Opinion: Pay to Play is Not a Con

[WD09]

I dunno - who carries pennies around these days?

True. Maybe I could make new friends by paying for the next 49 disc golfers who showed up.

 

[Jukeshoe]

I save all my pennies and use them to pay at pay-to-play courses.

 

[autocrosscrx]

This is the point I was making earlier...and my opinion.

You tried the service when it was free....so you have a baseline of what you get from it. Then they wanted to charge you and you, using the baseline value, determined the value (return on investment) wasn't worth what you would receive.

That's how I feel pro/con of Pay for Play courses should be rated....don't rate it a con JUST because you have to pay....rate it based on the value received for that cost.

If a reviewer rates a course based on cost only, without ever playing it...that's unfair...the rater hasn't truly reviewed the COURSE they've only reviewed the cost.

When I see a course review that says- Con: Cost. I look to see why....did the reviewer say it wasn't worth the cost? Did they say the fee is obviously not going to course upkeep/maintenance? Or did they just say - Con: Cost. If their only thing is that it cost money, but no other reason, I'll ignore that Con.

Well yeah, you shouldn't review a course that you haven't played.

 

[air show]

One man's con is another man's treasure. I realize this many times while reading reviews and playing courses.

 

[dmoore1998]

One man's con is another man's treasure. I realize this many times while reading reviews and playing courses.

Exactly, I don't see this as any different than every other pro/con argument out there.

Con-It's P2P. The course is super long. There are too many trees. There's too much OB. They let dogs run loose.

Pro-It's P2P. The course is a great challenge with the length, trees, and OB. I was able to let my dog run loose.

I understand the argument of "It shouldn't be a con JUST because it's P2P, maybe it costs a penny and is worth a million dollars to play there"...ok...but clearly the reviewer didn't think so if it came into their mind that the penny cost was a con to the point of including it in their review.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

Answer to what?

Your apparently rhetorical question about public courses.

I can think of a private course that doesn't charge, but limits attendance. You need a reservation -- you can't just drive up anytime you want. It's part of the deal of the course being available, at all. Would I call that a "con"? Yes -- and I did, in my review. It's less convenient. But would I fault the owner? No -- I'm he.

Same with P2P. It's not as good as free. It might still be a great deal for the chance to play the course, it might be completely justified by the course owner, it might have benefits in course maintenance and crowd control that outweigh it's drawbacks. But in the realm of pros & cons, it's still a con.

Calling it a con is a statement that the owner shouldn't charge money if he expects you to find no fault with his course. It's essentially a complaint. As long as you are owning up to that, fine. But I still think it reeks of entitlement. No course is free to put in, keep up or maintain and I know that you know this. Even an old course with rusty baskets that needs mowing costs its owner to keep as a course.

Pay to play in disc golf is one of the issues that I'd like to see more disc golfers compare to real golf. There may be a real golf course out there somewhere that doesn't charge a greens fee. But I've never found one. On the public side, if cities saw disc golf as something that could pay for itself, they might be more willing to put in courses, pay experienced designers and better maintain the courses that they have.

 

[autocrosscrx]

Calling it a con is a statement that the owner shouldn't charge money if he expects you to find no fault with his course. It's essentially a complaint.

No, it isn't. It is a negative position. The definition of the word in no way addresses expectations.

 

[DavidSauls]

Calling it a con is a statement that the owner shouldn't charge money if he expects you to find no fault with his course. It's essentially a complaint..

Just my opinion, but I don't see it that way. It's a statement of one aspect of playing the course, that's relevant to some people.

One of the reviews of our course, pointed out that a few holes pass close to houses, which made them feel a bit self-conscious and diminished the remote feeling on other parts of the course. I'd never thought of it, but it makes sense that some people might feel that way. I didn't read it as being entitled to be further from houses.

I don't take the "cons" as complaints, and wouldn't if we charged a fee, and someone listed it. it would just be true fact, which applied to playing here, which some people wouldn't mind at all and for others, would diminish the experience a little bit.

 

[ru4por]

Welcome to another discussion, of how one poster thinks reviews should simply be designed to their liking and taste. A thread of conundrums, wrapped in enigma, within the realm of one opinion. Round and round.

The DGCR review system is not broken. It is the READERS job to glean the information they need.

 

[itsRudy]

I've been to only one pay to play and it was nothing special. Golf course with some baskets. The disc golfers were relegated to the outer perimeter and were clearly secondary guests. The design was nothing spectacular. It was pretty expensive because the golf cart rental was mando.

I've heard one or two good pay to play. I don't mind paying when I want a special experience, but if I go to one that's not worth the money, then it's a con.

I would hate to have to pay every round I ever play though. Good thing for community and state parks.

 

[dmoore1998]

Calling it a con is a statement that the owner shouldn't charge money if he expects you to find no fault with his course.

Disagree (kind of, i'll hit that at the end)

Examples:

I think it's a con if a course runs through a playground area at a park...that doesn't mean I don't think the playground should exist, or that they should rip it out, or remove those holes...it means I think that's less desirable than if the course happened to not have a playground there.

I think it's a con if the course floods during heavy rains. Doesn't mean I think the owner needs to spend money (maybe a LOT of money) making it so that it doesn't. I just think it would be preferable if it didn't flood.

Pros and cons are expressions of what you like and didn't like. It doesn't mean you expect anyone to change anything...it's an expression of your own personal preference. I have lots of personal preferences about a lot of things that I don't necessarily think people need to change...I just happen to like other things. I like lettuce on my taco pizza, my wife does not, so we get it without lettuce because her preference for not having it ranks higher than my slight preference FOR having it. If you asked me how WE should get our pizza...I'd still say without lettuce...it's a con for me, but I recognize why it's for the best.

Reviews are supposed to be personal opinions. I get the impression people take them WAY too seriously here sometimes. They are not an objective measure of a course, they are a subjective measure based on individuals.

That said, if you want any reviewer to find "no fault with the course" then you're either unrealistic, or you're counting on shill reviews. Every course has faults, and almost every course will have positives. Your fault might even be something crazy like "I wish they had vending machines on hole #10 because I got hungry and we were 3 miles from my car by that point". Heck, a con might just be "it was in the middle of nowhere with no food/beverage options and no hotels nearby". Doesn't mean anyone expects the owner to build a hotel, or move the course elsewhere...it's just a con that the owner might have no control over, but which the reviewer thought worth mentioning.

 

[dmoore1998]

I think also to the point of whether anyone expects owners to change things to get "a flawless course"...

I have played courses that I will never play again, that are probably some of the least enjoyable courses I've ever played...and if you asked me what the owner should do to fix it, my response would be something along the lines of "not much really, they did the best they could with what they have". What they have to work with makes the course a 1...maybe. Not very many holes, all the holes are short, but it's better than not even having anything there. An open field with 2 holes going back and forth the length of the field isn't a good course...but it's better than just having it sit there unused. I don't expect anyone to do anything to change it...it's just not a good course IMO and it should embrace itself for what it is...a bad course that's still better than no course.

 

[dmoore1998]

Ok, last post on this for a while (because I feel like I'm rambling). My opinion on reviews themselves, because I think that's where a lot of this difference of opinion comes from.

IMO: Reviews are for other discers looking to play courses and deciding if they would like to play a course. Similar to checking a movie review to decide if you think you'd like to see a movie.

Reviews are not, or should not be (again, just IMO) a referendum on course builders to rate their work or to see who can get "a perfect rating" or something similar.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

Disagree (kind of, i'll hit that at the end)

Examples:

I think it's a con if a course runs through a playground area at a park...that doesn't mean I don't think the playground should exist, or that they should rip it out, or remove those holes...it means I think that's less desirable than if the course happened to not have a playground there.

I think it's a con if the course floods during heavy rains. Doesn't mean I think the owner needs to spend money (maybe a LOT of money) making it so that it doesn't. I just think it would be preferable if it didn't flood.

Pros and cons are expressions of what you like and didn't like.

P2P is not a physical property of the course and is not even remotely comparable in my opinion. David's nearby houses, periodic flooding, safety issues (poor design) or whether a course should have been in a public park at all are all significantly different from whether a fee is charged to play the course.

I do not hold that others are not entitled to their opinions or entitled to review a course however they want taking into whatever factors they want. I do hold that they are not entitled to have me or anyone else think well of them if they complain about having to pay a small amount of money to play a round of disc golf.

Since I started playing disc golf I have thought that one of disc golf's biggest problems is the lack of money in the game. Paradoxically, I think that the low cost of the game is one of its many strengths versus real golf. I think we should be satisfied that a good bag and enough discs and accessories to play any course costs significantly less than a high end golf putter and not continue to accept the attitude that anyone should be entitled to play a course without paying a small fee.

You can characterize a "con" anyway you want. But when someone claims that a course would be better if it didn't charge anything because they can play other courses for free, they are basically saying that they should be able to play any course for free.

 

[glassila]

If a 4-5 star course had an identical twin and one is free and the other is P2P then the review/rating of both should be the same, right? I think most people would not list a con for the P2P course, but some people probably would.

Now if a 2-3 star course had an identical twin and one is free and the other is P2P, again the review/rating should be the same for both, but I would bet a lot more people would list a con and give it a lower rating because it is P2P.

In both cases the courses are identical, but a weak course gets a con more often if it's P2P.

 

[dmoore1998]

I do not hold that others are not entitled to their opinions or entitled to review a course however they want taking into whatever factors they want.

That's the crux of our disagreement then. I think people are free to express their opinions in whatever way they got to those opinions. It's THEIR review of the course. It is not "their review of the course based on the factors that Doofenshmirtz sets out for them". Reviews are subjective, not objective.

Heck, if someone wants to say "Con: the name of the course is stupid"...so what?

You don't have to think highly of them. There are LOTS of reviews I read on this site that I walk away from thinking "gotta ignore that one, doesn't sound like we value the same things".

 

[DavidSauls]

If a 4-5 star course had an identical twin and one is free and the other is P2P then the review/rating of both should be the same, right? I think most people would not list a con for the P2P course, but some people probably would.

My rating would be the same, but I'd mention the P2P as a con. I might mention the "free" as a pro on its twin.

If both courses were equidistant from me, and all other things equal, I'd probably play the free one more.

If someone were asking where they should play when visiting, I'd recommend both, but also mention that only one is free. The visitor could decide whether that mattered to him, or not.

I write reviews like a recommendation.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

That's the crux of our disagreement then. I think people are free to express their opinions in whatever way they got to those opinions. It's THEIR review of the course. It is not "their review of the course based on the factors that Doofenshmirtz sets out for them". Reviews are subjective, not objective.

You also seem to have trouble reading. I guess the double negative did the trick. I'll try to avoid that for your clearer understanding in the future.

 

[Alexplz]

For me p2p can be a con when the course is nothing special. That doesn't count bagging a course for the first time. For example, the Mobile, AL region has several courses, including one designed by Houck. None of them are p2p (except Chickasabogue, but that's a $1 entry fee to the park, not the course). If one of the middling courses in the area charged $5 whereas I could play a nicer (for whatever reason) course for free, I'm picking the free one all day.

That said, free courses can attract a subset of players that may not be the most desirable. I mean people who litter, are obnoxiously loud, don't follow etiquette, etc. So in that respect, the p2p aspect could be considered a pro, though it may come off as snobby to some.

I'm reminded of the condom and maxipad (something like that?) machines that cost 1c. Or, simply exactly one coin of any denomination. That way, the actual cost of the product is practically zero, but you can't just willy-nilly clean the thing out without a level of gumption above that of your typical ner' do well.

I like the idea of a well maintained public course that sought to filter out the littering schlubs you refer to, but that didn't do so by costing $5 or more. Truly passionate and respectful golfers without the expendable cash should be more than welcome.

What would this look like? Maybe requiring a reservation weeks in advance? Maybe either costing $10 or... OH I KNOW a donation to the local food bank plus $1?? :thmbup:

 

[BogeyNoMore]

I've just gotten used to P2P. Most of the better courses in this locale are in parks that charge by the car, and most of them still charge a few bucks on top of that for DG. The annual passes pay for themselves pretty quickly.

As long as the course are well maintained, and the fee covers a full day's worth of discing, I'm fine with it. Just show me some of the money is being reinvested in the course to keep it going in the right direction.

I honestly don't think P2P cuts down on the riff raff time litter all that much, but it sure doesn't hurt.