2019 TGC Tours Rookie Design Challenge - Registration Closed

[golfwolfuk]

Oct 17, 2019 21:29:52 GMT -5 Avakrac said:

Good luck all and thanks for all the great courses to have hit on. I've still got to cover a few so keep an eye out and again thanks for all the support.

Thnx for all the playtroughs avakrac, appreciate it, even if you did ( accidentally) miss a star off the end of Bahiir 😉... I’ll forgive you lol..

[Avakrac]

Hi all, Just uploaded the 12th course, Schwarzwasser golfplatz.
Still got five courses to cover. Thanks everyone for all these fun courses and good luck.

[MyGolfGameSucks]

Now that all the courses are out there being played by all(we hope ) and checked by the judges... we might be heading into a but of a lull in the competition before the first cut comes around.

Do we want to start our own judging and each competitor ventures there own guess who they think goes to the top 8.

OR not.... since it might upset some people.

[Oscar C]

Pass on that as im sure that will create angst.

But now that everyone has published I think i can safely make a suggesttion for future rookie comps.

And the disclaimer is that this is not a post to upset people just an observation of mine and you can agree or disagree and i wont be happy or upset either way but here goes...

I think the RDC needs to be only eligible for people who have NEVER published a course. There i said it.

Now you will say but it is designed to create feedback to better improve future courses and yes i agree.

However this to me does not look like a group of rookie courses, rather an intermediate group of designers looking for even further improvement.

Dian if i use your experience as an example (cos your signature is still on the page i can see it) you have 3 tourworthy courses - that to me atleast is not rookie at all as it seems TGCT is not easy to get that status.

I never expected to win being my first course but i thought id be competitive as "neatness counts" and i think mine is atleast neat. But it will be beaten down by those who has competed or judged and have been exposed to many more design theories and are in a sense no longer rookie.

Anyway just my thoughts and im interested if im alone in this sugeestion knowing full well its hard to draw a line on what is or is not eligible.

Overall I am happy with my course and my experience here i just feel i was out of depth. Look forward to all the judges feedback.

[Deleted]

Hi Oscar,

Thank you for your feedback, we will take it into account in future RDC eligibility discussions. I can certainly understand how you may be feeling, and we are very sensitive to that when setting this contest up.

If it helps provide any background, last year we ran this contest and got the same feedback, so this year we made the eligibility requirements even more strict than they were before. All of us on the TGCTours staff that review contest details thought this year's setup was more fair for rookies. However, with that being said, I can still see that some are feeling an "experience gap" now that all of the courses are published.

All I can offer at this point is to say that we hear you and we will take all of these things into consideration when setting up the RDC for season 6. I realize that's no consolation to you right now, but hopefully it helps to know that your feedback is listened to.

Great job on your publish, I hope the experience was mostly positive for you.

[Oscar C]

Oct 20, 2019 23:18:38 GMT -5 VctryLnSprts said:

Hi Oscar,

Thank you for your feedback, we will take it into account in future RDC eligibility discussions. I can certainly understand how you may be feeling, and we are very sensitive to that when setting this contest up.

If it helps provide any background, last year we ran this contest and got the same feedback, so this year we made the eligibility requirements even more strict than they were before. All of us on the TGCTours staff that review contest details thought this year's setup was more fair for rookies. However, with that being said, I can still see that some are feeling an "experience gap" now that all of the courses are published.

All I can offer at this point is to say that we hear you and we will take all of these things into consideration when setting up the RDC for season 6. I realize that's no consolation to you right now, but hopefully it helps to know that your feedback is listened to.

Great job on your publish, I hope the experience was mostly positive for you.

Thanks Eric for your responce.

This is exactly the kind of reply from someone who was involved in the contest creation that i was hoping for. I acknowledged its not easy to create fair eligability and not having any visbility to what went on last year it makes sense that changes were made.

I will get a lot out of it no doubt and i wont give up based on this contest but yes the "gap" is wide for the lowest ability contest available.

thanks again

[b101]

On the flip side - not saying I disagree with all of your points, but I think it's worth pointing out some of the complexities that I'm sure Eric is aware of:

1) We only just got 20 guys, of which 3 DNF'd and a number of others who had wanted to compete were already taken out by the criteria. The pool of people who want to be in a contest, but don't have that many publishes is already pretty limited.

2) Number of courses really isn't a gauge of how good you are. Honestly, there are some on ten times the number of courses that I have that I would still class as rookies and I've also seen first time publishes that have astounded me (Kathmandu, I'm looking at you). What you're actually perceiving is vision and ability with the tools, which isn't exactly measurable with the number of times people clicked the publish button. At time of signing up, I had two courses out and none on tour - I think you'll find it hard to limit the field more than that. The other side to this is simply that, compared to when the RDC originally started, there is SO much material to help you get better for those who want to look - YouTube, Twitch, this site. If you want to get better, you can and very, very quickly - I'd like to think I'm an example of that. Again, proof that number of publishes really doesn't tell you much.

3) The other potential idea is 'Tour Worthy' status. Problem is, given that reviewers can only spend three holes playing a course and the range within Tour Worth is scary, I don't think that really works, either.

I honestly take no upset or issue with your post (and it doesn't come across as a moan - I get the sentiment), but I think there's a bit more to it in order to actually create a contest that runs. If we cut the criteria much further, you just won't have a contest. If we had only people who had never published a course, we'd be down to fewer than 5 and it's unviable.

[Oscar C]

I understand all of those points Ben absolutely. What im suggesting is something along the lines of "The rookie contest doesnt have to be like the other contests".

Why not make it a max of 10-12 im sure that is achievable? Limit it to 1 Publish only then? Whatever you need to do but i think further squeezing of the eligibility will help to remove the gap.

I guarantee there are people on this forum that read the posts and would like to have a go but feel intimidated by it OR sinmply dont think they could compete. This kind of mindset could change if they werent up against your ability.

Again just a thought starter.

[Deleted]

Indeed, the more we tried to place restrictions on entrants, the more we felt that the contest might get too thinned out.

This year’s field was much more level heading into the contest than last year’s was, so I think we accomplished our goal of improving it. Patrick runs this very well and I’d regret to thin the field too much.

[Deleted]

I think you’ll find outliers in any contest, though, so keep that in mind, too. It’s a bit easier after seeing all the published courses and then determining what the “gap” is or who has more ability. I’d like to think you all have the ability, it’s just the application of the skills.

Take a look at last year’s runner up course, Muir Woods. That guy came out of nowhere, and he was really good. He easily qualified as a rookie, so just looking at his finished course after the contest and seeing how good it was wouldn’t be a fair assessment of his ability at the time of registration.

You’ll see this kind of thing in other contests too though, anecdotally. Take the upcoming World Cup, which will draw many of the community’s “big name” designers, who all look good on paper before the courses are published. However, even in that event you’ll see a gap once all the courses are published. Part of that is just the nature of any competition.

I’m very tired, I hope I’m making any sense. 😴

[MyGolfGameSucks]

Thank you for the replies there gents. Refering to Eric and Oscar.
My original post on our top 8 predictions was to promote a sense of competition and camaraderie amongst the 17 published designers.  We are all part of the RDC 2019 after all. It has received 1 like and 1 dislike thus far so I suppose the answer is still up n the air?

Now Oscar, I didnt expect an almost direct attack on me from that..... all I can say is.... rules are rules and by entering this contest under the same rules we ALL knew what they were before hand. Deal with it in the same way I will when I get knocked out by a better course.

[b101]

Don't think it was an attack on you, pal - I read it as genuinely trying to work out where the criteria should be. As Eric mentions, this one is going to be impossible to please everyone. Not following the one like and one dislike thing though.

And yeah, all go play Muir Woods - if ever there were a case that rookies can't be defined by number of publishes, that's it.

[Oscar C]

Oct 21, 2019 0:50:07 GMT -5 MyGolfGameSucks said:

Thank you for the replies there gents. Refering to Eric and Oscar.
My original post on our top 8 predictions was to promote a sense of competition and camaraderie amongst the 17 published designers.  We are all part of the RDC 2019 after all. It has received 1 like and 1 dislike thus far so I suppose the answer is still up n the air?

Now Oscar, I didnt expect an almost direct attack on me from that..... all I can say is.... rules are rules and by entering this contest under the same rules we ALL knew what they were before hand. Deal with it in the same way I will when I get knocked out by a better course.

Wow, just wow, you TOTALLY misread my intention with my post. You just happened to be the poster above mine with your courses listed in your signature.

[MyGolfGameSucks]

Oct 21, 2019 0:58:19 GMT -5 Oscar C said:

Oct 21, 2019 0:50:07 GMT -5 MyGolfGameSucks said:

Thank you for the replies there gents. Refering to Eric and Oscar.
My original post on our top 8 predictions was to promote a sense of competition and camaraderie amongst the 17 published designers.  We are all part of the RDC 2019 after all. It has received 1 like and 1 dislike thus far so I suppose the answer is still up n the air?

Now Oscar, I didnt expect an almost direct attack on me from that..... all I can say is.... rules are rules and by entering this contest under the same rules we ALL knew what they were before hand. Deal with it in the same way I will when I get knocked out by a better course.

Wow, just wow, you TOTALLY misread my intention with my post. You just happened to be the poster above mine with your courses listed in your signature.

Maybe I misread it... as I posted a totally different question in the post you are refering to.....I have recently seen many streams where the contestants from last years contest have been chatting to, teasing and relaying some positive stories about their experience. Im just trying to get the conversation going among us since who knows when any of us will be in another TGC designing contest. Now it may not be everyones cup of Tee (get it )...........

By having a signature I am trying to promote my own courses in the TGC community as I am still seen as a Rookie by most of the other members around here when it comes to course designing.

But moving on as I hope to get more responses to my previous question.....
How many hours did it take everyone to complete their courses?



Ben the like/dislike thing. On my original post it received 1 like and then the dislike from Oscar in his post.

[Lifeonaboard]

Oct 21, 2019 2:39:30 GMT -5 MyGolfGameSucks said:

How many hours did it take everyone to complete their courses?

Easily over 200 hours but it's really hard to say exactly. There were some days were I would spend 3 hours just on one green, sculpting then putting over and over just making tiny tweaks. Still not completely satisfied with all of them, but eventually you just have to release it and move on. Hopefully this process will be faster from now on.