Is "Recreational" misleading?

[Three Putt]

There's that... and water... my discs love taking a dip :|

Fun Fact: Not only does Noill enjoy throwing his own discs in the water, he also enjoys making absurd suggestions until he tricks you into throwing your own discs in the water.

 

[Noill]

Fun Fact: Not only does Noill enjoy throwing his own discs in the water, he also enjoys making absurd suggestions until he tricks you into throwing your own discs in the water.

*drives off with pie while three putt walks in water up to his knees looking for his favorite disc*

 

[pappabearlee]

I agree, the terms
Recreational
And
Novice
Are really confusing to many.
Id like to see them renamed with numbers 5of letters.
But anything that relates to an implied suggestion for players of X rating to play there would be great.
I see alot of novice rated players in rec ect...
Renaming the divisions removes stigma and encourages even competition.

 

[jjtwinnova]

Why not get rid of the recreational division in general and make it:

Novice
Intermediate
Advanced

Novice = <850
Intermediate = 850-925
Advanced = >925

Stupid idea?
Different rating benchmarks?

IMO Less divisions encourages stronger play because you are consistently playing people better than you. I don't know though, let's hear some ideas.

 

[DavidSauls]

IMO Less divisions encourages stronger play because you are consistently playing people better than you. I don't know though, let's hear some ideas.

Doubtful. You might play with people better than you for one round, depending on the luck of the draw, after which you'll be playing with people who just shot the same score that you did.

It's not like a sport where your opponents play defense, and you keep pushing each other.

The value in playing with better players is in casual play, where you can play multiple rounds, and are more likely to learn.

Anecdotally, I've been playing with better people all my life---check my PDGA history---and am only getting worse.

*

The danger is that with such a ratings spread, many people won't really be able to compete. People have all sorts of motives for playing tournaments; not everyone is pushing to move up the ladder. You run the risk of just running off some of the other players.

The biggest advantage would be larger fields, which is more fun in itself.

 

[jjtwinnova]

Doubtful. You might play with people better than you for one round, depending on the luck of the draw, after which you'll be playing with people who just shot the same score that you did.

I should have worded that better. Because there are less divisions you are forced to play at a higher level to be the best in that division. More players = More competition. If the rating threshold is higher then that means that a lower level novice player is playing with someone who is possibly nearing a breakthrough, and can drop hot rounds similar to higher rated players. One problem with my solution is that ratings are not always accurate, and unless you play lots of tournaments, including out of state, it's closer to an accurate representation at how you play at a specific course. Just my 2¢.

 

[DavidSauls]

The idea behind the am divisions is to group players of similar skill levels, so they can reasonably compete with each other. I won't profess to know how wide the range of skill levels should be, to still fit that guideline.

But if a division spans 75 points, then roughly speaking, on average, the better players average 7.5 strokes less per round than the weakest players---or 30 strokes for 4 rounds. How often does the weaker player shoot 30 strokes better than his average in a tournament? And even if he does, the stronger players are as likely to be shooting over their average, as under.

Of course, we're not guaranteeing everyone a win, or even a chance for a win. But there's a point beyond which, it's not really a competition. And raising the bar for how much better they'll have to shoot to win, doesn't mean they can or will rise to that challenge.

Though TD's can almost do this, under the current system, if anyone really wants to. Just don't offer Recreational, and you'll have an Intermediate division for players rated 850-935.

 

[Lazerface]

Why not get rid of the recreational division in general and make it:

Novice
Intermediate
Advanced

Novice = <850
Intermediate = 850-925
Advanced = >925

Stupid idea?
Different rating benchmarks?

IMO Less divisions encourages stronger play because you are consistently playing people better than you. I don't know though, let's hear some ideas.

I had this same thought. No need for 4 AM divisions and novice is less of a misnomer than REC. Someone said earlier that REC seems to be for players that take it "less seriously" but in my 10 years of playing I disagree. In my experience it's a division of players that may in fact take it very seriously, but just aren't that good. Novice, to me = new. If you don't ever graduate from novice then it too becomes a misnomer to some degree, but less such than having Novice and REC and 4 divisions in general is.

I am part of the opinion that we have way too many divisions, including age protected divisions, generally speaking. But I'm on the fence regarding a change. Is disc golf ready for less divisions? Will enough players still show up in mixed events to to line the pros pockets? What about AM only events? The system was built to maximize attendance and the number of events continues to grow, but I'm not sure we are ready.

Whatever the timeline is I think the end goal should be like stick golf or many other sports. 3 Tours - Pro, Am, and Old Folks. All of which are making nice sums of $$ for their talents. PDGA membership or tour cards will be earned, not bought for all three of these tours. For all other players of the sport divisions, formats, etc would be a separate discussion and likely be less uniform.

It seems to me we are a very long way from being that sort of sport though. Maybe we are still in the maximizing attendance stage. If disc golf ever does grow enough to support three tours it will happen organically and wont have anything to do with "deciding to have less divisions" back in 2017.

As far as less divisions encouraging stronger play. Sure, it encourages it, but certainly does not create it. Skill level is always the ultimate determiner. It does however encourage a culture where those people who are terrible at a sport (in the relative sense), don't show up expecting something other than a good time, maybe a players pack, and a chance to watch great players, all for the very low price of the average tournament entry fee. Today, we don't really have that. Instead we have endless sandbagging discussions that only exist because we have too many damn divisions in the first place. But again, do we???? LOL

 

[biscoe]

I think the number of divisions is fine, TD's don't have to offer them all. When novice was created i definitely thought of it as one too many divisions- no one offers it around here (I did so once and no one signed up for it) but in Illinois it is one of their biggest. Events fill up without it around here so I don't really think the absence of it is hurting us either. The one thing the PDGA does better than anything else is allowing TD's to structure events close to the way they see fit- one size does not fit all.

 

[DavidSauls]

I had this same thought. No need for 4 AM divisions and novice is less of a misnomer than REC. Someone said earlier that REC seems to be for players that take it "less seriously" but in my 10 years of playing I disagree. In my experience it's a division of players that may in fact take it very seriously, but just aren't that good. Novice, to me = new. If you don't ever graduate from novice then it too becomes a misnomer to some degree, but less such than having Novice and REC and 4 divisions in general is.

This is, of course, exactly what makes Novice a misnomer. Novice has nothing to do with new---it's simply a division for players below a certain skill level. Meanwhile, many new players start in a higher division because, though they don't have ratings, they're already better than that when they begin tournament play. So "Novice" has no connection with the actual guidelines for the division.

 

[Three Putt]

I think "novice" was chosen as an alternative to calling the division "really suck at disc golf". :| Actually I think in horse racing, a horse is considered "novice" if it never reaches a certain level no matter how many times it competes. So maybe that is where it comes from.

 

[puttlikeablowfly]

Personally, my favorite division splitting is the colored divisions; they use that for the PDGA leagues and it's honestly the most fun I've had from a competition standpoint while playing a sanctioned event because you know everyone you're playing against is mostly around the same skill level.

I've only played one event using the colors (Directors Cup last year at Lemon Lake), but I agree, it was a nice setup. Fun to play with a group of golfers of similar skill regardless of age or gender.