Ok, maybe not so new now (almost 6 months old) but I recently signed up to be a PDGA member and have been hanging out on the forums, saw the post about the discaroo site and figured my site might interest a few people so why not share?

The site is dgcoursereview.com (http://www.dgcoursereview.com), it allows disc golfers to share their thoughts on various courses so that when you're traveling you can get an idea of which courses you might enjoy a round at. There are a bunch of other features if you sign up like course tracking, etc. I'm not going to give a whole spiel since I don't want to be a shill :)

Anyway, feel free to stop by and take a look.. let me know what you think. FYI, it is still in progress with a lot of improvements in the works.

Tim,

I saw your announcement about your site when it first came out and think you have a really cool thing going there. It's already an excellent resource and could become even more so as you fully develop the website and as it is populated with user data.

Speaking of user data, that's about my only criticism of it so far. Like Wikipedia, it's only as good as the user data that is entered into it. Garbage in, garbage out. I cringe when I read some of the reviews from one local golfer in my area. He's a novice golfer who has only played a handful of courses but writes critical reviews of the courses he plays with information that is hardly relevant, or outright misinformation. He seems to comment that every course is soggy after recent rains, or that it's impossible to turn left out of the park during rush hour, or that he lost a disc there, or some other nonsense. And his reviews are usually full of egregious spelling & grammatical errors.

Just something to think about as your site progresses.

True.. you'll have to take some of the good with the bad. I figure as more players share their thoughts things will kind of balance out. I also setup a system that allows you to specify if you found a review helpful (you can do this if you're logged in) and everyone can see the votes, logged in or not. That way people can sort the reviews by "Most Helpful" so oddball reviews will drop to the bottom of the list. I have some other ideas on ways to reduce the impact or at least the visibility of such reviews and it's been discussed quite a bit on the forums there as well.

Also, thanks for stopping by to check it out :)

I checked into the site last week for the first time in a while and was pleased to see how much it's been populated, with some 700+ reviews. Congrats! :cool:

A saw a couple of threads on the message board there entitled "Rating Feedback" and "Disregarding Reviews" which seemingly reflect my opinions about the quality of the reviews and the reviewers. Thankfully, the "Did you find this review helpful?" feature may help in this regard.

I still get a chuckle at those from the local guy who lists cons such as "It's hard for an amateur to always hit the fairway" and "we must have hit 100 trees. Very hard to not hit a tree on a drive" and "Too much vegetation on course" and not only that, but then gives the course a poor rating for it. This guy has been playing disc golf less than 2 years and typically finishes dead last in the novice division in local tournaments.

Hey Jeff,

Thanks for taking another look and registering :) There are actually over 800 reviews, almost 7000 pictures and tons of other info, so the site is getting there. I also list years playing and # of reviews in the review header now which should help with regards to what weight people decide to give to a particular review in addition to the "helpful" rating. Plus, if you're new to the sport, the opinion of the guy that has only been playing for a year or two might be more helpful then that of a veteran. I do also have a "trusted reviewer" program which shows a special icon next to your name if a lot of people find your reviews helpful. The bulleted list that pops up above the course review form with some tips on what makes a good review is another of my attempts at encouraging quality.

There have definitely been many more good reviews than bad as more players find their way to the site and people can always go back and update their reviews as they gain more experience. I also have a spot for PDGA # in member profiles that will link back to your profile here on pdga.com and the map view in people's profile is pretty cool tool to get a visual representation of a person's geographic experience.

I recently rolled out a score tracking tool so player's can track their rounds, get some statistical breakdowns, etc.

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/scorebook.php?mid=1

I could only dig up 2 old (not so great) scorecards that were dated so that's all I've added to my scorebook so far but I plan on recording all my future rounds once it warms up here.

I'm constantly trying to add useful features or improve existing ones. Everything from the wikipedia-like change history for each course to the tracking of multiple pin positions. One might think I don't have a life and just work on the site all day :D

I just put together a feature last night that allows you to list upcoming events at your local courses in the course profiles. I thought it might be a good way to get the word out about local tournaments, etc. You can see what it looks like here:

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/course.php?id=475

I've also updated the course/map browsers so you can filter the list to view only those courses with events and if you add your state/zip code into the search you can see all the courses with events near you.

FYI, you can now submit an event that takes place at multiple courses instead of one event per course as it was when I first rolled out the feature. I've included a link below to the 16th Mad City Open that takes place at 3 courses so you can get an idea of what it looks like.

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/forums/calendar.php?do=getinfo&e=19&day=2008-8-2&c=1

excellent site !!!!

very useful, very well-layed out, and very user-friendly.

i'll be sure to include a link to your site when any disc-related sites i create come out....

thanks!!

dan doyle
warwick, NY

Thanks for the kind words Dan :)

Hey guys,

I just finished a bag/disc tracking feature about 20 minutes ago and put in all my discs. It's just a little thing that you can use to track your discs, which discs are in which bag or you can use it to track different bag setups for different events (tournament bag, rec. bag, etc.).

Since you can use it to track various bag setups, each disc can be in more than one bag. You'll see exactly which bags a particular disc belongs to in the disc list.

Check it out if you have some time and let me know what you think.

Here's a link to my bag:

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/bag.php?mid=1

I just want to throw in my $0.02 here and say what a fantastic site Tim has created. :D His site is everything that a disc golf course directory should be. The integration with Google Maps is slick. Specific information on each hole, course conditions, pictures!!

His recent additions of a scorecard tracker and disc/bag tracker make the site even more user friendly.

And on top of all that Tim listens to his users.

I can't say enough good stuff about dgcoursereview.com, if you haven't checked it out surf on over and give it a look.

ERic

bump

I thought I'd chime in since this thread was bumped. For those of you that haven't been to the site in a while, here are some of the new features.

The scorebook is really cool. You can track your scores in detail and there are all sorts of stats that the site keeps so you can see how well you're playing in general or on a particular course.

There is the disc organizer which is great for tracking all the discs you own and organizing them into bags, etc. You can also make them available for trade. I find it handy since I never remember the exact weights of my discs. With the organizer, I have a reference so when I lose one I can order a new disc that is the same or close. You can also mark a disc as "lost" and say which course you lost it at. Each course has a listing of lost discs so if people check the site, you might get it back :)

You can also list your regular events, leagues, etc. as well as tournaments. So when people check out the course listing, they'll see what's going on and when at your course. Tournaments are also listed on the home page as the time they are taking place comes up.

There is a ton of other stuff on there but I think this post might get too long if I try to list it all. So stop by and check the site out if you haven't already!

The bag feature is missing CryZtal plastic from Discraft, definitely a distinctly different plastic from Elite Z.

Thanks.. I just added CryZtal to the plastic list.

Just thought I'd make a quick post regarding a new feature which I think is really cool. If people use it, it could really facilitate finding people to play a round with or possibly making new friends.

If you sign up for DGCR, you can now create a "play schedule" to let people know when and where you'll be playing. Then, your profile will show when/where you're playing, the course listing will show who is playing today (and in the future) and there is also a search where you can see who is playing near you, when they're playing and at what course. In addition, you can filter the scheduled rounds by player rating, years playing, age, etc. (assuming people have that stuff filled in on their profiles) so if you only want to see if 900+ rated players who are over 20 are playing at your local courses you, you can.

Stop by and check it out if you have some time.

Check out the DGCR Birthday Giveaway:

http://www.dgcoursereview.com/images/giveaway/2009/giveaway_2009_ad.gif (http://www.dgcoursereview.com/giveaway_2009.php)


Grand Prize:

Fade Gear Limited Edition Black Hole Tournament bag donated by Fade Gear (http://www.fadegear.com/)
$75 Gift Certificate donated by Disc Golf Center (http://www.discgolfcenter.com/)
Vibram Open DVD Set donated by Prime Discs (http://www.primediscs.com/dgcr.asp?PARTNER=dgcr)
DGCR Premium Account
DGCR Mini
DGCR Decal Set

We also are giving away 2 of the following excellent prize packages:

$25 Gift Certificate to Disc Golf Center (http://www.discgolfcenter.com/)
DGCR Premium Account
DGCR Mini
DGCR Decal Set

Not enough? Ok, one more prize!

PRIME Discs T-shirt donated by PRIME Discs (http://www.primediscs.com/dgcr.asp?PARTNER=dgcr)
DGCR Mini
DGCR Decal Set