Hazard

[txmxer]

Is the use of hazard a result of DG being played on ball golf courses?

I suppose there are a few times hazard would make sense in a park. Like an island green created by pavement. Of course they usually just call that OB, but I could see it as a hazard.

 

[biscoe]

Play on golf courses is likely part of the origin. I had never used the hazard rule until I ran some events on a golf course. We are also seeing some push from some folks for less punitive methods of punishment for poor shots to retain scoring granularity.

 

[Steve West]

The Hazard resulted from being used at USDGC before anyone used it on a ball golf course (as far as I know). I think it was a desperate, experimental attempt to add strokes to otherwise bland grassy areas.

Unfortunately, others copied it. (Widely viewed events should take on the responsibility to set good examples.)

How it got to be associated with sand traps is a mystery. It makes no sense for sand traps. Disc golfers should not be throwing from sand traps, because our twisting feet can hurt the liner that holds the sand in.

It's been proven that the threat of a penalty cannot keep all players out of sand traps. In fact, some designers relish the idea of "catching" enough players to create a lot of (random) scoring spread. Or to "justify" a 432 feet par 4. So they put the sand where they know players will land in it.

If the rule is to protect the sand traps, it should result in the lie being moved out of the sand trap.

Or,

If throwing from sand is actually harder, there does not need to be a penalty added to the already enhanced difficulty.

 

[txmxer]

The Hazard resulted from being used at USDGC before anyone used it on a ball golf course (as far as I know). I think it was a desperate, experimental attempt to add strokes to otherwise bland grassy areas.

Unfortunately, others copied it. (Widely viewed events should take on the responsibility to set good examples.)

How it got to be associated with sand traps is a mystery. It makes no sense for sand traps. Disc golfers should not be throwing from sand traps, because our twisting feet can hurt the liner that holds the sand in.

It's been proven that the threat of a penalty cannot keep all players out of sand traps. In fact, some designers relish the idea of "catching" enough players to create a lot of (random) scoring spread. Or to "justify" a 432 feet par 4. So they put the sand where they know players will land in it.

If the rule is to protect the sand traps, it should result in the lie being moved out of the sand trap.

Or,

If throwing from sand is actually harder, there does not need to be a penalty added to the already enhanced difficulty.

Thanks. Kind of details out my thoughts.

 

[DavidSauls]

The Hazard resulted from being used at USDGC before anyone used it on a ball golf course (as far as I know). I think it was a desperate, experimental attempt to add strokes to otherwise bland grassy areas.

Unfortunately, others copied it. (Widely viewed events should take on the responsibility to set good examples.)

How it got to be associated with sand traps is a mystery. It makes no sense for sand traps. Disc golfers should not be throwing from sand traps, because our twisting feet can hurt the liner that holds the sand in.

It's been proven that the threat of a penalty cannot keep all players out of sand traps. In fact, some designers relish the idea of "catching" enough players to create a lot of (random) scoring spread. Or to "justify" a 432 feet par 4. So they put the sand where they know players will land in it.

If the rule is to protect the sand traps, it should result in the lie being moved out of the sand trap.

Or,

If throwing from sand is actually harder, there does not need to be a penalty added to the already enhanced difficulty.

To begin with a caveat: I think hazards are stupid.

But I think it's a mischaracterization to say their purpose is "to add strokes". Like OB, their purpose is to restrain where discs can or should be thrown -- and unlike trees, not to restrain the flight path, but where the discs land. The attempt to avoid these zones is the point, not to add strokes.

OB can be done well, or poorly. Hazards, in my opinion, can't be done well -- they shouldn't be done at all.

 

[BillFleming]

Hazards can be handy if well used. I played in a tournament where there was an island green. Everything between the tee pad and the island was a hazard. You took a stroke and played from the hazard. Why not make it OB? You would have to keep rethrowing from the tee pad until you finally made it. The island was reachable, but it was slightly protected (trees along the right, two trees to the left front edge of the island). Insead of making players take high numbers on the hole, they made it a hazard so that it still penalized the player, but not too harshly.

 

[txmxer]

Hazards can be handy if well used. I played in a tournament where there was an island green. Everything between the tee pad and the island was a hazard. You took a stroke and played from the hazard. Why not make it OB? You would have to keep rethrowing from the tee pad until you finally made it. The island was reachable, but it was slightly protected (trees along the right, two trees to the left front edge of the island). Insead of making players take high numbers on the hole, they made it a hazard so that it still penalized the player, but not too harshly.

I don't have an issue with that. Alternatively the any OB goes to the drop zone works for me as well.

 

[DavidSauls]

I have a purely aesthetic objection to hazards. On O.B., you can't throw from out-of-bounds, but the stroke is essentially for moving your lie inbounds. Hazards remind me of landing on the wrong square in a child's board game; you still play it just as you would, but add a penalty.

 

[Cgkdisc]

The origin of the hazard was a more punitive extension to one of the buncr options I developed during the mid-2000s. The buncr was used in the 2007 Pro Worlds in two places and the original Player's Cup. The buncr option near the green is a marked area or sand trap sometimes shaped like a kidney bean located from 10 to about 30-40 feet from the basket. If a player lands in the buncr, they move back on the LOP to mark on the edge of the buncr with no penalty other than a longer putt. It works well to separate players based on their putting skill while moving them outside the sand versus the automatic penalty applied using the hazard rule. This type of buncr is intended to emulate what happens when a golf ball rolls away from the hole when landing on the steeper sloping side of it.

 

[DavidSauls]

The origin of the hazard was a more punitive extension to one of the buncr options I developed during the mid-2000s. The buncr was used in the 2007 Pro Worlds in two places and the original Player's Cup. The buncr option near the green is a marked area or sand trap sometimes shaped like a kidney bean located from 10 to about 30-40 feet from the basket. If a player lands in the buncr, they move back on the LOP to mark on the edge of the buncr with no penalty other than a longer putt. It works well to separate players based on their putting skill while moving them outside the sand versus the automatic penalty applied using the hazard rule. This type of buncr is intended to emulate what happens when a golf ball rolls away from the hole when landing on the steeper sloping side of it.

We have one of those at Stoney Hill -- though we just refer to it as mandatory casual relief.

It's there for safety reasons, not scoring separation, but has the same effect. The basket's on a mound, one side of which is a little dangerous to take a stance. So that side is marked as casual relief; the resulting lie from the bottom creates a missable putt instead of a drop-in.

 

[txmxer]

We have one of those at Stoney Hill -- though we just refer to it as mandatory casual relief.

It's there for safety reasons, not scoring separation, but has the same effect. The basket's on a mound, one side of which is a little dangerous to take a stance. So that side is marked as casual relief; the resulting lie from the bottom creates a missable putt instead of a drop-in.

And that's logical design. Even what chick said is okay imo. You get pushed back but you still have a chance to score.

That's one of the things I dislike about ball golf greens as OB. Let's see the players have the more difficult (longer) putt. Scoring separation will occur based on performance. And if a player hits that long putt, they deserve a reward.

 

[Cgkdisc]

And that's logical design. Even what chick said is okay imo. You get pushed back but you still have a chance to score.

That's one of the things I dislike about ball golf greens as OB. Let's see the players have the more difficult (longer) putt. Scoring separation will occur based on performance. And if a player hits that long putt, they deserve a reward.

This concept is what I and some other designers have been trying to get across for years. That is designing challenges that result in loss of distance only and/or relocation to a more challenging drop zone "without tacking on a stroke penalty". These do a better job of testing skills and reducing potential flukiness from penalties.

Some examples
* Water carries where you lose your disc anyway. Play it like a mandatory casual relief area where you mark back on the LOP or perhaps a drop zone if it's too dicey for the group to determine your disc location in the drink.
* Mando where your penalty is to simply come back to a drop zone located maybe 2m-4m behind the mando object on the LOP to pin so you have to shape your next shot around the mando on the correct side. Miss this mando and you lose distance and have a tougher angle but no stroke.
* Create a rectangular fake lake that spans the full width of a ball golf style fairway that starts at say 450 and extends say 150 feet toward the basket that's at 700 ft for the par 4 hole. The lake is rollable. If the big arms aren't sure they want to risk getting past 600, they try to lay up to 425. If they land in the lake, there are two drop zones, one left and one right that are located in the tree line where they have to make a challenging 275-300' upshot to potentially save the birdie. They can choose either DZ (or just have one, TD choice) and there's no stroke penalty for landing in the fake lake.

These examples are ways we can design challenges to create score separation more by skill than penalties. If these types of challenges are designed into a layout, viewers and spectators will mainly see skillful throws in a player's score with no unthrown penalty strokes (at least from hazards).

 

[DavidSauls]

One distinction we might make, is between the use of buncrs and hazards at top-tier tournaments, lower-tier tournaments, and in course design for casual play.

They complicate the rules, with rarely-used parts of the rulebook. At least everyone pretty much knows how to play OB.

(Sidebar: I'll add the OB option of making the lie "closest inbounds" instead of "last inbounds", which I think is a great concept in some places but have rarely played).

For top-tier events, there's little issue. You can have a caddy book or detailed instructions, and expect top-tier players to understand them. It's a bit tricker at C-tiers, with a lot of lower divisions, and even more so in designing a course for everyday use.

Also, at Stoney Hill we have a couple of creeks where it would make more sense to make them casual relief, than OB. However, as OB, if you're inches inbounds on the basket side, you get relief to take your stance; as casual relief you don't, unless we flag or string part of the shore into the casual relief area, which we're not willing to do. So they remain OB.

I'm not averse to using OB in course design, but I agree that there are places where it's too punitive, and some of these other options should be used a lot more. Perhaps if they were used a lot more, the confusion that I mentioned at the start of this post, wouldn't be so bad.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I'm not averse to using OB in course design, but I agree that there are places where it's too punitive, and some of these other options should be used a lot more. Perhaps if they were used a lot more, the confusion that I mentioned at the start of this post, wouldn't be so bad.

The streamed and post-produced DGPT events can go a long way for educating players and designers about the benefits of alternative design elements that still test skill and accuracy without additional penalties. These elements also provide more drama for commentators and viewers to discuss whether a player can avoid losing a stroke with skillful escapes.

 

[DavidSauls]

You may be right. And it may be a chicken/egg issue. They're not much used because people don't know about them, and people don't know about them because they're not much used.

 

[txmxer]

I like what y'all are saying.

But realize that in casual play, people are generally not going to want to follow anything arbitrary such as mandos. Some will some won't. I say this because I play with both tournament types and weekend warriors that don't know or could not care less about the competition rules.

Water OB is pretty obvious, or physical boundaries, but beyond things like that it doesn't sell well in the casual play world

Competitions can make up rules and artificial boundaries because people will accept the challenge.

But, as discussed above it becomes a question of what is watchable. People will accept almost any challenge no matter how ridiculous if they are participating. It's a game, or THE game. But, for watching we want to see things that make sense.

Chuck is big on moderating how punitive the course is for errant throws. I like this a lot. It allows creating a course in areas that don't have all the perfect elements such as trees, while still creating challenge.

All this to say, I'm not a fan of the sand trap bunker or buncr as I'm seeing here.

Is buncr correct? I've never seen that before, but I'm not much of a golfer.

 

[DavidSauls]

I like what y'all are saying.

But realize that in casual play, people are generally not going to want to follow anything arbitrary such as mandos. Some will some won't. I say this because I play with both tournament types and weekend warriors that don't know or could not care less about the competition rules.

That's a bit of a broad brush. By "casual play" I mean non-tournament play, and I see a lot of casual play by people who also play tournaments, and play by tournament rules -- and some by people who don't play tournaments, but still try to play OB, etc., correctly.

Obviously, there are some even-more-casual players to whom none of this matters.

 

[DavidSauls]

Is buncr correct? I've never seen that before, but I'm not much of a golfer.

"buncr" is an attempt to take a casual relief area, and make the name bring to mind a bunker.

BUNK (Bunder) + CR (Casual Relief).

I've seen casual relief areas used for all sorts of reasons....usually to keep people from playing from, or having to play from, certain areas, but also in strategic design way that Chuck is promoting.

The use of the "buncr" label for them is much rarer.

 

[txmxer]

That's a bit of a broad brush. By "casual play" I mean non-tournament play, and I see a lot of casual play by people who also play tournaments, and play by tournament rules -- and some by people who don't play tournaments, but still try to play OB, etc., correctly.

Obviously, there are some even-more-casual players to whom none of this matters.

Certainly it is a spectrum. From a "grow the sport" perspective, minimizing the non-natural aspects is important.

You can tell someone that the road or the creek is OB and it is logical and somewhat obvious. On one of our local courses, a Mando is defined by a power distribution pole in the middle of the fairway. My card mates recognized it as arbitrary. It creates a tension that is unpleasant. Casual play is no longer casual.

 

[DavidSauls]

I don't know. I don't play tournaments any more, but the courses I most often play casual have lots of OB, of all types, and a few mandos. Some casual players use them. Some don't. I don't see it having much impact on growth or enjoyment.