This table shows the average winning scores for the past ten years of major golf championships.

<table border="1"><tr><td> ___________</td><td>4 Round Total</td><td>Per Round
</td></tr><tr><td>Masters</td><td>-4.0</td><td>-1.0
</td></tr><tr><td>U.S. Open</td><td>-3.1</td><td>-0.8
</td></tr><tr><td>British Open</td><td>-8.4</td><td>-2.1
</td></tr><tr><td>PGA</td><td>-10.8</td><td>-2.7
</td></tr><tr><td></td><td>
</td></tr><tr><td>Average</td><td>-6.6</td><td>-1.6
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>

My question is, what do you think the open division winner should average, relative to par, per round for disc golf majors?

You are again getting hung up on the concept of 'par' and being under par.

Let's say we make a course with nothing but two-shot 600+ foot holes and three-shot 900+ holes. for 18 holes it's got a scratch scoring average SSA of around 80.0, which is what a 1000-rated player would shoot, and would make it possibly the longest and toughest disc golf course possibly ever. But Climo and Schultz shoot rounds of 67 and 69 on it, which would be -13 or -11 under par. Why is that a bad thing, if they are shooting overall scores of 67 and 69?

If that's not a personal attack I don't know what is. I'm notifying the moderator.

Denny, there is a problem inherent in correlating our scores with golf scores. The difficulty of putting in golf makes it easy to set par for a hole; you use distance to determine how many shots it should take to make the green, and add two for putting. Birdies generally consist of above average play to the green, and a 1-putt. In disc golf, there isn't really any such thing as a two-putt green. Top level pros are going to be fairly consistent in general inside of 60'. So the problem with our tournaments is not that the courses are birdie-fests, but the fact that our system for par is loosely based on the golf idea of a two-chance green.

Of course, none of the above applies to your question if you're taking issue with 'birdies' as holing out in 2, as opposed to one less than par. If that's the case, then I agree. We should not be basing our champions on courses that require a large proportion of holes be holed out in 2 for a win.

Obviously, as Jeff pointed out on the other thread, most courses in our current championships are not courses that are allowing scores of 47 or 48. They are allowing scores that are considered to be 7 to 8 strokes under par, but only due to our faulty system for par. Fix that, and you've got what you're looking for. Unfortunately, until that is addressed, it doesn't matter how difficult the courses are. As long as we allow for 2 putts in our version of par, you're going to see LOTS of red scores at ALL tournaments.

This poll doesn�t ask the question �should disc golf major championships incorporate holes with par greater than 3?� That question has already been answered with a resounding �YES!�

The question, �What do you think the open division winner SHOULD average, relative to par, per round for disc golf majors?� is of the �in an ideal world variety�. I�m curious to see if players find the golf major tendency, making par a really good score, desirable to emulate.

If you�re curious, I voted that the winner of a disc golf major should average -2 to -3 per round. That�s about -10 for the USDGC, -8 for the Players Cup, and -18 for Worlds. I posit that it IS possible to reach these numbers. There are a number of ways, of a variety of desirability, that this can be achieved.

The most obvious technique that has been used effectively is tightening down a relatively open course with yellow rope. It WOULD be possible for Harold to choke down Winthrop to create any sort of winning score he wanted. There�s a fine line out there between a heightened challenge worthy of a Major Championship and becoming ridiculous to the point the game feels more like the last two minutes of a basketball game than golf. (How much tighter he could make it without crossing that line could be the subject of another thread.)

The second technique that comes to mind we�ve implemented, with mixed reviews, on The Red Hawk. Basically we�ve borrowed from the U.S. Open tradition of having several extra-tough par 4�s that fall in the 4-5 tweaner category. This table shows the four such holes from last year�s Players Cup. Note that these were also the four holes where the top seven finishes most distanced themselves from the rest of the field. If the winning score, relative to par, was the single most important consideration in design, we could easily stretch the course out even longer. By doing that, however, we�d bring more holes into the �rarely birdied� category and make the tournament too much of a crush-fest.

<table border="1"><tr><td> Hole</td><td>Distance</td><td>Gold Avg.</td><td>Top 7 Avg.
</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>765</td><td>4.6</td><td>4.0
</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>760</td><td>4.6</td><td>4.1
</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>760</td><td>4.5</td><td>4.1
</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>740</td><td>4.4</td><td>4.2
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>
If you�re one of the many that think one or more of these holes are too long to be par 4�s, take a look at these tough par 4�s from last year�s U.S. Open at Winged Foot:
<table border="1"><tr><td> Hole</td><td>Distance</td><td>Field Avg.
</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>475</td><td>4.5
</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>514</td><td>4.4
</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>478</td><td>4.5
</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>449</td><td>4.4
</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>450</td><td>4.4
</td></tr><tr><td> </tr></td></table>
I think Ben has hit the nail on the head with, �In disc golf, there isn't really any such thing as a two-putt green.� While I have seen some fine examples of greens where the threat of three-putt is real, they are definitely in the minority. I know I�m not alone in believing that we�ve got a lot of room for improvement in this area. I also know that my ideas for constructing greens with greater topography require moving dirt in many cases. Given our common budgets at the present time, bringing in truckloads of dirt and renting equipment may seem out of reach. I refuse to accept, however, that it CANNOT be done. If it means that I�ll have to wait until I buy my retirement course to see a disc golf course with real greens, I�m alright with that. I do have faith, however, that as a community we can make it happen sooner.

In addition to moving dirt to create drop-off�s, preferred landing areas, and greater risk-reward decisions in putting, the commonly accepted concept of �the green� needs to be broadened. We need to break away from the idea that a good drive or approach should end up within the 10 meter circle. Aside from spreading scores better and bringing winning scores into the same range as ball golf�s, it will create a much more exciting game for players and spectators alike when pros need to make 50-80 ft. putts for birdies. This will be especially dynamic when a player knows that they need to make a couple birdies to put them into contention going into the final round, but there�s a significant drop-off behind the basket and a three-putt bogey may put them into danger of not making the cut. Creating basket locations where a well-played conservative shot leaves that 50-80 footer and the aggressive shot to attempt get inside the 10 meter line may result in a bogey or double-bogey will help our putting dilemma.

It would be a lot cheaper and work just as well in terms of scoring spread to simply make the basket tougher for majors and raise the putting average.

I've actually been giving that idea a lot of thought recently. I like what it'd do to the numbers, but for fun and excitement I'd rather get the resounding CHING from 70 ft. away with a drop-off behind the bucket.

I've mentioned before that making the standard basket cage height be about 5ft. would be inexpensive and add to the three-putt dynamic. We could make some sort of teepee like cover to make the bare pole more visually appealing.

In normal PGA events, they take a couple of months to grow the grass just right to have a thick primary rough and a nasty secondary rough. The course the club members play is MUCH easier than the PGA set up. On top of that, they water the greens and cut the grass just right to make putting treacherous. The course remains the same to the casual observer, but are vastly more difficult to the player.

An analogy for us might be to to string yellow rope on all holes to add a stroke for pretty much every errant throw.

What I am saying is that the comparison of BG to DG scores relative to par is not a good one on more fronts than just the relative ease of putting in DG when compared to BG.

An analogy for us might be to to string yellow rope on all holes to add a stroke for pretty much every errant throw.



That's one method that's been successfully implemented.

We've also lengthened or shortened holes to make the scores spread the way we'd like.

We've cut the grass short on drop-off's to create faster greens.

We've selected which of many pin locations to use to configure the course to the degree of difficulty relative to par and in absolute terms that we feel's appropriate for the given pool of players and time constraints.

It all falls rubric of tournament course preparation. Our exact procedures may not be identical to ball golf, but in either case minor or extensive modifications from the "normal" course are made at the tournament staff's discretion to achieve the desired results.

Whether the desired result is to set up a layout where the 1000 rated round is even par, +2, or -10 it's all possible. Utilizing the sweet statistical tools that have been developed for us, experience, and a bit of judgement, a TD can make the scores come out pretty much however they want.

If someone wants to create tournament course conditions where -10 per round is required to win that's their perogative. There are differences of opinion on what's ideal and that's why I started the poll. I don't buy the arguments, however, that usefull parallels cannot be drawn from comparisons to ball golf scores and that our major championships cannot have scores that look the same as for ball golf on the leaderboard.

Manipulating physical course elements to produce better score separation is vastly more important than manipulating the par value on paper to produce some imagined benefit of producing a final red number similar to a ball golf major. The former actually makes a real difference and the latter is cosmetic.

I agree that tweaking to create a better scoreboard "fit" at the expense of sacrificing good score distributions on individual holes is counter-productive.

I don't think, however, that the two are mutually exlusive. Keeping in mind the goal of ending up with an SSA that doesn't deviate from course par by more than a certain factor, decisions can be made so that there's a "balance" of holes that are difficult and easy, relative to par.

I do think that the cosmetic appearance of the leaderboard does matter. I like for non-disc golfers to be able to look at the scoreboard and know that the round of -4 that the leader just shot was really good. We can make adjustments so that our spectators of the future don't need a tutorial to understand why a pro had a scowl on his face after shooting -9.

The only reason we've had Open winners shooting -85 to win Worlds in the past is that the true par on many, many holes was actually 2 - "tough twos" in the parlance of ball golf. If the pars had been manipulated in the way you are proposing, it would have been possible to have the winner shoot -20, but with no one happy about all of the tough versus easy par holes (let alone calling them 2s).

With improvements in design and choices of venues for our majors, scores relative to par will continue to dial back toward par values that are appropriate for Open players with many more true par 3s plus an increasing numbers of par 4s and 5s in the mix. Wooded holes/courses will provide even more opportunities to get the gold par value closer to the scoring averages on the holes without needing exceptional landscaping to boost the putting average. I'm skeptical that open holes that are well designed will be able to produce scoring averages close to a round number without making the basket smaller. But that shouldn't stop a motivated dozer from trying. :)

I concur, except for the skeptical part. ;)