Should Tee Time Rounds Be Rated?

[_MTL_]

I've often thought that tee time rounds should be rated, or in the least not compared to each other.

Conditions greatly change throughout the day. Even if drastic things such as rain, wind, snow, etc don't change, temperature and moisture certainly does.

Should someone who played a course 4 - 6 hours before you have the same rating as you when you shoot the same score on the same layout?

 

[storyboy]

I have often wondered about this. I have watched tournaments Where the wind is blowing like mad for one card, and then calm as can be for chase cards? Doesn't seem very fair.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I think you're asking the wrong question. If the conditions are competitively different, is the competition format itself fair versus shotgun starts or doing groupings the way they do it in ball golf to mitigate this issue?

 

[_MTL_]

I think you're asking the wrong question. If the conditions are competitively different, is the competition format itself fair versus shotgun starts or doing groupings the way they do it in ball golf to mitigate this issue?

Fair question.

I personally don't like tee time rounds until at least one round of competition has been completed for this very reason.

 

[Maynard]

Can't control the weather. Same can be said for someone that starts on a water hole with crazy wind then 2hrs later the card in front plays it as their last hole its calm

 

[Lazerface]

Shotgun is without a doubt more "fair" but logistics outweigh the fairness for sure. This is an age old conversation in stick golf as well, but I feel like game play is far more affected by weather in our sport. Maybe not in all areas. Wet vs Dry ball golf greens is a very big deal. For us, 15 MPH of wind is a total game changer though.

 

[olkok]

It's no different than a shotgun start as conditions can change dramatically in couple hours. Say hole 1 is the hardest hole on the course and the first group to play it has calm sunny conditions and the last group later in the day come to it and they have rainy, windy conditions. No different than a tee time scenario.

 

[JC17393]

Can't control the weather. Same can be said for someone that starts on a water hole with crazy wind then 2hrs later the card in front plays it as their last hole its calm

It's no different than a shotgun start as conditions can change dramatically in couple hours. Say hole 1 is the hardest hole on the course and the first group to play it has calm sunny conditions and the last group later in the day come to it and they have rainy, windy conditions. No different than a tee time scenario.

I think this is the start and end of the debate, IMO. If the goal is for every competitor to play the course in exactly identical conditions, the only way to do it is to send them out in one huge group at the same time.

That said, as far as tee time starts go, I think one thing that disc golf hasn't gotten correct yet is balancing the first two rounds of play in a four round event. We always re-sort by score after one round, and I think we should do it like ball golf and maintain the groupings through two rounds while also reversing the order of tee times on the second day. If you tee off early on day one, you tee off late on day two, and vice versa. And include the women in that equation. Is there a reason that the lead FPO card at the Memorial, for example, is teeing off before 8AM every day aside from they all have to go out before the men?

 

[Maynard]

I think this is the start and end of the debate, IMO. If the goal is for every competitor to play the course in exactly identical conditions, the only way to do it is to send them out in one huge group at the same time.

That said, as far as tee time starts go, I think one thing that disc golf hasn't gotten correct yet is balancing the first two rounds of play in a four round event. We always re-sort by score after one round, and I think we should do it like ball golf and maintain the groupings through two rounds while also reversing the order of tee times on the second day. If you tee off early on day one, you tee off late on day two, and vice versa. And include the women in that equation. Is there a reason that the lead FPO card at the Memorial, for example, is teeing off before 8AM every day aside from they all have to go out before the men?

Agree 100%! This needs to happen

 

[frasnow]

Funny that this ad should show up for me at the top of this thread.

 

[JC17393]

Meant to add to my last post, the maintaining of groupings through the first two rounds instead of one only works if everyone's playing the same course each time. So my citing the Memorial probably isn't the best thing to bring up (though I think the argument that FPO shouldn't be relegated to the earliest tee times every day still stands).

 

[DavidSauls]

Conditions greatly change throughout the day. Even if drastic things such as rain, wind, snow, etc don't change, temperature and moisture certainly does.

When they don't change drastically---which is most of the time---how much do the minor changes affect scores? How much scoring difference is there between 1st rounds and 2nd rounds on the same day? (And the 1st/2nd round changes involve a lot more that course conditions---familiarity, exhaustion, etc.)

I thing you're putting too much weight on individual rounds. So what if conditions are 30 points different between the early tees and the later ones? That would be incrementally less for most players teeing in the interim. And affect each player's player rating by 7.5 points after a 4-round event. And less than 1 point after 10 events. In other words, for individual player ratings---which are the only important aspect of the ratings system---any gain or loss from a difference in tee times would average out to nothing.

 

[DavidSauls]

.......don't they average out 1st & 2nd rounds in the official ratings, anyway, unless conditions are drastically different, or different layouts used?

 

[Major Tomahawk]

Ratings are over-rated.........except mine!

Mt. Leo is back.....Hi, Robert!

 

[Cgkdisc]

SSAs are produced for each round and normally combined to produce official ratings unless they are too far apart which happens every so often in GCC and Memorial. MTL may not realize that on occasion we have broken out individual divisions to do ratings in tee time rounds when the TD indicates significant differences in wind from early morning to late day. That doesn't work for rounds with over 150 in MPO unless a special effort is made to break the groups into pools and report them separately. (Not going to happen).

 

[_MTL_]

SSAs are produced for each round and normally combined to produce official ratings unless they are too far apart which happens every so often in GCC and Memorial. MTL may not realize that on occasion we have broken out individual divisions to do ratings in tee time rounds when the TD indicates significant differences in wind from early morning to late day. That doesn't work for rounds with over 150 in MPO unless a special effort is made to break the groups into pools and report them separately. (Not going to happen).

I did not know that.

That's great.

Thanks for adding that!

Pretty much addresses my concern!

 

[scarpfish]

If the round propagators are spread about tee times throughout the day, wouldn't that reasonably resolve this problem?

 

[Cgkdisc]

If the round propagators are spread about tee times throughout the day, wouldn't that reasonably resolve this problem?

It already handles it on an average basis. If morning rounds are 20 points tougher than afternoon rounds, the morning players will get 10 pts less than their challenge and the afternoon players will get 10 points more than their challenge.

 

[thrembo]

Sometimes things just come down to luck.

 

[Doofenshmirtz]

I think this is the start and end of the debate, IMO. If the goal is for every competitor to play the course in exactly identical conditions, the only way to do it is to send them out in one huge group at the same time.

You are only just scratching the surface. If you truly want it to be fair, all the competitors not only have to be in the same group, but they have to throw their discs at exactly the same time from the exact same positions.

That's the only way to be sure.