PDGA Course Evaluation Program Ready to Roll
http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/images/courseeval2.jpg

As a result of many member suggestions, PDGA is introducing a rating system for disc golf courses. Similar to the ratings that are generated for hotels, restaurants and other facilities, these ratings are meant to provide detailed information for players and also help courses focus on ways to improve their facilities. This is not simply a rating of how difficult or well designed a course may be. The scores are to reflect the overall appeal of the course, taking many factors into account. These ratings will be generated through the PDGA State and Provincial Coordinators. There may also possibly be an annual contest among the top-rated courses to determine the best disc golf facilities of each year. We'll see about that in the future. The resulting ratings and awards could be used by events to help promote tournaments that are being held on superior facilities.

This program is the culmination of about two years of initial formulation by the PDGA Board and at various Worlds DISCussion sessions. Then, after that we formed a committee of about twenty people to take on the challenge of turning this idea into a workable program. Players may think that there is lots of general agreement on that question, but that is not true. And, certainly, there are many different kinds of "good." Lines had to be drawn between an appealing course and what was judged to be a well-designed course. How are we to evaluate a wonderfully designed course on a terrible piece of property? Likewise, we also had to deal with the reverse. How good is a poorly laid out course on a fabulous site? With a bit of thought, you can easily see how involved the discussion would have become. Slowly, over about another 16 months, each of these issues came on the table and got sorted out.

We used the feedback of a number of folks in the Course Evaluation Group to work out the issues, primarily including Nick Kight, Dave Gentry, Cliff Towne, Chuck Kennedy, Dan Roddick, John Houck and others. Nick emerged as a leader and has been asked by the PDGA to serve as the initial Course Evaluation Director. If you'd like to get involved at the top level of this program, Nick is also looking for a few people to assist with the processing of evaluation submissions. If you, or someone you know, is looking for a way to contribute to this new program, please contact Nick via To: Course Evaluation (http://www.pdga.com/contact.php?a=sf&contact=Course%20Evaluation) .

At this point, we're ready to have our State and Provincial Coordinators begin to do some evaluations. If you or your club manage an existing course and you'd like to have your course be considered for evaluation, contact your State or Provincial Coordinator. He or she will be able to tell you what's involved and how soon your course can be considered. Because we're just starting out, the scores for the first year will be subject to revision in case we find any systematic problems.

Here it is: Course Evaluation Webpage (http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/index.php)

The plan is to incorporate the course evaluations into the PDGA Course Directory. When you pull up a course listing, the evaluation score will link directly to a display of all the course evaluation data on that course.

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing your course on the evaluation web page.

The PDGA Course Evaluation Group

Hey now!! Tyler Park #2, not bad. I also like the fact that #1 and #2 are in Bucks County, PA. Interested to see how things adjust.

Great program Nick...
I got a couple quick questions...
How many courses do you have data on currently... just 21?
Are these 21 rated the highest of all courses or just courses currently rated?
That's a couple I'm sure I have more...

The webpage's look great, I'm sure there will be alot of politic'ing to try and receive top recognition, but it look's like you have a fair system.
Ok, one more, when will you link up more courses on the Full list?

Brahan Springs Park (http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/course_eval_infotoptable.php?id=3) is the most recently evaluated course. Check it out.

Currently we have 22 courses evaluated. More will be added as they completed the Course Evaluation Process. To find out how to become a Certified Evaluator and help get courses in your neck of the woods evaluated see the PDGA Course Evaluation Certification Process (http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/CEGProcess.pdf) also at the PDGA Course Evaluation Webpage (http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/index.php) .

Enjoy!

Ok gotcha... so these are not being put online in order of significance.
I was getting ready to visit the first 21 as the "Mecca"... I guess I can scrub my travel plans and wait till ya get some more 5 link courses up there then. How many 5 link courses do you think there will be?
Not being locally biased, this standard is going to get some park improvement's implemented, that'ld be a good thing.

Right now I really have no idea how many 5 Link courses there will be. My guess is very few, but perhaps that is as it should be, being that we are early in our development and don't have earthmovers and unlimited budgets to create 5 Link courses yet.

What I hope does come from this is that you will eventually get a solid list of don't miss courses to plan trips around. (As well as standards for Course Pros to use to improve existing courses.)

I'm anxious to see how this all turns out. I'm also guessing this will be one of the most controversial topics on this message board in a long time ... and that says something :eek:

I'm anxious to see how this all turns out. I'm also guessing this will be one of the most controversial topics on this message board in a long time ... and that says something :eek:



Yes, folks get pretty "hot" when you dis cuss their course and it is not favorable. As concerns the program; attitude is everything.

i.e. The program was concieved to provide valuable information to PDGA Members and the general disc golf public about which are the best courses. That some courses will not rate high does not mean that they are bad courses, only that they do not rate highly.

Yes, it's basically "Glass Half Full" thinking, but then again isn't everything? Or not...

I emailed you saying I would like to help contribute, becuase I have played 140+ courses and I never got an email back, do you guys need no help or what??

You need to contact your State Coordinator to participate in the evaluations for your state (unless your state coordinator is not getting involved for some reason).

Two newest courses evaluations:
Strawbale Field DGC San Saba Texas
Colorado River DGC San Saba Texas
Enjoy!

All PDGA Course Evaluators or potential ones need to identify themselves with the following details to the Official PDGA Course Evaluation Group (http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/PDGAcourseevaluation/). It is a Yahoo eGroup that all PDGA Course Evaluators must be a member of in order to participate in the program. (More details are available there and in the Course Evaluation webpages here at PDGA.com.

1) Full Name
2) PDGA Number
3) Active Member
4) Approval of their PDGA State Coordinator to participate.

(An auto message to this effect is sent to the applicant's email, check your junk mail bin if you use yahoo or hotmail.)

Where do you take corrections for course evaluations?

You've currently got Widefield park, Colorado Springs, CO as number 4 in the world. It's a fine course but certainly not #4. When you get a thousand courses listed it should come in around 400. OK that's just my opinion.

But what is a fact is that the picture on the Evaluation, of a fine Rocky Mountain lake somewhere in the Rockies is NOT at Widefield DGC. This picture gives a completely wrong idea of what the course is like - which is a flatlander course on the Great Plains.

If you are trying to put together an accurate listing for the disc golf tourer, you need to verify your data. From my point of view the list is already discredited.

V, Colorado

Where do you take corrections for course evaluations?

You've currently got Widefield park, Colorado Springs, CO as number 4 in the world. It's a fine course but certainly not #4. When you get a thousand courses listed it should come in around 400. OK that's just my opinion.

But what is a fact is that the picture on the Evaluation, of a fine Rocky Mountain lake somewhere in the Rockies is NOT at Widefield DGC. This picture gives a completely wrong idea of what the course is like - which is a flatlander course on the Great Plains.

If you are trying to put together an accurate listing for the disc golf tourer, you need to verify your data. From my point of view the list is already discredited.





Although I have my reservations about the program, I wouldn't go that far. People need to realize that the program is in its infancy and is a work in progress. The rankings are only as good as the data, and right now that is limited. There are over 1600 courses in just the United States alone and we have only 24 courses in the system. The criteria used to evaluate may need to be adjusted as well. While design course elements are weighted heavier and amenity course elements are weighted less, basic course elements contribute 35% to the total and can really drag a course down, maybe unnecessarily so. Most people would say that the courses at San Saba are some of the best they've ever played, but they receive low scores in areas such as tee signs, tee materials, rest rooms, garbage cans, drinkable water, parking and lack of a warm-up target. While these amenities can be important to some, they drag these courses far down in the overall rankings.

It would be nice to be able to customize the system with your personal preferences. I would prefer to be able to sort by course design and weight that heavily, maybe as much as 90%. A pitch-n-putt with amenities galore does far less for me than a world class design with a basic minimum of amenities (simple marked tees, standard poleholes)

We're likely to get a bias toward better courses in the early batches of courses processed since I believe more folks will want to evaluate the better ones in their area first to see how they stack up.

Most people would say that the courses at San Saba are some of the best they've ever played, but they receive low scores in areas such as tee signs, tee materials, rest rooms, garbage cans, drinkable water, parking and lack of a warm-up target. While these amenities can be important to some, they drag these courses far down in the overall rankings.



First off, the water is drinkable; I've seen the animals do it.

Seriously, I'm unfamiliar with the program, but why not separate some of the course qualities out? For instance, I pretty much only care about the quality of the design, I'll deal with the rest. Do you plan on having rankings on each criteria? You know, the most challenging design, the most scenic; the best tee signs, the choicest restrooms; the nicest parking lot, the most drinkable water, etc. :p

The evaluation score has three numbers scored from 1-9 (9 best) for Basic Elements, Amenities and Design. Those who favor design over amenities will be able to sort the courses and focus on those to decide where to visit.

It would be nice to be able to customize the system with your personal preferences. I would prefer to be able to sort by course design and weight that heavily, maybe as much as 90%. A pitch-n-putt with amenities galore does far less for me than a world class design with a basic minimum of amenities (simple marked tees, standard poleholes)


Not quite sure how you could allow for personal preferences in the sorting, if you can find an example say at a ball golf website... it would be interesting to see.
It would be way cool to be able to sort the listing's by many/any or all of the factor's that are comparable... If all the listing's are showing w/column's for each statisitic, and then just click the stat column that you would like the courses filter/sorted by... that's gonna be awesome! Just the overall project is already huge in magnitude, future improvement's aside...
I hope you got a programming 404 or at least a 303 guy in there... :)
ty 101guy :cool:

I'm glad to see this started, but based on the results so far, it seems kind of questionable, or at least very subjective.

How about holding up on design ratings until there is some statictical validation. Maybe, you could require data from a sanctioned tourney and evaluate the scoring spread by hole. Then this data could be combined with SSA, number of par 4s and 5s, and the subjective measure of luck. This would provide a relatively defensible measure.

It would be nice to be able to customize the system with your personal preferences. I would prefer to be able to sort by course design and weight that heavily, maybe as much as 90%. A pitch-n-putt with amenities galore does far less for me than a world class design with a basic minimum of amenities (simple marked tees, standard poleholes)


Not quite sure how you could allow for personal preferences in the sorting, if you can find an example say at a ball golf website... it would be interesting to see.



What I am saying is that right now the overall rankings are determined by Basic Score (35% of Total), Design Score (50% of Total) and Amenity Score (15% of Total). And within each of those areas, certain elements are weighted more than others.

I'd like to be able to filter my own list of overall rankings by weighting the areas and elements as I see fit. I'd weight Design Score significantly higher and even within the Design Course Elements would give greater value to Overall Hole Design Quality, Throw Control Drive/Secondshot Approach, Hole Length Variety, and Safety Avoiding Interference, for example.

I'd give elements such as Restrooms and Garbage Cans the lowest possible weighting since that matters little to me. Though I've not played all the courses on the list, it seems like courses with good (but not great) design scores and high amenities are getting ranked higher than courses with great designs but poor amenities. San Saba is a perfect example.

James, I'm not sure I get your question, but I'll offer this; we know that the process is going to have a certain amount of "subjectivity", our goal was to know that while finding the best way to get valid enough results to be useful. There will never likely be an �objective� method available to judge such things as Hole Design Quality or Reasonable Landing Areas. All we can do is offer the best advice and information we can and rely on the integrity and honesty of the PDGA Course Evaluators.

The current process and methodology will more than likely have many areas for improvement; however most of those areas will only be made apparent once the process is underway. That is why we decided to proceed.

What sorts of things can be done with the data once gathered is nearly limitless. But that sort of thing is likely to move more slowly than improving the basic methodology of what to ask and how best to score the data.

In general, it is far too early, and far too few evaluations have been submitted so far, to draw any meaningful conclusions about the program; be assured that we will be watching it closely and unafraid to make minor and major adjustments in 2006 if necessary.

If you want to test out how it works, contact your PDGA State Coordinator for details. They must approve any potential PDGA Course Evaluators.

We have a new #1! Town of Warwick Disc Golf Course in Warwick NY. Though likely not a surprise to folks living in the NE, Warwick is a first rate facility. Check out the evaluation by clicking my signature below or going to http://www.pdga.com/course/eval/index.php

It would be nice to see @ least one photo per course...
The one in Colorado has a nice photo, someone mentioned that it's not the actual park lake though... I think maybe three hole shot's per course would be nice front nine, back nine, 1 other photo of a hole or overall interesting feature of the park scenery etc.
Will there be any way to submit photo's?

What about 5 link's, are the rating's so tough, you're not gonna see any 5 chain link courses for awhile?

I personally don't see how active the local club is reflects on the course....