Design Competition Format Brainstorm

[coggin66]

I've posted a couple of times in the Major Championship Design thread on the topic of the current design comp formats, etc and I wanted to open a discussion without hijacking that thread.

Firstly I want to say that I'm not criticising the efforts of Eric VctryLnSprts , Jeremy mayday_golf83 , Patrick ErixonStone and countless other volunteers on this site with the existing competitions. I appreciate all the work the organisers, designers, promoters and judges do in their free time to run these things and I recognise how time consuming it can be.

However I have the following observations from the last couple of competitions:
- We now have a lot of talented designers wanting to enter these and it seems like more every week (which is great)
- The current formats generally allow 20-30 entrants even though there seem to be 40-50+ interested participants each time one is announced
- Most competition slots are taken within hours of registration causing a lot of designers to miss out and making entry potentially dependent upon your timezone.
- We seem to have a "standard" build timeframe from scratch of about 10-12 weeks.  This means that you generally have to be able spend 4-8 hours per week or more in the designer to finish a course to a competitive standard
- Some formats can be spoilt by non-finishers
- I presume we all do this for fun, so do we really want deadline stress (either as a designer or a judge)?
- The judging often takes a long time, especially if it is over a number of rounds.  Often by the time a winner is announced, the competition has almost been forgotten.
- Judging to a standardized rubric with a small panel involves a lot of "work" in a short space of time

I would like this thread to be an avenue to brainstorm some of the following:
 - Formats that will allow more entrants.
 - Formats that will allow for designers that need more time and/or less deadline stress
 - Formats that might allow a "WGR" of designing
 - Methods of judging that are quicker but are still fair without turning into a popularity / "brand name" contest

I personally don't have time to administer a contest at present but I have thought about it.  Managing my XB1 Seniors society and doing a bit of designing is about all I have time for. However, there may be others that get inspired by these ideas to run something for the community and/or TGCT themselves might adopt some of them.

Some of the ideas I've tossed around are:
 - Something like the English FA Cup where designers are seeded and the previous best ones don't come into the contest until later rounds
 - A design of the month competition where you enter whatever new release you finish in the month and each month's winner goes into a 3 or 4 month competition and eventually Course of the Year
 - An extension of the World Cup / Olympics idea but determining winners at a national / regional level before the main event
 - A competition where the designer entrants themselves judge each other by scoring and then ordering to a known metric (similar to the Eurovision system)
 - Some kind of ladder or league system where courses are matched against each other and a certain number of randomly selected judges from a larger registered panel choose a winner or loser (e,g, best of 9 or using an ice-skating or gymnastics style scoring system)

[arniem25]

Having just been a rookie in way over my head in the WC contest. I think the following would work.

Have the main comp and a secondary comp

Secondary comp with 1 or 2 judges rating all courses out of 100 based on set criteria

Main comp with a pool of judges as currently happens
Entry to main comp is based on criteria along lines of:
Winners of any main comp in prior 2 years (max 8)
Top 4 of prior year equivalent comp (max 3)
Winners of any secondary comp in last year + prior year secondary winner (max 5)
Top 4 of any main comp in last year (max 12)
Prior year secondary runner up (max 1)
Remaining spots first come first served - adds variety

Secondary comp open to all non main comp entries and provides a pool of reserve entries who are also building high quality courses.

This provides opportunity for new designers, creates even more fantastic courses, allows all designers to receive good quality feedback and advice and guarantees the entry numbers for main comps.

Any thoughts??

[warhawk137]

Put simply, group and tournament style formats make it easy to divvy up work between judges. Contests which just rank courses by score in the abstract are nice, but have to always be limited because in order to be fair every judge has to play every course because each judge has their own judging quirks and the average score from one judge can be a lot higher than the average score from another.

Of course, the drawback to a tournament format is the likelihood that two top courses will go up against each other early, which is why group stages are useful.

What you could do, since these don't require courses to actually compete directly, is have a grouped tournament style.

Say you started with 64 contestants. You could have 16 groups of 4 set up in a bracket. Need 8 judges. Judging load at first would be slightly heavy, 2 judges for 4 groups, 16 courses to judge. Top 2 in each group advance on the bracket, but the second placed course flips with the second place course down/up the bracket (but on the same side). 

Then you're down to 8 groups of 4, with 2 teams of judges, each judge would have to judge only 8 more courses, the ones on their side of the bracket that they didn't judge before.  Again take top 2 in each group, with the second place course flipping with the second place course across the bracket. 

At that point you have 4 groups of 4, stick with 2 teams of judges, they would have to judge 4 more courses (the ones that came across from the other side).  Again top 2 advance.  At this point you transition to an 8-course tournament where each matchup is judged by every judge, judges would only have to judge 2 more courses each, the ones on the other side of their original groups that never flipped sides.

Bit complicated, but that's how you could run a 64-course tournament with 8 judges who only have to judge 30 courses apiece spread out over the course of 4 "rounds".

[Deleted]

Another point of clarification that maybe I did a poor job of indicating or it got lost in translation is this: These four contests are just the TGC Tours officially endorsed contests now, featuring prizes and trophy cards for the winners, but we do not hold the monopoly on community run design contests. If throughout the year somebody wants to run a contest concurrently, they are more than welcome to do that. I'd be happy to bequeath the fantasy contest or the Survivor contest to somebody if that interested them, or people can run a 9-hole contest, or an 'unofficial' beginner's contest so that novices can get exposure, things like that (and they could have whatever design window that the organizer wanted since they'd be managing it themselves). I would even be willing to help you pull loose ends together from the inside with the community, or put some things on Twitter, etc. So if there are designers out there that aren't in these contests but feel that they'd still like to be in a contest-type environment, feel free to create one and let me know about it so I can help you. Hopefully that's a fair compromise!

[mayday_golf83]

coggin66 I don't know if you've been a judge in the past. If not, I'd encourage you to volunteer this time around. 

Something that I think goes overlooked by people who haven't been in the judging chair is the sheer time commitment it takes on the back end of these contest. It's not as simple as play the course once, come up with a score and be done with it. 

I'll take the National Treasure contest for example. There were 24 courses in that one, which we had to rank 1-24. I played one round on each pinset, filled out a scoresheet and wrote down hole-by-hole and overall comments for each course. I easily sunk in 3 hours/course doing that. Multiply that by three and factor in discussion amongst judges, I sunk well over 80 hours of free time into judging, if not more. The time commitment was a little less intensive (probably in the neighborhood of 50 hours), given the way the Rookie competition was formatted, but I easily played about 30 rounds during judging, playing every contest course at least once -- and then the matchups I was assigned in the knockout stage a couple more times to reach my verdict there. 

I agree, the lull between entry deadline and final results has gotten a little long in the tooth in some contests. Part of the reason we tried to streamline the scoring system was to cut down on that time. For the Major competition, we're setting tight deadlines to that will make the window between the time the entry window closes and the time final results are posted is only five weeks -- we have to do this to ensure our winner is 100 percent ready to host the U.S. Open. Not a perfect system, but again we need time on the back end to make sure the guys who are volunteering their time to judge have an opportunity to fully evaluate these courses. We also have a couple of ideas that will hopefully help that five-week interval seem like it will go a bit faster. 

That also ties into, as Warhawk mentioned, why we have had to cap fields. The more entrants mean more judges, and the more each judge has to do -- hence the longer it will take for results to be processed. I'd love to expand the fields beyond 24-32, but that's simply not logistically possible under our current structure.

We've discussed the length of the design window before, and I'll stand behind the assertion that 2 1/2 months is plenty of time for the vast majority of designers to get their courses completed. I say that given the fact that three of the last four big contests had a 100 percent completion rate. Ironically, the one that didn't was Survivor where contestants were given the biggest window and allowed to use previous WIPs. Yes, inevitably, you'll have people scrapping in right under the wire, but you're going to have that if the window is six weeks or six months, some people simply procrastinate. It's the nature of things. What's more, the longer you extend the design window, the more likely you are to run the risk of the competition being forgotten about, which is one of the chief concerns you mention in the first place. 

I'm not trying to throw water on the campfire here. Just giving you the real, logistical problems that we face trying to administer these contests. Trust me, all of last month, I tried to rack my brain -- and received feedback from several key figures in the design community -- to come up with the best way to put the Major competition together. I fully admit it's not perfect, but it's the best I could come up with given the time/manpower limitations we have.

Ultimately, I think the answer isn't trying to reinvent the wheel with the contests we have, but running different contests in conjunction with the four TGCT official comps. Like Eric mentioned last night, TGCT does not hold exclusive rights on these things, so there's nothing stopping someone from branching out on their own. Obviously we know the demand is there, so it's a matter of increasing the supply.

The possibilities to format and style are only limited by the imagination of those who run the contest. For example, I'd be all over a contest where designers all given the identical plot and tasked to come up with the best routing/course. Due to file sharing limitations, this would be a PC-only event, but it would be right up my alley.

Now, specifically, to the four key points of your thread:

- Formats that will allow more entrants. -- I think you are almost forced to go knockout style if you get above 24 entrants given the workload on the judges. Larger the field, however, the more judges you will need. Going knockout alleviates some of the judging workload but you run the risk of some really good courses going home early (I know this first-hand). 

- Formats that will allow for designers that need more time and/or less deadline stress -- Craig started to do this with the OG Design series, which was more opened ended. But that turned into more of a designer showcase than an actual competition with no real judging criteria in place other than a review and rating Craig gave each completed course on his Original Golfer site. Was a fun project to take on, but really lacked the "competition" factor. 

- Formats that might allow a "WGR" of designing -- This has the potential to be really cool, but we'd have to find an objective way of doing this. Forming this off the opinion of a couple of guys is a one-way ticket to bruised egos. That problem is only aggravated if a WGR is used as a prerequisite to be eligible for a competition.

- Methods of judging that are quicker but are still fair without turning into a popularity / "brand name" contest -- Let's hold the phone on this one. The World Cup is going to be the first to use the holistic rubric that came about from some very candid and insightful discussion from several prominent designers and community members. Let's see if this helps ease those concerns before trying to reinvent the wheel, again.

All of this, of course, is my opinion, but it's opinion formed from several times through the ringer as a contestant and judge -- and now my first full-on voyage as a contest organizer. 

At the end of the day, though, it's a great problem to have. We have so many great and talented designers and the community's only growing by the day. That's a sign that we're doing something right!

Thanks Ken, for opening this dialogue and I hope more guys chime in with their thoughts, ideas and concerns.

~ Jeremy

[beef]

I'll chip in here with some of my thoughts on this, as someone who has been a member here for around 18 months and a relatively new designer.

First of all, it's fantastic for the community to have so many designers working on projects, entering competitions and pushing each other to produce some unbelievably good results.

Secondly, the time and effort taken by Jeremy, Eric, Patrick, Andre and others to lay down the groundwork of the 4 showpiece competitions with standardized scheduling, judging rubrics and so on. I don't think we should underestimate how important this will be going forward and also remember that this has only just been implemented with the current World Cup and forthcoming Major competition.

So we come to the issue of too many designers and not enough competition places. IMO, the answer is more competitions rather than extending the current ones. 24 -32 is plenty for a competition and as stated above, lets not underestimate the commitment of time and effort it takes to organize and judge these competitions.

Some ideas and thoughts going forward:

- A formal/official tournament committee, with temporary/guest members who could gain some experience to eventually...

- run a second tier of official competitions with perhaps slightly more relaxed criteria and deadlines etc. For example, the Major competition was massively oversubscribed. A 2nd competition here could have had a prize of the venue for the US/British Open qualifier and a guaranteed place in the next big competition.

- Look at a commitment from those who enter every/multiple competitions to sit one out and take a turn judging/administering.

- I have absolutely no issues with contestents having to meet certain criteria to enter competitions, but the idea of a WGR for designers is a bad one. It's going to be highly subjective and has the potential to cause issues and bad feelings.

To put it bluntly, we've got a fast growing design community, if we want more tournaments to meet the demand then we're going to need more people to step up to the plate and help organize it. The guys that do this just now, not just this but throught the whole of TGCT, already give a ton of time and effort towards making this place what it is.

Edit: that last bit maybe sounded a bit too preachy, but the point stands. As someone who doesn't do anything behind the scenes at the moment, I'll also go on record here and say that I'd be willing to commit some time to any future competitions if my limited experience is of any use.

[jacobkessler]

We need another collab contest. Unfortunately it would only be open to PC designers since they’re the only ones that can share files, but (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s been since the HB Collab contest towards the end of TGC1 that we had a large-scale collab contest.

EDIT: Eh, if I think there should be another one, why not run it myself? ..... I’ll update this post

[culallen]

Feb 6, 2019 14:04:53 GMT -5 jacobkessler said:

We need another collab contest. Unfortunately it would only be open to PC designers since they’re the only ones that can share files, but (correct me if I’m wrong) it’s been since the HB Collab contest towards the end of TGC1 that we had a large-scale collab contest.

Not being a PC gamer, I think it would be fun to judge this!

[beef]

One way of doing a collab contest for consoles would be for a pair of designers to go with an identical theme, lighting, textures, bunkering and planting style and produce 2 courses. The Valle de los Reyes Ballesteros and Garcia courses by Han and Scarpacci are a good example.

Courses judged individually and as a package. Maybe a best of 5 match up against another pair.
Team A no1 v Team B no1
Team A no2 v Team B no2
Team A no1 v Team B no2
Team A no2 v Team B no1
Team A 1+2 v Team B 1+2

[joegolferg]

Feb 6, 2019 18:46:48 GMT -5 beef said:

One way of doing a collab contest for consoles would be for a pair of designers to go with an identical theme, lighting, textures, bunkering and planting style and produce 2 courses. The Valle de los Reyes Ballesteros and Garcia courses by Han and Scarpacci are a good example.

Courses judged individually and as a package. Maybe a best of 5 match up against another pair.
Team A no1 v Team B no1
Team A no2 v Team B no2
Team A no1 v Team B no2
Team A no2 v Team B no1
Team A 1+2 v Team B 1+2

Now this is a fresh concept...

[mjhamilton113]

I know this is an old thread, but I am new to the scenery here.

I think it would be fun to do a design contest utilizing a now vacant piece of land using LIDAR. This would mean the following.

- Add 18 holes to an existing golf course on surrounding property
- Create 18 holes in any area using LIDAR and route your course around existing structures such as houses, building, or streets
- Use the theme and vegetation most closely matching the surrounding area
- Only allow for smoothing and contouring of the land, not the ability to completely shift what currently exists

Furthermore there could be additional entry restrictions, but I thought this would be a unique idea, let me know what you think

[theclv24]

Here's an idea if you want a quick turnaround: A Work In Progress Competition

Take any course that you currently have in WIP, at any stage, or even a course that you have already published in the past. Now take what you have and flip it completely on its head with your standard competition type of criteria:

- Make the course in x geographic region
- Make the course representative of x made-up course name
- Must include 5 or more of certain hole criteria (length, par, bunkers, etc)

Like a house flipping show, but for golf! Post before pics and after pics.

[mjhamilton113]

Jul 17, 2019 12:59:34 GMT -5 theclv24 said:

Here's an idea if you want a quick turnaround: A Work In Progress Competition

Take any course that you currently have in WIP, at any stage, or even a course that you have already published in the past. Now take what you have and flip it completely on its head with your standard competition type of criteria:

- Make the course in x geographic region
- Make the course representative of x made-up course name
- Must include 5 or more of certain hole criteria (length, par, bunkers, etc)

Like a house flipping show, but for golf! Post before pics and after pics.


I DIG this...got tons of projects that I never completed, or completed and wished to enhance