Wisconsin to Iowa

[IHearChains]

Do you consider disc golf a game or a sport?

If DG is a sport that means competition is central. And competition is a test - a test of skill. A good DG course therefore needs to be good at testing a wide range of real DG skills.

The vast majority of DGCR Forum users think it is a sport.

The reason I believe that scoring spread is the most important part of a good DG hole is that it indicates that skill is being tested and lack of skill is being punished (with the exception of holes that by design induce a higher than acceptable level of luck/randomness). Designers should try hard to provide this sort of a test as their primary goal (while also incorporating all the other elements that go into making an appealing course).

A filler hole is a hole that provides no test but transitions the competitor from a hole that produces a good test to another hole that produces a good test. From a scoring perspective, if the hole does not provide a good separation of scores based on skill, why play it since it does basically nothing in determining the outcome of the competition?

Now, from a recreational or aesthetics point of view there are certainly other very valid components as to what defines a "filler hole". But since DGCR users think of DG as a sport, those do not carry nearly as much weight here.

Evaluating individual holes is useful in design but it misses the bigger picture of the overall course. I think it is important to keep in mind that the "outcome of the competition" is not determined on individual holes, but the cumulative effect of all the holes.

Imagine a course where on every hole 80% of players score the same. If each hole tests a different skill, then the 80% is going to be a different group of people on every hole. The intersection of those 80%'s will get smaller and smaller. The cumulative effect, even though it is all "filler" holes, is excellent score separation. It is not required that every hole have excellent scoring separation to achieve your desired affect on the "outcome of the competition". The key is to have every hole be different tests of skills, and I think with only a couple exceptions, the facts bear that out when it comes to West Lake.

Let's look at Sugar Bottom since you ranked that higher than West Lake.

Sugar Bottom -- http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/69478
cumulative score range, shorter layout: 55-62 (7/18, 0.39 per hole)
cumulative score range, longer layout: 58-69 (11/18, 0.61 per hole)

West Lake -- linked upthread
cumulative score range: 79-96 (17/24, 0.71 per hole)

If scoring separation and outcome of the competition are your main criteria, then it becomes pretty hard to argue that West Lake ranks below Sugar Bottom.

Fun discussing this with you Dave. Cheers!

 

[Dave242]

Let's look at Sugar Bottom since you ranked that higher than West Lake.

Sugar Bottom -- http://www.pdga.com/tournament_results/69478
cumulative score range, shorter layout: 55-62 (7/18, 0.39 per hole)
cumulative score range, longer layout: 58-69 (11/18, 0.61 per hole)

West Lake -- linked upthread
cumulative score range: 79-96 (17/24, 0.71 per hole)

If scoring separation and outcome of the competition are your main criteria, then it becomes pretty hard to argue that West Lake ranks below Sugar Bottom.

Fun discussing this with you Dave. Cheers!

I've enjoyed the discussion too - thanks for being a good sport about it (not everyone always handles differences in opinions very maturely).

I'll take you up on the hard to argue thing.

The West Lake event had a much bigger variation in skills so that would naturally cause a bigger variance in scores out of the chute. Not sure this is 100% valid what I am doing (but it is pretty close I think), but the math would look something like this:

West Lake at RCR:
The range of competitors' player ratings is 892 to 1038. That is 26 strokes per round and 52 strokes for the tournament variation coming out of the shoot (looks like 5.6 ratings point per stroke in this event). 52 strokes for 48 holes is 1.08 strokes per hole variation.

Sugar Bottom at 2nd Annual Sweet (short - 1st round):
The range of competitors' player ratings is 985 to 940. That is 4.4 strokes per round (looks like 10.2 ratings point per stroke in this round). 4.4 strokes for 18 holes is 0.25 strokes per hole variation.

Sugar Bottom at 2nd Annual Sweet (long - 2nd round):
The range of competitors' player ratings is 985 to 940. That is 4.8 strokes per round (looks like 9.3 ratings point per stroke in this round). 4.8 strokes for 18 holes is 0.27 strokes per hole variation.

So, the variation out of the chute at the West Lake event is 4.15 times greater than at the Sugar Bottom event (1.08/0.26).

So in conclusion, your variation of 0.71 at WL is really 0.17 when the 2 events are normalized to each other. Compare that to your 0.39 and 0.61 that you list above for SB.....and Sugar Bottom wins by over a 2 to 1 margin.


I also like SB more for the seclusion and beauty and "disc golf only" aspect of the area it is in. Those rank high in my rating.


That was a big waste of time ....but I am sitting at my desk wasting time anyways until the long weekend starts. Hope you have a great weekend!