Course Design Discussion

[Suemac]

Originally Posted by ChaseTheAce

a course should be balanced with various types of shots (left, right, and straight), challenging lines, and difficulty that is both fair and challenging

more importantly, holes on a course should have score separation with opportunities for "risk and reward." a good hole might have two separate lines to the basket, giving a player the choice between a risky route for 2 but having the consequence of a bad kick that would card a 4, or a safer line to the basket to take a three.

John Houck writes some very good articles about course design for the PDGA's Disc Golfer magazine. he gives insight and explanation into what makes a good hole, risk and reward, etc.

Good answer college boy!

[FlyinBryan]

Thanks Chase. What is an ideal distance? I get the impression that pro's like 400-500ft holes but what would the distances be on a dedicated Gold course? Is 18 holes still the standard? Lets say a TPC designed specifically for A-tier / upper echelon players.

[griff]

Originally Posted by FlyinBryan

Thanks Chase. What is an ideal distance? I get the impression that pro's like 400-500ft holes but what would the distances be on a dedicated Gold course? Is 18 holes still the standard? Lets say a TPC designed specifically for A-tier / upper echelon players.

gold courses i've played have not only been long, but mostly tight. ask around about ingleside gold in chorpus. 400 to 800 ft holes with carved fairways , most zig zag thru tight woods . not many 2nd chances. stay on the fairway or your pitchin out. 400 to upwards of 800 i would say is common, but also allow a player to be creative,placement shots setting up for smart 2nd shots,etc. 18 holes or 21 ? if you have room for 21 ,great. but i wouldnt sacrifice the integrity of a great 18 to make three more holes. chase said it ,risk/reward even on the short stuff.

[derek]

Originally Posted by FlyinBryan

Thanks Chase. What is an ideal distance? I get the impression that pro's like 400-500ft holes but what would the distances be on a dedicated Gold course? Is 18 holes still the standard? Lets say a TPC designed specifically for A-tier / upper echelon players.

Theres not really an ideal distance for each hole, and you dont want every hole to the be same distance. Variance of distance is probably the best situation. Longs, mediums, a couple of shorts. Whatever fits the specific property the best. Theres no formula because every site is different and the good designers can make the best of what is available and hopefully not come out with a pitchandputt or a course full of dog-legs and ridiculous tight fairways.

The PDGA does have some guidelines on course distance I believe. Over 7000ft total length could be 'gold' level IIRC

[tarazarr]

Originally Posted by scoot_er

I have been saying this for 5 years.,.........and we have had only 1 course since then that even comes close to this.

Scoot_er...
I apologize for putting in yet another "Rec" course at Windwood - if you feel we didn't maximize the propery to it's fullest potential..

Doug and I worked very hard to lay it out... scrap it.... re-work the plans... scrap it..... re-walk it.... replan it.....re-walk it...put it in.... throw it.... dig it back up.....cut out more.....re-stretch it and re-stretch it again.... then replant baskets again.... with little to no working capital and only a handful of people willing to cut, clear and drag trees, vines and brush away instead of playing disc golf.. It's hard work and that's not for everybody.. Players have no idea how thick and impassable that property was in the beginning. It's easy to come in afterwards and see things you couldn't even get to before they were uncovered through days and days of hard work. On several holes things were changed after we cleared areas out and the boundries were pushed even further.

Hole 12 comes to mind specifically... It took well over an hour to just climb through the dense thorns from T-box to basket, much less trying to survey what was inside there and about 3/4 of the way to the basket you simply had to fight your way back out to the ditch line as it was impossible to climb through the fairway any further.

I think we did the best job possible with the given property to design and install good, challenging yet realistic and legitimate lines for each hole, incorporating as much risk-vs-reward and elevation changing looks as the property would allow

We bought the best baskets we could with a zero budget - the money started coming in when we offered sponsorships on the holes when it was time to pour concrete boxes..chain can be added to baskets....donated chain would certainly not be turned away... That would be awesome...

It's not a Pro level course obviously. It was never set out to be one. The property as much as anything dictates what can be accomplished and what can't. I agree Cedar Hills has come closer than anything else around to being pro level difficulty.

I'm a little biased for sure. but I think Windwood is a fair course, a fun course, a challenging course with lots of risk vs reward. And that the property was maximized to it's fullest potential allowable. I'm not sure what more could be asked of any property

I appreciate and welcome your opinions and I greatly appreciate the support you and your family have given to Windwood. It was and continues to be a grass roots, community effort, future improvements (such as added chains) come from donations.

I think the top scores from the Open/Adv division during the BagTag Tourney (63's on a par 63 course) speak more to the balance and the risk vs reward factor designed into it than anything..

A few more chains??? Yeah it could use a few....got any?

[ThePatrick]

Originally Posted by ChaseTheAce

a course should be balanced with various types of shots (left, right, and straight), challenging lines, and difficulty that is both fair and challenging

more importantly, holes on a course should have score separation with opportunities for "risk and reward." a good hole might have two separate lines to the basket, giving a player the choice between a risky route for 2 but having the consequence of a bad kick that would card a 4, or a safer line to the basket to take a three.

John Houck writes some very good articles about course design for the PDGA's Disc Golfer magazine. he gives insight and explanation into what makes a good hole, risk and reward, etc.

Your math is a little off. That should be a four, six, or eight.

[ChrisMacG]

Originally Posted by FlyinBryan

Thanks Chase. What is an ideal distance? I get the impression that pro's like 400-500ft holes but what would the distances be on a dedicated Gold course? Is 18 holes still the standard? Lets say a TPC designed specifically for A-tier / upper echelon players.

One element that makes for a challenging hole is to make the hole require a placement shot in there. Say you have a hole with a 150' long open fairway that doglegs to a tight 200' long wooded tunnel to the hole. The player has to put their first throw is good position to throw the 200' long section, if they miss that placement shot they won't have a good look at the 200' long tunnel.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by ChaseTheAce

the natural line on most of the holes at Windwood is a hyzer

2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 18 are all hyzers

1, 12, 16 have hyzer routes but could really go either way

although most holes have multiple lines to the basket, the course does tend to favor the right handed player

How often do you land in the fairway throwing a hyzer on #10?

I agree that it favors righties, but saying every hole is a hyzer just isn't correct.

[Smokin' Joe]

Originally Posted by ERicJ

How often do you land in the fairway throwing a hyzer on #10?

I agree that it favors righties, but saying every hole is a hyzer just isn't correct.

I like throwing ROLLERS!

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by ChaseTheAce

more importantly, holes on a course should have score separation

This is probably the most overlooked aspect of tournament layouts. And that's because it's probably one of the the most difficult aspects to correctly design.

A hole with good scoring separation will separate the top 1/3 of the players from the bottom 2/3. That's the established rule of thumb. So you're looking for holes with average scores of X.6 to X.8, e.g. 2.6-2.8 or 3.6-3.8.

What makes this difficult is that it really only works for one skill division. If you design a 340' hole on which MA1 players average 2.65 that's a good birdie hole for them. But when MA2 players play that same hole and average 2.95 then it's a very bad tournament hole for them. MA3 players might average 3.3 on that hole and it's a bad tournament hole for them too. Now you might get lucky and MA4 players average 3.7 and it ends up being a good tourney hole for them too, but that's lucky it happened that way.

You can deal with that utilizing separate tees for each division, but that becomes a logistical nightmare and subject to course misplays by the players. So everyone typically plays from the same tees, or maybe you utilize two sets of tees. But the end result is that some group of players are more than likely playing a less than ideal tournament layout.

If courses are designed for 1000-rated player tournament play they have a probability of being poor tournament courses for lesser skilled players. That's not to say they won't be fun courses, they might be. And certainly not saying they won't be challenging courses, they certainly will be.

To get scoring separation data you have a chicken vs. egg problem. You need to play the course a decent bit to get that data. Often courses are designed and installed without any significant play to gather such data. The Windwood guys did a good job of installing the course necessities and letting the course get some play, analyzing the feedback, and making changes. When they got the course they wanted then they poured the concrete tee pads.