PDGA Major Event: 2012 Pro/Am Disc Golf World Championships, Charlotte, NC

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by Jeff_LaG

Just a reminder that for the following divisions where there were pools, your unofficial online ratings are no longer accurate:
[...]
Remember, the next PDGA Player Ratings Update is scheduled for August 14th, and your official round ratings for your rounds WILL be accurate when the next ratings update goes through.

With player ratings touted as one of the major benefits of being a PDGA member, I must say it's disappointing that it's taking three weeks to get ratings sorted out at the organization's most prestigious event.

I look forward to the day when the talented Mr. Ganz has this all automated.

[jconnell]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

With player ratings touted as one of the major benefits of being a PDGA member, I must say it's disappointing that it's taking three weeks to get ratings sorted out at the organization's most prestigious event.

I look forward to the day when the talented Mr. Ganz has this all automated.

What are you talking about? Ratings for ALL events take a few weeks to be "sorted out". Worlds is no different than your average C-tier in how it's treated in the ratings process. Updates are done monthly, and the next update is August 14. This isn't a special case because the unofficial ratings are off. It's N-O-R-M-A-L procedure.

The reason the unofficial ratings are not quite accurate is because the pools got mixed up with the great shuffle. There's no way in the system to differentiate player X's round one in L Pool from player Y's round one in K pool on a totally different course. Not a shortcoming of the event, as this same problem would apply at any event where there are multiple pools of players in the same division (Bowling Green, for example).

[bruce_brakel]

The first three rounds in MA1 are probably pretty close to accurate because Kilbourne, R.L.Smith and Hornets Nest were about equally hard. Maybe the Kilbourne rounds are a little high and the other two a little low. As to the last three rounds, Wingett is probably rated about 30 points high while R.L. Smith and the Angry Beav are probably about 15 points low.

Regardless, you average rating won't change much. If you averaged 942, you still averaged 942, and you still got beat by the girl!

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by jconnell

What are you talking about? Ratings for ALL events take a few weeks to be "sorted out". Worlds is no different than your average C-tier in how it's treated in the ratings process. Updates are done monthly, and the next update is August 14. This isn't a special case because the unofficial ratings are off. It's N-O-R-M-A-L procedure.

The reason the unofficial ratings are not quite accurate is because the pools got mixed up with the great shuffle. There's no way in the system to differentiate player X's round one in L Pool from player Y's round one in K pool on a totally different course. Not a shortcoming of the event, as this same problem would apply at any event where there are multiple pools of players in the same division (Bowling Green, for example).

Worlds is very different than your average C-Tier for the exact reason you point out: multiple pools within divisions.

The average C-Tier has fairly accurate unofficial ratings as soon as the TD uploads the scores.
Worlds has whacked out ratings halfway through the event.

And it's certainly not any fault of "the event" for this situation. It should be a "simple matter of programming" (as my boss likes to say) to tag players with their pools to keep the unofficial ratings fairly accurate. But I understand that Mr. Ganz is working with an archaic infrastructure that doesn't support this. But I hope that one day the PDGA will get there.

[steveganz]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

It should be a "simple matter of programming" (as my boss likes to say) to tag players with their pools to keep the unofficial ratings fairly accurate. But I understand that Mr. Ganz is working with an archaic infrastructure that doesn't support this. But I hope that one day the PDGA will get there.

We will, we will. Hopefully before the Amateur Championships at Bowling Green next year.

[wit]

Originally Posted by bruce_brakel

The first three rounds in MA1 are probably pretty close to accurate because Kilbourne, R.L.Smith and Hornets Nest were about equally hard. Maybe the Kilbourne rounds are a little high and the other two a little low. As to the last three rounds, Wingett is probably rated about 30 points high while R.L. Smith and the Angry Beav are probably about 15 points low.

Regardless, you average rating won't change much. If you averaged 942, you still averaged 942, and you still got beat by the girl!

Bruce,

I met your lovely daughter Kelsey.. she was such a delight to have at R.L. Smith. I was very impressed with her being the only girl to play with the AM men division.. Seems like I remember she played juniors in KC and in Des Moines in 2003 and 2004..is that correct? It wasn't until the second day at Smith..that I heard her say "my dad is playing the same division on different card..and I am one card ahead of him". :-) cute! So I am sure I met you, but can't remember your face.. maybe next time.

Tell her Joy from R.L. oasis, said "hello"..and I am very proud of her.. you have raised a very lovely; polite; humble; young lady there.


Happy Happy JOY JOY!

[bruce_brakel]

Everyone who knows Diana and I wonders how the hospital switched our child for Kelsey at birth, and how those two nice people are doing raising our hellion.

Kelsey played juniors in Des Moines 2004 and Advanced Women in Milwaukee 2007 and Kalamazoo 2008. We did not get out to KC in 2003. Diana and the girls played USWDGC that year instead in Peoria.

I was the really old really sweaty fat man with a short grey beard and mustache and even shorter hair. I said, "I should cut out the middle man and just pour this directly on my shirt!" I left a tip and drank a lot of Gatorade. I put a rock on your tips so they wouldn't blow away.

The oasis was awesome.

[tatersak]

First of all I had a great experience the entire week and wouldnt trade it for anything. my hats off to the charlotte club, the sponsors, the VOLUNTEERS, and the course TD's.

However im calling bull ship on 2 issues that disappointed me in our PDGA.

1- PDGA if you say you have to be signed in by 5pm on day 2 of registration thats it...... PDGA - why did you give people 3 plus hours after the deadline? hell.o, i couldve worked monday and not taken an extra day off work if you can still sign in after the mandatory mtg is over. BULL SHIP-pdga
people should have known at 7pm when the players mtg started or by 830 for gods sake if they were in or not off the waitlist not 1245 as some people where called that night.

2- what the hell,o happened to the board in pool M last round. 72 players take lunch, drive across town from wingate to angry beaver, eat, warm-up and then NO ONE knows where the leaderboard is. At 2pm they say 45 minutes, at 3pm board arrives-- wait... guess what?? it hasnt been sorted and we wait a few more minutes. Total BS on these 2 items.

[gvan]

Originally Posted by tatersak

F
2- what the hell,o happened to the board in pool M last round. 72 players take lunch, drive across town from wingate to angry beaver, eat, warm-up and then NO ONE knows where the leaderboard is. At 2pm they say 45 minutes, at 3pm board arrives-- wait... guess what?? it hasnt been sorted and we wait a few more minutes. Total BS on these 2 items.

Same thing happened to my daughter when she wnet from Winget to Eager Beaver (Pool X). 40 minute late start. And the same thing happened to me in pool P. That Winget to Elon drive must be awful (but only if you have the cards...)

[davidsauls]

Originally Posted by gvan

Same thing happened to my daughter when she wnet from Winget to Eager Beaver (Pool X). 40 minute late start. And the same thing happened to me in pool P. That Winget to Elon drive must be awful (but only if you have the cards...)

.....I thought it was just us (Pool P on Wednesday) and was willing to give the benefit of the doubt, assuming a flat tire or some other unforeseen problem. Then I heard about the MA1s have a similar, even worse, problem.

I'm not up to bashing anyone but am curious as to what went wrong. I heard that part of the issue was trying to relay scores to the PDGA to be posted, before the cards were shuffled and the boards moved.

[bruce_brakel]

Originally Posted by davidsauls

I'm not up to bashing anyone but am curious as to what went wrong. I heard that part of the issue was trying to relay scores to the PDGA to be posted, before the cards were shuffled and the boards moved.

I guess they have never heard of Ctrl-F.

[Jeff_LaG]

Originally Posted by bruce_brakel

I guess they have never heard of Ctrl-F.

These assumptions could not be any further from the truth.

Every course either called in their scores or e-mailed a spreadsheet containing the scores immediately after the round was over. The course TD enters the round scores and totals but DOES NOT reshuffle the board until after the scores are called in. Since the master spreadsheet and the unsorted scoreport are in exactly the same order, on the phone the course TD needs only read off the names and scores, and the person in scoring central just goes right down his spreadsheet and verifies totals.

Once the entire course has been called in, the course TD is supposed to re-sort his board and break ties by hot round and then lower PDGA number. The problems then ensue when trying to find an assistant course TD or trusted volunteer or spotter to ferry the scoreport to the next course. Unfortunately, there was an incident in a previous Worlds with a player ferrying the scoreport, so players themselves cannot be given the scoreport. In many cases this week, the PDGA Marshal was the only one who was available to ferry the scoreport...the marshal had to drive all the way over to another course, and then drive back to the course he/she was supposed to be marshaling.

Trust me, other than the issue of tee times being posted late before Round 1, the issue with ferrying scoreports was the hottest topic in discussions between the PDGA and the local club, and in subsequent years when world championships are not being held in one location such as next year at Lemon Lake, this issue will surely be addressed.

[davidsauls]

Thanks for the info.

The reason I mentioned the scores was a notion, perhaps false, that some course TDs were having trouble getting the scores to you right away, especially if they were calling them in. The belief was that they needed to get the scores to you before shuffling the board, then shuffle the board, then someone needed to transport it.

Again, I'm not criticizing, just curious. I thought the logistics went pretty well in general. As a TD I'm always interested in how we do things and how we can do them better. This was a procedure I've never thought about and will never have to deal with---but I'm still interested.

I didn't realize one marshall was making the round trip between two courses. That would of course mean that if the round on the course he was working ran too long, there would be a delay going both ways.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by Jeff_LaG

Trust me, other than the issue of tee times being posted late before Round 1, the issue with ferrying scoreports was the hottest topic in discussions between the PDGA and the local club, and in subsequent years when world championships are not being held in one location such as next year at Lemon Lake, this issue will surely be addressed.

Why do ScorePoint boards need to be physically moved/ferried from course to course?

[jconnell]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

Why do ScorePoint boards need to be physically moved/ferried from course to course?

The cards, at the very least, have to follow the players as they represent the hard copy back-up of each player's entire tournament. And it sounds like, at least for the TDs that were calling in scores, the only means of letting the players at the course know where they stood.

I'm sure it was considered easier/simpler to arrange the cards on the board and transport the whole thing from course to course than to pull all the cards off one board, transport them to the next course, and put them back on a new board. Too much chance of a card or two being misplaced or lost if it is taken from the board, IMO.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by jconnell

The cards, at the very least, have to follow the players as they represent the hard copy back-up of each player's entire tournament. And it sounds like, at least for the TDs that were calling in scores, the only means of letting the players at the course know where they stood.

I'm sure it was considered easier/simpler to arrange the cards on the board and transport the whole thing from course to course than to pull all the cards off one board, transport them to the next course, and put them back on a new board. Too much chance of a card or two being misplaced or lost if it is taken from the board, IMO.

I guess I'm just not seeing the necessity of physically moving one set of cards from course to course.

The updated hole assignments could (a) all be done electronically, or (b) communicated over the phone.

There's no infallibility with paper cards either. In my group of five Advanced players from Houston two of us had rounds incorrectly reported.

As Jeff wrote: this is an issue that needs to be (/will be?) improved upon for future World's events.

[Jeff_LaG]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

There's no infallibility with paper cards either. In my group of five Advanced players from Houston two of us had rounds incorrectly reported.

Trust me Eric, that bothered me greatly this week.

If the course TD reads me a score and I repeat the total back to him and they match up, how can the round score be incorrect?

My theories are that:

a) the course TD is copying down an incorrect score from the scorecard onto the scoreport card and reporting that to me. We won't catch that unless a player reports it to a course TD or Marshal because we're not looking at the scorecards when they come in.

b) the course TD is not totalling up his scoreport cards prior to calling in, and waiting for me to give him the total. If the course TD tells me a player shot a 55 and I hear 65 and then give them the total and he writes that down, the error will not be caught. We do the total score check specifically as a redundant check to make sure that scores were communicated correctly over the cell phone. I had one course TD last week who was pausing after I read totals back and so I could tell that he was writing down my totals, and I kindly asked him to call back when he did things properly like we had asked everyone to.

c) for course TDs who are e-mailing me spreadsheets, I am trusting that the course TD is entering the scores correctly into the spreadsheet because I am copying and pasting straight from that into my master spreadsheet. I have no way of checking these scores, and that course TD may be making an error entering scores into his spreadsheet.

Next year when everything is in one location, the course director will physically bring the scoreport to me and I will see if they are totaled and we will communicate scores directly instead of over cell phone as I enter them into the master spreadsheet. This should greatly reduce the number of score errors.

[drdisc]

Perhaps there should be a Pool TD instead of a Course TD?. He goes with the same players all day.

[tatersak]

thanks jeff better understood. flymarTt was great and players parTty site was nice large venue to host it at .

the final nine showcases were great and true baTtles to the end in many groups were decided. course spoTters and volunTteers thanks, thanks, thank,

vitamin water, monsTter girls to brighten your spirits with liguids, and all the great players i played with all week long, thanks. hamlin thanks for the rides, cow pine suiTtes- check, wow how can 1 ciTty have so many great courses!!! Too many man hours to imagine.

[Spinthrift]

Where are Worlds photos posted? I see the link under "Media" but there's only 191 pix when I felt like I saw at least that many photographers. Any links appreciated.

[bruce_brakel]

What I heard from some course TDs was that when it was time to turn in scores, they had to wait a long time until a person was available to take scores.

[marcwatts]

I didn't notice before the final 9 that some prize money was awarded to me for both putting and the skill shot challenge. It's just over $20 and not a big deal but I just wondered if they would be sending checks out for those who placed in the field events or online store credit possibly. I had a great time and appreciate all the hard work put in to organize such a huge event.

[Jeff_LaG]

Originally Posted by bruce_brakel

What I heard from some course TDs was that when it was time to turn in scores, they had to wait a long time until a person was available to take scores.

That is absolutely false. There was myself, along with two (2) volunteer scoring assistants each day with Excel spreadsheets open in front of them each day taking calls. Additionally, if scoring personnel didn't answer the phone because they were actively taking scores, the course TDs would occasionally call PDGA Technology Director Steve Ganz or PDGA Tour Manager Andrew "Big Dog" Sweeton who were also present in the scoring room and who could either take their scores or advise the course TD to call back in 5 minutes.

[Jeff_LaG]

I could write an essay on my complete Worlds experience, but here's some thoughts on just the courses I saw & played last week, broken up into two posts. For the record, I had previously played Hornet's Nest and Kilborne Park about a decade ago. While I would have liked to check out Winget Plantation Ruins, Eastway Park, Idlewild Scrapyard, Sugaw Creek, and the Angry Beaver, time and my work schedule simply didn't allow it. Next time.

My 2012 PDGA World Championships trip started off with a stop at Randolph Park DGC in Dublin, VA, which is just south of Blacksburg and very, very conveniently located just off highway I-81. It’s a relatively new course, having just been established in 2008 but it’s a very nice pro par 58 track. Playing from the longest set of tees (blue) I thought this was an excellent mix of wooded and open holes and never got boring. Some of the blue tees were a little difficult to find and we actually ended up playing from the white tee on the pro par four sixth hole and the pro par five thirteenth hole, but that did not diminish our enjoyment of the course. For a Pennsylvania woods golfer, I found the woods on the front nine to be tough but fair and would be a good preparation for the Charlotte courses; however, my traveling companion Bill Newman felt that the wooded fairways were just a little too narrow for his liking. I can only think of a few small areas for improvement which relate mostly due to distance and par assessments. For example, the 425 ft twelfth hole is listed as a par four from the blue tees but this an easy two-shot par 3 hole. And at 465 ft but playing severely downhill, the fourteenth hole is reachable for a deuce and nowhere even close to par four consideration, even if the drainage channels around the basket were considered OB. On the flip side, the 590 ft pro par four sixteenth hole is just so well protected in the woods that I don’t see scores of birdie three as a very realistic possibility on a consistent basis. Both Bill I felt that the polehole should be shortened by about 40-50 feet to allow blue level (~950) rated players (for which it was presumably designed for) a better opportunity at birdie.

Bottom line is that with a 3.65 rating over at DGcoursereview.com, I feel this course has loads of potential, and with a little adjustment it could easily crack the 4.0 line and be considered a course WELL above average. I was certainly glad that we stopped in to check it out, and I’d definitely love to check it out again, especially if the retention ponds on holes#11-12 and 13-14 are full with water.

Arriving in Charlotte on Friday, we immediately proceeded to the famed Renaissance Park. Driving into the park and first seeing the power line 8th and 15th holes on my left, followed by the famed 2nd and 18th holes on my right gave me goose bumps! This is a course which obviously has a great reputation and as someone who is sick of pitch-n-putts and is a huge fan of pro par four and pro par five disc golf, Renny had been a glaring omission on my disc golf resume for over a decade. From a design perspective, the course exceeded every expectation and then some. I simply have not seen any other course which offers so many different options, challenges, and unique features from a course design perspective. Without fail, you are likely to use every disc golf shot you’ve ever learned in the course of play, and you’ll love every frustrating minute of it. I have never experienced a course where I shot two 7s and an 8 in one round and wasn’t all that upset about it, and in fact thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of it. A good majority of the holes could be signature holes at any other course, and when they follow each other in succession, it feels almost too good to be true. I have never experienced a putt like I had from below the basket on hole#2, and the 18th hole is simply one of the most sadistic & masochistic, but ingenious, holes in all of disc golf. To record a spectacular eagle three here would be something you could honestly boast about for the rest of your life, and just securing a score of birdie four is an amazing testament of disc golf skill, combining both distance and accuracy on every shot.


With that being said, I was actually majorly disappointed with the course, namely due to its appearance. For starters, the course looked beat – like it had been neglected for quite some time. What’s really mind-boggling is that a course which is less than 15 years old looked like it was twice that age. I was shocked at the amount of litter and trash which dotted most of the wooded holes on the front nine, and this was a mere four days before the start of the World Championships there! The tee pads were crumbly and decayed, and the blue “W-12” painted on the tees were badly faded on most holes. The chain link fence with barbwire on holes#3-5 was absolutely atrocious and had no business being on a course of this supposed high caliber. The OB markings which gave the course its teeth were sadly inconsistent and ugly, with wooden stakes, PVC pipe, metal pipe, painted garden stakes, orange flags, orange paint, and red flags all used at various times to denote OB, and sometimes all within the same hole! The tee signs also featured similar inconsistency, with unappealing numbering techniques such as metallic mailbox, plastic, and wooden numbers used in various locations, and frankly, it just looked ghetto. On the back nine, the OB stakes between holes#11 and 13 were missing altogether in many places. From a flow of play perspective, the course was a nightmare. The signage and ease of finding one’s way around on the front nine were dreadful, and three of us wandered around aimlessly at many times trying to find the next tee. On the back nine, the two longest holes come within a span of three holes, with another completely wide open par four sandwiched between them. The course itself is also crowded into a far, far smaller space than I imagined and it’s no wonder that outrageous backups causing 4-5 hour rounds occur – this is simply not a course which can safely and easily handle a full tournament field, because of the ease with which shots can stray from one hole onto the fairway of another hole.


I appreciate the amazing amount of work which went into the creation of this course early last decade – surely this was a monumental task and I don’t want to diminish the efforts of all those who labored in overbearing heat and humidity to carve out this track. Perhaps I simply overhyped it in my mind over all these years. Perhaps the local volunteers had too much work to perform on other courses in the last year or two and felt that Renny was in acceptable shape. Perhaps I was spoiled by the absolutely pristine appearance and country club conditions at courses like Bradford, Nevin Park, and R.L. Smith. But if all the top rated courses such as Flip City, Idlewild, Deer Lakes, Tyler State Park, etc. had trash all over them and looked as ghetto as Renaissance did, you’d dock these courses just as severely, too.


The next course I got to see was Bradford Park as the assistant TD of the Pro Mixed Doubles event. The park itself is located in what appears to be a very affluent suburban neighborhood well outside of the city, and the course had what I considered to be a correspondingly country club feel to it. While I didn’t get to play the course, I was most impressed by the appearance and playability of a course which was less than eleven months old. I liked how the course progressed through several different topographies, alternating between some open holes, some tight woods, the “Cedar Alley” portion of the course, some more open holes, back into the woods, and then back out in the open to finish. As opposed to Renaissance, the OB was consistently and uniformly marked with small orange stakes only, and the concrete tee pads were brand new and perfect, and it had some of the nicest benches I've ever seen too, made from huge pieces of lumber and stained nicely. (These would later be eclipsed by the spectacular benches at R.L. Smith) The pin location on top of boulders on hole#3 was memorable, as was the original cedar alley which formed hole#9, a quintessential chute hole. The par four twelfth hole was imo one of the signature holes of the entire tournament, as the water levels in “Lake Schleppy” rose throughout the day from the accumulated plastic. This did not look to be an easy course, and Michael Johansen’s nearly perfect round was just the result of a player who made excellent practice leading up to the Worlds event, and got into a zone and simply executed. Again, I feel that a 3.81 rating over at DGcoursereview.com is underrating it.

[Jeff_LaG]

Up next was the Nevin Park course, which played almost predominantly in the woods. In its longest configurations, the course is nicknamed “The Nightmare” but it was thankfully shortened for speed of play for the Worlds competition. To be honest, I thought the first three holes were shockingly easy, where Gold level players would be embarrassed not to come away with a birdie on. I know I was disappointed that despite driving to the green on all three holes, I was unable to score deuces, and I’m a player of far less caliber than nearly all those playing in the Open & Masters division during tournaments. The fun really starts on hole#4 and continues through hole#10, when accuracy really becomes a premium. I played these holes conservatively and scored well on them, carding nearly all pars with just one bogey, while those I played with got too aggressive and took some double bogeys or worse on several holes. These holes are all about resisting temptation and playing smart golf, and I have no compassion for folks who complain about courses and holes like these simply because they attempt to throw 450-ft. shots, and then kick a hundred feet laterally into the underbrush. About the only drawback to these holes is that many of them play almost always dead straight and very similarly, and the course likely doesn’t provide much scoring separation.

Hole#11 may have been one of the most deceiving holes I’ve encountered, as my playing partners and I emptied our bags and time and time again ended up left and short of the pin in heavy rough. It is followed by a hole which would surely be the signature one if not for the closing trifecta of delight which end the course. The double mando on hole#14 is a little hokey and if not for a well placed fence, I might have ended up across the road and into a neighbor’s yard. I was informed however that the hole was redesigned from an earlier incarnation which resulted in more of these shots and complaints, so it looks like we have a better situation there. Additionally, the hole can’t play through the beautiful large mature trees straight ahead because of the tacraw courts – which is basically volleyball played only using their feet with weird balls. From the long tee, hole#16 would be a real bear of a hole, and while the shorter tee turns it more into a tweener par 3/4, I was still very enthused to score a birdie three here. It was just as refreshing that the long tee for hole#17 was also not used, because from that location it might be one of the most awkward holes I’ve ever encountered. From the short tee, I was again enthused to throw a conservative drive and upshot, and two-putt for a par 4.

The closing hole is as picturesque as the prettiest postcard photo, and generated considerable “ooos and ahhs” from all of us on the tee. We all played the hole differently, with one cardmate launching a successful bomb across the creek from the tee while others chose to lay up before it with varying degrees of success. I love that the pin is set against a hillside which can be used as a backstop for approaches which come in a little too strong. All in all, this was one hell of a great course and well deserved of the 4.13 it garners on DGcoursereview.com.

Waking up early on Sunday morning, we played the R.L. Smith course before departing town, and words can’t express how delighted I was to have played this gem. Every other course I played in Charlotte had a bit of all the requisite features that go into a top notch track but none packed them all into one course like R.L.Smith. The combination of the biggest elevation changes of Charlotte courses, multiple holes that actually bend hard left or right and aren’t straight shots, alternating tight & more open wooded shots, crazy pin placements on top of enormous boulders, a beautiful water hazard which comes into play on a whopping 8 holes, some of the nicest benches, teepads and stained hardwood decks I’ve seen on any course ANYWHERE, make this my absolute favorite course I played this week or even in the last few years!

Just the bench on hole#1 and the walk down to the teepad give you an early sense that you are in for a top notch disc golf experience and a country club feel. I absolutely love, love, loved the ski slope green on hole#2 and the strategy it brings into play, because the decision to go for even a 25 ft. putt there can be a costly one. Hole#3 is a must-deuce, because you’ll need it for the tweener hole#4 which follows… I absolutely loved the peninsula green here by the water. The 535’ fifth hole which follows is about as perfect a pro par four hole as I can imagine, and hole#8 which throws from up on the hill down towards the water is one of the most unique par 3 holes I’ve ever seen. All of us were constantly uttering “ooos and ahhs” from the tee of just about every other hole on this course, and especially on this one. I was totally tempted to throw a really flippy Roc with hyzer because you want your shot to go left and then flatten out, but I was too scared that it would flip over and head OB to the right and so I opted just to fluff a pooch shot for a safe 3. The little bridges which gap the ravines and ditches here are a delightful touch, especially for a course that’s only been in the ground less than a year.

Although certainly interesting, I’m not a big fan of “horseshoe” holes and so hole#9 was a little controversial, imo. I took an easy par four on it but I’d be interested to see how often this hole gets birdie 3’d – I’m willing to bet that it’s few and far between. After checking out what was surely a very cool feature, Joy’s Oasis, we played down to hole#12 which blew my mind – both in the quality of the deck teepad and the basket location amongst the rocks. That deck is nicer than ones I’ve seen at many folk’s homes, and the look up at the basket was so sweet that we all stopped and took multiple pictures of it. We almost did the same on the tee for the closing trio of holes 16-18; I cannot recall a trio of holes to finish a course which elicited such “wow” moments from all of us on the tee pad. I mean, does disc golf get much better than the view and play from the “top of the world” on hole#18? If you’re not a fan of this hole, then you might as well just give up the sport because this is just about the neatest hole in town.

All in all, I was just majorly impressed with the R.L. Smith and not even the sewer pipes which stuck up on a few holes and reportedly give up an occasional smell could drag down my opinion of it. (And the giant replica air freshener hanging on one of these pipes near hole#7 or #8 was possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on a disc golf course) Other than maybe an addition of a pro par five hole somewhere (maybe have hole#17 play all the way up to hole#18’s teepad?) I can’t even think of anything I would improve about this course. About the only negative thing I could note was the bag of trash on the tee of hole#6…I’m not really sure why when trash was surely being hauled out from the Oasis all week long that no assistant course TD or spotter bothered to remove this eyesore.

I’m all against grade inflation, but in sticking with the theme, I feel however that the 3.87 which R.L. Smith is currently garnering at DGcoursereview.com is criminally underrating the course. If this course isn’t at least a 4.0 in featuring perfect basket conditions , perfect tee signs & markers, fairways & flow, foliage maintenance, the nicest benches ANYWHERE, with elevation, epic holes, restrooms, running water, variety of hole distances, variety of shots required, and challenge, then I don’t know what is.

Thanks Charlotte for amazing courses and an amazing time!

[Rhyno]

I have seen where the pro and am payouts were posted on the website.... kudos for getting those out there... however, with over 100k estimated in am entry fees and retail payout estimated close to 42k...that equates to approximately 21k in wholesale expenses on payout...

In addition, from what I was told, the CDGC also had to raise over 20k in added cash... and yet the pro event paid out at 125%? again I'm curious as to how the PDGA arrives at these numbers... I can't pretend to know how to run an event as big as Worlds, but I do know how to run a lowly B tier with 7k added cash and payouts for pros and ams that exceed 300%.

so... I am curious how much was spent on players packs, travel expenses, and various other expenses... The PDGA is a non profit organization and I would like to see the financials of this tournament

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by Rhyno

however, with over 100k estimated in am entry fees

Where'd that number come from?
Advanced divisions were $115. Junior divisions were even cheaper, right?

[Rhyno]

It was a round estimate... so after doing the math... am entries were still over 80K... and how much stuff was donated???

actual numbers are closer than I thought.. as in Am Difference between payout and entry fees is very close to what I estimated the players packs cost. However, that still leaves the question, how much of players packs were donated? Also, what type of discount was given based on the quantity of plastic purchased??? My estimations are a little skewed toward the higher end, but again since the PDGA is a Non Profit organization, I would really be interested in seeing detailed financials.

Originally Posted by ERicJ

Where'd that number come from?
Advanced divisions were $115. Junior divisions were even cheaper, right?

[bruce_brakel]

Originally Posted by Rhyno

The PDGA is a non profit organization and I would like to see the financials of this tournament

Good luck with that.

The PDGA normally runs Am Worlds as an am-scam event. This year the amateur payouts were a little better than some of the Am Worlds I've played.

Expect PDGA defenders to tell you that this and that were not free. Expect PDGA defenders to clarify the maining of non-profit organization. Do not expect ever that the PDGA would open its books to the members.

[Jeff_LaG]

I'll be the first to chime in on that, with the expected response:

I hope everyone understands the definition and goals of what it means to be a non-profit organization: a nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals. It doesn't mean that the organization doesn't make a profit; instead, it just means that those funds go back into the organization itself.

The more financially healthy the organization is, the better it is able to pursue its goals and serve its membership. More money = more programs to help grow the sport of disc golf.

And Bruce, if Am Worlds is such an "am-scam event" as you definite it, and which obviously displeases you so much, then you are always free to choose not to attend.