be indicated by the front edge of a tee board buried flush in the ground or by the imaginary line between two stakes or flags that mark the front edge.
Beyond the front of each tee pad and either side should be adequate room for follow-thru so a player doesn't risk twisting an ankle, falling off a ledge or whacking their arm on a tree or sign. If possible, provide adequate level ground for a run-up behind each tee pad, especially on longer holes. Avoid major obstructions that severely block the flight path up to 20 feet in front of tee.
On courses with alternate tees on some holes, the tee surfaces in the shorter positions should always be better or at least equal in quality to those in longer positions. For example, avoid designs where the long tee pads are cement and short tee pads are grass or dirt, especially when there are no tee signs. The designated color for each set of tees used for course layout identification on scorecards should match one of the four recognized player skill levels that set of tees was designed for: Gold, Blue, White or Red. Sometimes there's no room for two tees on every hole. Just make sure to mark each tee on single tee holes with both colors. Course managers are encouraged to move toward these color guidelines when the opportunity presents itself for new installations, redesigns or course upgrades when their current color(s) do not match the PDGA guidelines.
I never said they were not allowed but thought someone like Chuck had said something about them not being the "best" option. All I can find searching is old threads people saying how much they love them though so I dunnnnnnnno!
I've seen a few people (Chuck may have been one of them) pointing out that if the majority of shots are going to be in one direction, then a round pad is way less efficient in terms of how much concrete you have to use to get a certain length run up. They're great if you have alternate pins in very different directions off the pad or multiple routes at a pretty big angle to one another, but for most courses they're definitely not the most cost effective way to do tee pads if you want to provide a reasonable (10-12') length of usable tee pad.
That doesn't at all mean the PDGA or even Chuck has an issue with them, just that they're not quite the perfect solution some make them out to be.
For the hole pictured, the back framing is holding up the rest of the hill behind it. Where possible, you'd want everything flush.