Nasty Spits...bad luck or bad putt?

[steven2361]

to digress: you guys have reminded me of my favorite restaurant in richmond while i was in school there- the "texas-wisconsin border cafe". yummy texican food and yummy cheesehead food together on the same menu. one of the owners was from each place.

Ha ha Awsome

 

[DiscJunkie]

This doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem.
Build a better basket and the world should beat a path to your door.
If foolproof baskets can be made, then someone should make them and introduce them. Are there designs or ideas?
A whiner is someone who complains about a problem and blames his troubles on that problem but does nothing to improve the situation.
Ed Headrick is dead (rest his soul), but why don't we improve on a design that is 30+(?) years old.
This whole thing baffles me.
I've had spits. Everyone has. I think they make some great stories, but I never blamed my crappy score on a spit. It's the other poor throws that causes a bad score, not the occasional spit.
Does anyone know of a really good solution, or do we just sit around and talk about it?
I don't mean to sound harsh (may be too late) but if there is a design out there (Dave F. talked about putting in nets or somesuch) that will prevent this, then let's do it and do it NOW.

 

[mashnut]

To be fair, baskets have gotten much better, it's just a very long process to have new baskets in the ground when the old baskets at courses might still be entirely serviceable as far as a parks department is concerned. You're not going to get very far convincing them to spend thousands of dollars to upgrade something they don't see an issue with.

 

[scarpfish]

This doesn't seem to be an insurmountable problem.

Mechanically, I don't think its that big a problem to solve and all of the basket manufacturers probably know what they could do to make their basket catch better and probably would be in their financial best interest to do so.

I wonder though...

Are patent issues involved preventing them from making these adaptations on new versions of their baskets?

Or are the economics of improving the baskets such that if adaptations were made it would add additional cost to their baskets, and they might lose sales to a competitor whose unimproved baskets, albeit of lower quality, get picked because they were cheaper?

I sort of find it funny that were complaining about bad quality professional quality buckets from the manufacturers, when I've seen no shortage of courses where the people who installed them opted to go for practice quality baskets (Discatcher Sport, M-14, DB-5) or went the homemade route, citing cost issues.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I think the primary basket patent still in force is the slider chain structure held by DGA. The dual chain set patent ran out in 2002 and the inside/outside chain pattern of the Mach 3 ran out in 2006.

 

[Scoot_er]

I think the primary basket patent still in force is the slider chain structure held by DGA. The dual chain set patent ran out in 2002 and the inside/outside chain pattern of the Mach 3 ran out in 2006.

The slider has been held in question for a while too! Supposedly Ed didn't patent it until seeing another design with the sliding links.

 

[leppard]

You're defining a "good putt" as one that stays in the basket. We're satying a "good putt" is one that hit the chains squarely. The only reason we have to worry about catching is for proof that you hit the target. So if the catching isn't perfect, you can still hit your target (the goal of the game) and not have it count. I don't see how that isn't considered a problem.

I don't think the issue upper level players have isn't that it's unfair when it happens because it does happen to everyone. The issue is that there's an element of luck that doesn't need to be there. It would be like if, in a game of basketball, the hoops randomly closed up for a second every once in a while. It would still be fair because it can happen to any given shot, but the sport would seem less legitamate because there's a greater element of luck.

There shouldn't be an element of luck in a world record distance competition, but there is. It's called wind.

When it comes to basket design, it's just improvement over time. The manufacturers make new models that catch better than the last. Really not a whole lot can be done with courses in place without spending a lot of money.

 

[ERicJ]

I'm not sure what "truth" you think I'm after. All I was saying is this is a problem for a very small segment of the disc golf population, that segment being mostly confined to the highest rated players. For most of us that are not 1000-rated (and I'm sure a good portion of those who are) this is a non-issue. It gets discussed a lot because players like Climo talk about it and figjam gets a video on youtube talking about it. Disc golf has always been a player-driven sport where for better or worse you gain your reputation on the course, so as long as World Champion-caliber players are harping on it the issue is not going to go away.

As such I think the World Champion-caliber players can take care of it. I'm not going to run an NT or participate in an NT, so if they do or don't design a new basket and establish a traveling set dedicated to be in place at all NT's it's not really going to have any impact on me at all. I say let them figure it out AND figure out how to pay for it themselves. Whatever they do is fine by me, but it's not important enough to me to pay for.

Oooo, been a while since anyone busted out the FIGJAM.

 

[optidiscic]

Again when I shoot a full court shot in basketball it has to be perfect to go in.....theres no soft touch from 90 feet in hoops. If I don't hit it just right it will iron out or rattle in and out.... In Bolf a hole in one usually has to land and eventually softly rolls and just falls in the cup/ no one drills hole in ones in Bolf from long distance.... there are no guarantees that just because you hit chains it should drop in everytime...this is silly fellas! Get over it...I think we can improve things but theres always that element of chance...as a player it's up to you to minimize the part chance plays.

 

[garublador]

There shouldn't be an element of luck in a world record distance competition, but there is. It's called wind.

There's also an element of luck in poker, but it's also not disc golf so it doesn't matter.

The issue isn't that there's an element of luck, it's that there's an element of luck that can be eliminated with better specifications and design. They've already done that with distance competitions by having an indoor category.

 

[VictorB]

I can definitely attest to the fact that some baskets just don't catch as well as others.

At my home course, Albert Oakland, the front 18 has the original baskets from when the course was put in back in 1980 (we call them Mach zeros). I've seen good putts be spit out of these baskets in pretty much every way imaginable. That being said, basket technology has come a long way since 1980, thank goodness, but there are still some inherent problems with specific design types as Scoot_er mentioned.

I think that a specific standard should be established across the board for all manufacturers, and that way each company can still make their own baskets but everyone will be putting on the exact same style.

 

[Dave242]

The issue isn't that there's an element of luck, it's that there's an element of luck that can be eliminated with better specifications and design.

I don't buy that. Not in golf. There are elements of luck all around the course. The game of golf involves reducing the chance of luck coming into play by the use of skill. Golf is a game of recognizing risk (the chance of something bad happening) and making decisions to minimize it.....and then skillfully executing to that plan. Why are people so insistent that luck be removed from the baskets?? Not that that is inherently a bad plan/wish, but it is inconsistent with the essence of the game.

If you want to minimize unlucky kicks deep into the woods or into OB, stay in the middle of the fairway. If you don't want an unlucky roll when landing on a steep hill or on uneven ground, land your disc at the correct angle and speed. If you want to minimize spit-outs, land 10' from the basket, not 40'. Or putt softer or with a different angle. Or putt into areas of the chains that will not produce spit-outs.

Of course you could take what I'm saying to illogical extremes, but good design practice allows for only a certain percentage of luck to come into play (think fairway widths and shapes). The performance of all but the very worst baskets have very acceptable levels of randomness in their performance to make risk/reward-execution variables consistent with the rest of the disc golfing experience.

 

[chiggins]

I don't understand why this is a controversy.

If, for example, you designed a basketball hoop that was awesome in every way, except that every so often the spring of the net would spit the ball back out, no one would argue that it had a design flaw. And if an NBA playoff game was decided by said design flaw, it would be fixed no questions asked. There's a lot of random things that can happen before the ball goes through the hoop, but once it's through, there's no question that it should be a score, right?

That putt didn't not stay in because of the randomness that affects the game before it got there, it got spit after it was already in the heart of the thing. But Markus' spit is a better example, having the World's come down to the randomness of the equipment's design flaw is bunk.

But that doesn't change the fact that that's where the sport's at right now, and that (to extend the basketball analogy) sometimes professionals have to play on the equivalent of playground hoops with chain nets and steel backboards. It's a thorn for now, and one that everyone has to deal with, but I don't think pointing out the deficiency in the equipment equates to whining necessarily. I mean, at some point someone had to say, "hey, ya think we could come up with something a little sturdier than this peach basket?"

 

[Dave242]

Going with the basketball analogy: a ball coming in at a certain trajectory and bouncing off the rim in EXACTLY the same angle (and rotation) will behave differently depending on the speed of the ball. A layup will not bounce hard enough to be unusual. I foul shot with rattle around then drop through. A 3-pointer will rattle and spit out. And, a half court shot will also bounce out.

Nobody will complain about that because the shape of the rim is not complex and the physics are pretty simple. The shape of the rim is set, repeatable and standard - and provides set, repeatable and standard performance.

The shape of the chain configuration of DG baskets are quite complex comparatively. BUT, for a well maintained standard set of baskets for a tournament course the shape is set, repeatable and standard - and provides set, repeatable and standard performance. Exactly the same throw to the same spot will produce the exact same results every time.

Just because all of this is not as intuitively obvious with a basket as it is with a hoop, does not make it random/lucky/unfair (although it certainly may seem that way). Every experienced player knows the weak spots of a basket and at what speeds and angles to throw to make the basket perform its catching duties 100% perfectly. It is just that some players do not execute to that understanding......and decide to blame the baskets.

 

[garublador]

If, for example, you designed a basketball hoop that was awesome in every way, except that every so often the spring of the net would spit the ball back out, no one would argue that it had a design flaw.

First, there's no way to prove that. That's just something you made up to try to prove a point that has no good reasoning behind it. Second, there's no way it's true. I can't imagine why they wouldn't change the net design if it rejected good shots.

Here's an analogy, if a basketball player dunks the ball hard enough for it to bounce off the floor and back up through the hoop, is it considered a made basket?

 

[Cgkdisc]

The shape of the chain configuration of DG baskets are quite complex comparatively. BUT, for a well maintained standard set of baskets for a tournament course the shape is set, repeatable and standard - and provides set, repeatable and standard performance.

Not true. The chain pattern is different as you move around the basket. Imagine putting 12 nubs uniformly around the circumference of a basket ball hoop rim that project upward and see how fair people would think that would be or put 12 uniform notches scalloping the rim of a golf cup. It is so obvious that these are not approriate as to be laughable. Why we accept that with baskets is just the way it is so far but it's one thing that undermines the credibility of disc golf as a sport versus simply the game of disc golf.

 

[Dave242]

You are pointing out the complexity of the chain pattern, not proving that there is any randomness. Yes, every angle you look at the basket is different from the view 1 degree away from that. But, it is standard and repeatable (12 times if there are 12 chains).

So, what you are saying is that basketball would be not be a credible sport if they used square baskets rather than round. Well, I guess you are onto something since soccer and hockey use rectangular goals and they are not as popular as other sports in this country.

But wait - football uses a rectangular field goal AND an oblong ball whose bounce can go any which way very often deciding the outcome of the game. Oh....maybe we are onto something here since football is not very popular anywhere but in the US.

More seriously though.....the football thing is actually a pretty good analogy: If you do not want the random bounces to determine the outcome of the game, don't let the ball hit the ground!

 

[John Rock]

Seems like a good player (PRO) could still execute a successful putt even if he had a stance for a putt that was facing one of the "BAD" angles on the basket that some here keep pointing out. At the very least, that player could straddle to either side to adjust his angle to hit the "GOOD/FAIR" segment. I mean, they are the best of the game aren't they?

I'm not buying the unfairness whine.

 

[Cgkdisc]

The problem is that players cannot see the current chain pattern from outside maybe 10 feet and even if they knew what the current pattern looked like, there haven't been any studies to know what the particular weak spots are from that angle on that model of basket. And they would be different on each model of basket. And that assumes the basket was mounted level and the chains were currently in the exact positions when the tests were done. If you were trying to create a target that was was fluky on purpose and not suitable for a sport versus a game, then our current basket situtation fills the bill.

 

[Aubin]

kinda OT, but just noticed:

in that video, he puts his marker down, gets in a stance, then checks the wind with 2 clumps of grass pulled from in front of his lie.

Isn't this technically illegal? I tried this once and got yelled at (nicely) because it's technically moving something in front of your lie between the marker and basket, even though it's obviously not affecting the shot.