Course Design Discussion

[ChaseTheAce]

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.

yea, 10 is more of a straight shot, but after watching most people throw into the creek on the left, one would think that it were a hyzer hole. you get the point though. there are a lot of right hand dominant straight/hyzer holes

i still feel that Windwood is a fun, fair, challenging course with a decent amount of score separation between players. the front 9 plays nothing like the back 9 and 2 of the 3 new holes offer an added challenge at the end of every round. i dont think the land had potential to be a phenomenal course by any means, so to have scott and doug create a solid course in Houston amongst all of the pitch and putts is an effort that should be acknowledged

[SlammingSheldon]

I think that one of the things to consider is that the amount of land required to have 18 smoking holes in some areas (say a metropolitan area like H-town) would require some serious dough. Dough that none of the disc golfers I have met have. So we are relegated to primarily relying on those that would let us share the use of their land. (Park departments, churches, some private individuals that have ranches or land)

So I would say to anyone that wants to put a new Adv level course in close with sweet baskets and great tee pads make it happen and we will all come and play it.

And even if it costs you a lot of money to get it in the ground please don't make it pay to play

[FlyinBryan]

This was going to lead to the next question of how many acres would a serious Gold course require? This then leads to how many parcels of land meet this requirement, that are available, within a 20 mile radius of downtown?

[ChrisMacG]

Originally Posted by FlyinBryan

This was going to lead to the next question of how many acres would a serious Gold course require? This then leads to how many parcels of land meet this requirement, that are available, within a 20 mile radius of downtown?

Within the city? Not many. We are going to be limited to areas that have no commercial or residential potential. In Houston that pretty much relegates us to flood prone areas. The nice thing about that is there's usually terrain to work with.

There are spots along Cypress Creek near 45 that could potentially be excellent for courses (NE of Cypress Trace for example) but who owns them? How do we get that sort of land set aside for recreational use? Then how do we get that land set aside for disc golf?

With two major PDGA events in the area this year the profile of disc golf will be raised int eh area. If you want disc golf in your area it's a great time to start bringing it up to your local parks folks.

[FlyinBryan]

How about the watershed just south of West Houston Airport just west of Highway 6? Might be a mosquito invested zone....

The ideal piece of property is on the west side of I-45 right at the Harris-Montgomery Co. line. I'm just not sure who owns it but there's at least 300 undeveloped acres there with nice elevations and right along Spring Creek.

[bmugwump]

ERic, thanks for moving this forum to an appropriate place...all of this discussion started on a thread for a mini!

[tarazarr]

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

Chase thanks for the kind words...much appreciated.

I would agree with you on the hyzer statement above on the following holes...2..5...6...8....9...17 those are definate hyzer routes but to end it with "those are all hyzers" falls far short of it being an accurate description.

Holes 8..9.. I think actually favor the LHBH. even though they have the "appearance" of an easy hyzer shot... skipping and sliding is very dangerous to your chances for birdie.

Hole 9...Cirlce 3 is easy so why go for the ace, but I give the advantage of birdie to the lefty

Holes 11...14....15....18. I don't think favor RHBH or LHBH. fair game. 18 only slightly to the RHBH hyzer if you have the monster arm

Hole 4 - ace run- fair either way... favors accurate distance.. overshoot the basket by +20 feet and the "pucker" factor coming back at it... priceless...

Hole 5... second shortest hole on the course...213' easy birdie right? Yeah.. if you can park it within 10' of the basket.... watch the meltdowns occur here... I've seen more bags get kicked, discs slammed...profanities yelled...you could write a book..."How to turn a birdie into double bogey in 3 easy steps"

Hole 6... gets my vote for coolest hole in Houston... hyzer route...yes hands down. add to that... Raised T-box towering over the perfect tunnel shot, drive it under the wildest looking, completely arched Pine you've ever seen, skip it up to green for a possible "ace"... or perfect line should card a 2....But watch out, that green is a 2 sided cliff.... well that's the shot most of us are dreaming about on the t-box, but can't ever actually execute..

You called hole 7 a hyzer.... well that's kind of a half truth.. It's a hyzer for a true advanced RHBH player who can bend the shot right to begin with and then back left after about 250' and land it across the ravine up the hill onto a green that is tightly protected.. Fail to execute any part of that shot and you stand to lose any advantage over a LHBH player who throws out a fairly easy placement shot, short of the ravine, to have a clean look at the basket with a 100' upshot. I give the advantage here to the Adv RHBH or Rec LHBH player equally. everyone else has trouble.

IMO Holes 1..3..8..12..13..19.. clearly favor the LHBH player.

As ERic would say....Balanced...


As far as Bryans question on which properties have potential for a pro level course.... The Telge "Property" has the potential... My hope is the designer takes full advantage of it and pushes the envelope even further than Cedar Hills, cause I agree with scoot_er... Houston has more than enough Rec level courses... the advancement of the game and discs have turned a majority of Houston courses into pitch and putt courses.

There's talk about concreting Moffit... My suggestion would be forget the shorts, pour concrete on the long boxes to get the most bang for your buck out there...jmo

[slowmo]

You know, I have seen these discussions for years about the design of disc golf holes and how they should have a "spread" of scores. Being an avid ball golfer this theory makes absolutely no sense to me. Par is the score a GOOD player is supposed to shoot...IE a "scratch" golfer should shoot par. They then make a birdie when they have a great approach shot or a great putt, they make a bogie when they make a mistake. I"ve never understood why if every MPO makes a 3 on that hole it's a bad hole, to me that's a good hole. Not every hole on a course should be a birdie hole, par should be a goal, not an afterthought. A large spread of scores from 1000 rated players on a single hole tells me that is a bad hole with to much luck involved.

PGA ball golf tournaments are always showing stats for a hole where there 4 birdies, 57 pars, 6 bogies, and 2 doubles and discuss why that is such a good hole. They don't talk about a hole like that being poorly designed because the stroke spread is more spread out.

That said, my idea of a good hole has to do with layout, shape, obstacles, and fairness. How many shots should it take a 1000 rated player to get to that 10m putting circle (though this should probably be more of a 20m circle)? Doglegs that force layups to a certian position, obstacles that force a particular shot shape. OB and water to penalize errant shots with a penalty stroke (I don't think there are enough penalty strokes in disc golf)

I also believe that these tight holes with 1 or 2 trees randomly in the middle of the pathway are bad holes. When the hole is only 15 - 20ft wide to have a random obstacle like that turns the hole more in the direction of luck IMHO.

1000+ rated players IMHO should shoot anywhere from 4-6 under to 4-6 over par on a given course, depending on how well they are playing that day. The world comes to a stop if Tiger Woods shoots a 78...that's only 6 over par! The reverse is also true, when Tiger shoots a 66 (6 under) everyone talks about what a great day he had on the course. Hell no professional golfer has ever shot below a 59 (13 under) in history of golf and that has only been done 10 times in the history of the PGA tour.

[LOU18132]

Originally Posted by tarazarr

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

Sure do, not enough for the whole course, but a few baskets.

You would have to pick them up in Willis. I have them in the shop somewhere.

[ERicJ]

Originally Posted by slowmo

You know, I have seen these discussions for years about the design of disc golf holes and how they should have a "spread" of scores. Being an avid ball golfer this theory makes absolutely no sense to me. Par is the score a GOOD player is supposed to shoot...IE a "scratch" golfer should shoot par. They then make a birdie when they have a great approach shot or a great putt, they make a bogie when they make a mistake. I"ve never understood why if every MPO makes a 3 on that hole it's a bad hole, to me that's a good hole. Not every hole on a course should be a birdie hole, par should be a goal, not an afterthought. A large spread of scores from 1000 rated players on a single hole tells me that is a bad hole with to much luck involved.

Scoring separation is relevant to tournament play. The goal of a hole in tournament play it to separate the top 1/3 of the players from the bottom 2/3. Over a course of 18ish holes the cream will rise to the top. That's the goal of a good tournament layout.

Originally Posted by slowmo

PGA ball golf tournaments are always showing stats for a hole where there 4 birdies, 57 pars, 6 bogies, and 2 doubles and discuss why that is such a good hole. They don't talk about a hole like that being poorly designed because the stroke spread is more spread out.

That's an awful tournament hole. 83% of the players all carded the same (par) score. How do you know who the good players are? The onesy-twosy amount of players going under or over on that hole isn't statistically significant. You want a bigger sample size to eliminate the luck factor.

If you have 2/3 of the players carding a par, and 1/3 of them bogey, well you've separated the really bad players from the field, but you still don't know who the good ones are... they're all lumped into that top 2/3.

A good hole will separate the top 1/3 of the good players from the rest of the field. The 1/3 metric ties in nicely in that MPO tournament fields are usually paid out to the top ~1/3 of entrants.

Lastly, "par" in tournament disc golf... Unless you show up late for the start of a round and are carding "par+4" scores: par is completely 100% irrelevant, it does not matter.