So luck or chance is only a factor in a tie-breaker? A bad bounce of the ball or lucky kick of the disc isn't fluky during the competition....only during a tie-break? There are very few games and sports which do not involve luck or chance to a certain degree.


Absolutely luck and flukiness can occur as long as it occurs during the full extent of the sport's accepted length for a championship competition, not just a tiebreaker. That's the difference.

I'm curious how they set the course for the 18-hole playoff yesterday since the whole idea behind moving pins around during four rounds is to play each one to balance out the challenge and keep the course rating roughly equivalent over four rounds. By definition, playing only one round would not provide the same fairness that's designed into a 4-round contest. A good example was hole 18 where it was specifically set in what Johnny Miller called the birdie-eagle position. No question that hole setting favored Tiger. Likewise, the hole designs for the back half of the 18 favored Rocco's natural hook. The sudden death holes 7, 8 and 18 were set to Tiger's advantage.

At least for sports like golf or disc golf, it's impossible to set the tiebreaker in a neutral fashion. We try at Worlds for the Final 9. But as Dr. Rick pointed out, it was somewhat less favorable for forehanders last year, especially when my helpers didn't get one of the pins moved that would have provided better balance as intended.

having the tiebreaker set before the first round starts makes it neutral

: ) :

having the tiebreaker set before the first round starts makes it neutral



It makes it known, not necessarily neutral.

If a contest like the US Open (which is open for anyone to enter who can qualify) comes down to 1 stroke victory after 91 holes of play, it's obvious to me that there was no "advantage" to either player. The course was fair by all accounts I heard during player interviews. One player executed his fundamentals better than the rest, so we call him the CHAMPION.

If a contest like the US Open (which is open for anyone to enter who can qualify) comes down to 1 stroke victory after 91 holes of play, it's obvious to me that there was no "advantage" to either player.


I would agree if the tournament was stated that it would be 91 holes for everyone. But it wasn't.

If the U.S. Open said we would take qualifiers after 72 holes and then play 19 holes for the title among those who qualified, say top 4, it would sound weird but at least would be the official format. As it turned out, it was little different from just having a 19-hole event on a less than fair course setup in comparison to the 72-hole average setup.

Actually, it was a lot different. If the field had played 19 holes, neither Tiger nor Rocco would've won.

Actually, it was a lot different. If the field had played 19 holes, neither Tiger nor Rocco would've won.

Exactly, which has been my point.

No, you just said the opposite.

What exactly is your point?

If the competition was done almost like the British Open, no tiebreak would be needed. Let's say after 72 holes, the top 3 plus ties qualify to play a final 4 holes with scores continuing. The 4 holes are chosen to be as fair as possible. If any players are tied after the final 4, they play another final 4 and even more of them if necessary until a clear winner is declared. Never sudden death.

In theory, no ties would ever happen and it could be played as a continuation on the current day to completion with the fans and TV audience still there. It could even be a Final 6 holes for likely even more fairness. This just an improvement over the current tiebreak but still doesn't resolve the fact that the winner didn't win against the other tied player in a full blown contest.

This has turned into the Dumbest Thread ever, obviously some peeps (many the same ones) haven't learned that it's a waste of time debating with Chuck. No wonder everyone's a champion in PDGA events these days.

What exactly is your point?


A tiebreak is like a mini event that doesn't provide a sufficient and fair setup in comparison to a full blown event and may have a different outcome.

No wonder everyone's a champion in PDGA events these days.



Apparently you haven't been able to keep up with the "dumbest thread ever" because I'm saying we should have fewer not more winners.

No I haven't because I try to avoid most of your drivel when it comes to topics like this. One question: Did you play any Competitive sports growing up (like in High School) or are you on the computer nerd side of things? this may give me a better understanding of where you are coming from

How can you have fewer winners if you would make Rocco and Tiger Co-Champions? Seems to me you would double them.

No Angel CABRERA is still the Champ since no one actually dethroned him after 72 holes. Or is the 36 since that's all he played.

One question: Did you play any Competitive sports growing up (like in High School) or are you on the computer nerd side of things? this may give me a better understanding of where you are coming from



I lettered in Track and Football and won the city team and individual chess titles. Played 12 sports in college heading up my fraternity teams and played varsity volleyball for U of Toledo. Won all campus title in horseshoes and top 5 in badminton each year. Graduated with 4.0s in both Chem. Engineering and MBA. Kind of hard to put me on one side or the other I would think.

you have to read carefully... he changed his argument. now he wants 2 - 2nd places, no winner.

if you keep changing the argument, how can you be wrong?

How can you have fewer winners if you would make Rocco and Tiger Co-Champions? Seems to me you would double them.


No, I would make them no-champs or tied for second if neither won it outright. No namby pamby double golds. When this discussion started, it was on a lark to take the other side and see where it would lead. So learning and thinking about this has evolved over the postings. It simply gets down to the funadamental question whether you believe tiebreakers are a fair and appropriate way to decide major titles. Apparently everyone here but me is satisfied with tiebreakers and that's fine.

So, college overtime process versus NFL overtime process. Which way is better?

neither, it should be decided by which team has hotter cheerleaders or least annoying fans.

If the competition was done almost like the British Open, no tiebreak would be needed. Let's say after 72 holes, the top 3 plus ties qualify to play a final 4 holes with scores continuing. The 4 holes are chosen to be as fair as possible. If any players are tied after the final 4, they play another final 4 and even more of them if necessary until a clear winner is declared. Never sudden death.




this post seems to clarify what I was thinking... it seems Chuck is more against the sudden death tie break system than he is with tie breakers in general

I and I think most people can agree with this... the players know the exact format and exactly how it will play out after regulation in the case of ties, and no sudden deaths

I think they should have a Punt, Pass, Kick contest with each team's starting Center

Choreographed dance routines by the O-line.

The irony here is that the rest of you are defending some of the tiebreak procedures I've been involved with for the PDGA either in writing how to do it, running them or designing the Finals holes and layouts. So I get to be on both sides here. ;)

I should just get out on this nice sunny day and throw as one poster suggested. However, Roger said the first draft of this ratings update will be available soon so I'll need to hang around to check it out.

However, Roger said the first draft of this ratings update will be available soon so I'll need to hang around to check it out.



Where can this draft be viewed?

So typical of many posters who aren't able to counter with a reasoned response. You can't provide a compelling argument to counter the point of view and try to belittle the post or poster. No one has put forth a defense of tiebreaking on logical merits, just tradition and convenience.



Chuck,

In general, I think you take a lot of unfair abuse around here. There's no question that when it comes to ratings, course design, PDGA divisional organization, running a tournament, and a whole plethora of other items related to disc golf that you have a wealth of knowledge and in many cases irrefutable mathematics to back your cases up. People seemingly are unable or unwilling to accept your viewpoint, many times because it simply comes from you. I often wince when people unfairly claim "that its no use debating with Chuck" when the truth of the matter is that people simply are unwilling to accept a logical point because it comes from Chuck. When it comes specifically to course design, I think we get a lot of that "I'm 1000-rated and/or a touring pro and/or have played several hundred courses so I know everything" attitude when you simply have the background experience, scoring analysis and mathematics to back up your points.

Again, sometimes I cannot agree with you enough. However this is not one of those times. With the exception of some recent posts, I think people have gone out of their way to politely refute the idea of "Co-Champions" and your points about flukiness and fairness. I see your point of view, but in sports sometimes you have to draw the line and concede that for practicality reasons, no tiebreak is a perfectly fair solution; however it does a very, very admirable job at determining a winner in a fair and timely manner.

Please just let this one go.

My computer for the moment. Nothing official until next Monday at the earliest and Tuesday for sure. We have known corrections plus trying to get JO and USADGC included if possible in the next draft by Friday. This is when we do the grunt work to crosscheck numbers, look for course layout mis-assignments, missing ratings, missing events, see if Feldberg might hit 1040, etc.

I see your point of view, but in sports sometimes you have to draw the line and concede that for practicality reasons, no tiebreak is a perfectly fair solution; however it does a very, very admirable job at determining a winner in a fair and timely manner.


These are expedient solutions not necessarily fair but I accept them along with many other traditional things as accepted practices and I follow them myself for PDGA competitions. I just find it interesting that people have difficulty jumping outside that perspective and saying "what if" and the potential ramifications. Seems difficult for some to grasp that maybe nobody truly won and that would be OK without some shortened process to force a winner.

Aahhh, right on schedule I just got the note Roger has the first pass done.

My computer for the moment. Nothing official until next Monday at the earliest and Tuesday for sure. We have known corrections plus trying to get JO and USADGC included if possible in the next draft by Friday. This is when we do the grunt work to crosscheck numbers, look for course layout mis-assignments, missing ratings, missing events, see if Feldberg might hit 1040, etc.



Thanks Chuck :D

silly. Silly to the point I cant laugh.

No 1040 for Feldberg but looks like he'll be #1, especially if we get the JO results included. And I'll have my lowest rating since they started. :(

I think the first desire is for a single champion, the second desire is for a fair method deciding among multiple competitors if the allotted competition fails to determine one.

The fairness of the decision method is then compromised by expediency. In the case of the US Open, they can and do demand that the players complete at least a full competitive round before a winner can be declared. If that fails to produce a winner, it is fairly clear the remaining competitors are too equally matched to decide in a fair and timely manner. Now the competition is altered to see who can perform under the extreme pressure of a produce or go home situation. It is a commonly accepted and fairly quick method to determine a winner among equally talented competitors. Either nervousness or luck will play a hand and one player will falter or make an amazing play.

My point is that a sudden death tie breaker is intentionally less fair because we have concluded that fair competition has been proven ineffective in determining a single winner.

What Tiger does is so much more difficult than what Climo does there is no comparison.



I don't know, I have seen rounds by Kenny that left me shaking my head as much as some of Tiger's exploits. Watching the final round last year the phrase "It's just not fair" (used days before to describe Tiger's performance) kept coming to mind. He doesn't do it all the time, but then again neither does Tiger.

Tiger is the best clutch athlete since MJ. Nobody hit's clutch putts like Tiger does. Dude is simply amazing.

What exactly is your point?


A tiebreak is like a mini event that doesn't provide a sufficient and fair setup in comparison to a full blown event and may have a different outcome.



I kinda agree with that, but I still feel that tiebreaks are a necessary evil when you have competition at the highest level. Players do not want to be co- anything and most of the public wants to see the competition resolved if they are spending time and/or money to watch. I think Chuck's point IMO is illustrated better by the NFL, NHL, World Cup, and sudden-death golf playoff formats.

I kinda agree with that, but I still feel that tiebreaks are a necessary evil when you have competition at the highest level. Players do not want to be co- anything and most of the public wants to see the competition resolved if they are spending time and/or money to watch.


Note words being used like "necessary evil." Ask Rocco if he would rather be Co-Champ or second place. No competitor may want to be a Co-Champ. On the other hand I suspect they will still like it better than second.

Splitting $ is great, but you can't add a champion and second place together and divide by two!

That's why they would be tied for second as "no-champs." Or in PDGA fashion for ties under first, do a CTP on a nearby par 3 to see who gets to hold the trophy for a year without any new names engraved on it. :cool:

Oh just as a side note, I think the NFL sudden death overtime policy is just about as bad as it gets...
I like the "overtime" extra holes strategy of the top 4 players playing maybe 4 more holes if a champion is not determined after regulation. Still a tie? try four more holes. Sudden death is so not fair

I think the NFL is looking at the way college football does it to get away from the statistical advantage of winning the coin flip.

IMO sudden death is a legitimate way to determine an event champion in any sport where the sudden death play can end in a tie (as opposed to something like tennis, where each point must be one by one player or the other). Part of being a champion on any given day is to control the "flukiness".

Rocco didn't lose because of a fluke, he lost because he missed a 20 ft. putt on 18 and bogied 7 with two relatively poor shots. He didn't perform like a champion under the intensified pressure of sudden death.

You can argue that the sudden death holes played to Tiger's advantage, but Tiger historically is clearly the better golfer, is he not? In general, most holes play to Tiger's advantage. To choose sudden death holes that play to either Rocco's or even advantage would be to artificially manipulate the contest to deny the better player his earned advantage.

Winning by sudden death is not a fluke. It is winning by performing the best on that specific day at that specific time when everything is on the line. It is the ultimate moment of competition.

If sudden death is so good, let's skip the regular game and just have a double elimination event with all contender's playing matches of one hole sudden death and proceeding to the championship pairing...

If sudden death is so good, let's skip the regular game and just have a double elimination event with all contender's playing matches pf one hole sudden death and proceeding to the championship pairing...



You have officially gone off the Deep End!!

If sudden death is so good, let's skip the regular game and just have a double elimination event with all contender's playing matches pf one hole sudden death and proceeding to the championship pairing...



An single event championship is not the method used to determine the best player, but the player who played the best for that event. If by the end of regulation play the event failed to discriminate between two or more players then it is appropriate to provide a hotter crucible to affect that discrimination. A championship that ends in a "tie" is a failure.

A championship that ends in a "tie" is a failure.



I would agree. That doesn't mean changing the format with a tiebreaker should determine the champion. It's determining the champion of the special format, not of the original event.

you have to read carefully... he changed his argument. now he wants 2 - 2nd places, no winner.

if you keep changing the argument, how can you be wrong?



both of his points can be both as wrong as each other then... he can be co-wrong ;)

It's determining the champion of the special format, not of the original event.



True if you look upon the special format as isolated from the event the preceded it. But you shouldn't. It is an extension of the event. Each players mental and physical condition carry over. Confidence and momentum carry over. Memories of opportunities lost and realized linger. And the pressure, already there, is ratcheted up.

That's been my point all along. The only disagreement is whether the tiebreak process is good enough "standing on its own" to determine a Championship. Most seem to think it does. I say if so, then it should also be sufficient on its own to actually be the way a champion is determined. No question that the reason for tiebreakers is expediency, cost and some human desire to have a resolution. We trade that for having a legitimate complete "do-over." That's fine and I certainly don't expect to change that or any of your opinions. I just disagree it's a legit process.

The C's need no tiebreaker tonight baby! KG finally wins one for himself, for his home of Chicago and for 'Sota as he puts it.

The C's need no tiebreaker tonight baby! KG finally wins one for himself, for his home of Chicago and for 'Sota as he puts it.



One alternative method that may have some merit for disc golf is to say at the beginning that in case of a tie something else in the process will count. That something else could be total birdies to award aggressive play or fewest bogies to award precision play. The total would be for all rounds played. Maybe a vote for best sportsmanship. Maybe a negative wind measure for most time played with the wind in your face or any direction above a certain velocity. This way there is no play off, extra holes, or coin flip, unless the totals are also equal. Just a thought.

Just my two cents but COME ON PEOPLE!!! Why are we even thinking about ties and how to determine a winner if there is a tie. The sport of golf has been around since the 15th century, and I'd bet to say since then if there was a tie during a competitive format they would continue playing, in some format, to determine a winner. I highly doubt they said to each other before the round started, "Hey, if we tie were going to pick the player with the best sportsmenship or with the fewest bogies."

It's Golf, Ball or Disc, not a game of tee-ball with kindergardens. It's a life sport, that can be played as long as you can walk and in life sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.

The sport of golf has been around since the 15th century, and I'd bet to say since then if there was a tie during a competitive format they would continue playing, in some format, to determine a winner.


Actually, that wasn't always the case historically for many rounds. The reason handicaps started in the early 1900s was for gambling purposes. The score and winning on a scratch basis was never as important as the score adjusted by the odds (handicap) and the wagering structure. Of course they probably had something on the overall score, too. But just like many people do where skins at the end of the round are just dropped if no one wins them on the 18th hole, I suspect that gambling games just ended at the end of the round since the money part was what was important. Most golf courses don't allow you to play additional holes either for tiebreaking.

Dave, I thought about that exact thing last night where some tiebreaker was built into the structure of the game like maybe using Stableford scoring as the first alternate calculation. I suspect Tiger would have won that with three eagles. If something like this is specified ahead of time, then it becomes part of the official scoring structure that players have to consider similar to our mulligan event where fewest mulligans is used as the first tiebreak among those tied on score.

Moderator: Please delete this thread.

No. Don't delete it. Golf Cross is much like Disc Golf; on the verge of being recognized. :D

http://www.golfcross.com/home.html

http://www.golfcross.com/golfcross/ball.html

http://www.golfcross.com/golfcross/images/row04_playing.jpeg

http://www.golfcross.com/golfcross/ball/teecup2.jpeg

This is kind of ridiculous but interesting at the same time. It says you can fly these oval balls around corners...WFT?

That looks sweet. I would love to try it or even just hit some of those balls. 12 balls = $84 :confused:

This is kind of ridiculous but interesting at the same time. It says you can fly these oval balls around corners...WFT?



Yes, the ball's flight is directly related to how you place it on the tee. The goal swivels too. So if you are farthest away on the "yard"(green) then you get to adjust the goal to suit you, which might screw your opponent's angle. :DI'd love to try it.

If you look at the locations it lists a US e-mail address.

well, Tiger is out for the rest of the year. He is going to have surgery done on that Knee that has been giving him problems.

That makes the US Open win just that more amazing.

I agree, what a performance indeed. How bout Reteif Goosen calling out Tiger saying he was faking his injury. You would think a 2x us open winner would have a little more class :confused:

How bout Reteif Goosen calling out Tiger saying he was faking his injury. You would think a 2x us open winner would have a little more class :confused:



Poor Reteif, he's just upset about his GOOSEn eggs in a major since 2004. :D

Yeah poor Retief. He does have one of the best sponsors in all of sports, GREY GOOSE VODKA :D

So how long has Tiger's ACL been torn? Sounds like it has been missing for a long time.

My son will beat some of Tiger's records.

Rocco's back atop of the leaderboard (3-way tie) playing in some shite weather. Pretty good blog on EsPn.

Probably not important to anyone but I just have to tell someone.

I returned home from my local golf course where I played in the Thursday night scramble and I drew the course pro. I have never seen anyone, even on TV, make as many putts as this dude. not 5 or 10 footers....6 putts of 15 to 40 feet. None of these putts were straight, uphill line you would want. All of them had at least a foot break with the most impressive a 30 footer with at least a 6 foot break on it, right in the heart of the cup. He was dropping double breaking snakes like the hole was the size of a small lake. It was almost like we were playing Tiger Woods 06 and getting to use the cheat. Of course he got to putt a lot because the only putt I made was the hole that I missed the $100 CTP by 4 fargin inches :(

This dudes putter was INCREDIBLE!!!! We shot a -7 (29) CHA CHING $$$$$ Hottest golf round I have ever been part of.

By the way how great is it to see GREG NORMAN in the hunt...When did he start schmoozin Chris Everett?

HOLY CRAP does Greg Norman have enough to keep it rolling through the weekend? I can't believe he just pops up and is schooling the boys. I'm pulling for the old man.

Villegas with 5 straight birds to end with a 65, 4 better than anyone else, WOW!!!

Nice to see Duval up there also