Major Championship Design Contest - The Results

[zzfr33b1rdzz]

Ok, guess I should chime in here..

I can see how most would feel that VctryLnSprts having judged my Mulligan National course would somehow be bad for me - like some sort of payback or something, but I have to say that the notes I received from ALL the judges was really informative.  The judge notes were not listed by name, but I could pretty much tell which one's were Eric's - and I totally agreed with all of them.  Unfortunately I knew this wasn't my best work - though have been told that it was actually better than Mulligan Quarry - so I was surprised by that..

Because I respect all of the designers that contribute so much to the game we all love, I figured I'd reach out to Eric because, whether y'all want to believe it or not, he is a very talented designer and has produced some really good content.

He offered to do a live stream to answer some of the questions I had regarding some of the vague comments that ALL judges tend to list - like 'sculpting issues'.  I wanted to get to the root of what that means - and what better way to do it than from a judge who has some excellent experience in this area.

I felt the stream went very well and hopefully can provide some good for the up-and-coming designers in this community as well.

I also want to give a shout out to b101 (Ben) for also doing a video stream on sculpting - all of this information will do nothing but HELP all of us fellow designers.

Finally, I want to put to rest that there isn't any animosity between Eric and I.  We all love the courses we produce and feel that every one of them should be number one in the contests we enter - but there can be only one winner.   So, for those of you that have been eliminated, it's ok, be mad, throw some things around, provide some asshatery for the threads... but in the end, PLEASE, let's all be respectful of each other because we are all in this for the same thing - great courses to play on this great game!

TLDR: Basically I want to get better and reached out to Eric because I believe he can help.

[zzfr33b1rdzz]

How about we put DAM and KEG aside and all become FOOD


Friendly Operators Of Design    


Which FOOD group are you in ??

I'm the Mid-Tier FOOD guy - can create a decent course, but just need a little more practice..

[mayday_golf83]

I am compled to share an email I received today from a community member. I was working behind the scenes with this person to provide a unique prize to the winner of this year's CC contest. This member has rescinded that offer in light of the most recent developments. I have redacted the name of the member and the prize that was to have been offered (though I will say said person had no involvement in the Major contest, to dispel that theory) as that is not the point. What else he says in his email is:

"With all due respect, I am going to pull back from donating (prize redacted) to the contest. I'm simply not going to put myself out there and face what I see in the design community as disrespect to others who try to help.

It really doesn't matter what anyone does for good (run a contest, judge in a contest, offer to help design or just compete in a contest) it all seems to get poo pooed by so many."

In case anyone has forgotten, here are the stated tenets of TGCT design contests: 

1) to give designers, accomplished and novice alike, a platform to showcase their work while receiving honest & constructive peer reviews
2) to supply all TGC Tours schedulers with a plethora of tour-worthy courses for use in competition
3) to foster fellowship and camaraderie among the design community

By taking part in a contest, it is our responsibility to uphold these tenets. Obviously, depending on what your individual role is in said contest, you cannot control all three tenets at once, but contestants definitely can help to control Nos. 2 and 3 when they participate. It is my hope that contestants find it appropriate from time to time to judge, thus helping to uphold the first tenet.

Sniping, bickering and pettiness run smack against these tenets and paint the entire design community in a bad light. When we get PGA guys mocking us for our bad behavior -- think of the irony there -- that's not good folks. Nor is it good when people say, "No I don't want to help out your contest because I don't want to deal with the drama after."

I get it, things happen in the midst of battle. Feelings get hurt, the need to defend yourself arises, stuff gets said and posted that probably shouldn't. Been there myself. I'm not proud of it, but I have and I regret any toes that may have been trampled in the process. Things that have been said cannot be taken back. Bridges have been charred, if not completely burned to ashes. However, we can all resolve to do better going forward, to treat one another with respect and work together to promote this community in a positive manner. Frankly, as the TGC/PGA2K franchise grows larger, we need to band together to keep from being further marginalized in the grander scheme of this game. If anyone feels they are unable to do this, perhaps they should reevaluate their participation in these contests going forward. 

[b101]

Can't argue with that Mayo. Have to say that I think lockdown is definitely straining tensions and spending more time in front of a computer is likely to lead to more forum drama.

---

Happy to put this opinion out there now all is said and done. The WC judging wasn't good - I benefited from that in parts but equally feel I was unlucky to lose out in the final. Loved JC's course though and I'd have taken 2nd in a heartbeat at the start, so no harm done to me in the long run. The problem we have is (IMO) never the bubble courses around 10-12, but the massive outliers - the Necedahs, Hallstatts, Frankstons (imo) Dead Hand etc. And yeah, the Dam have probably gotten the two worst rubs of the green for me. As you all know, I chat to both groups pretty extensively. After the WC, lots of us were keen to look into getting better at coming up with judging guidelines or changing the formats because, whilst you can trot out the 'it's a contest, deal with it' line, or 'the WC produces excitement because of these outliers', that's not good enough when people spend 3 months on a course. Yes, I'm paraphrasing here, but those were genuine defences of some frankly indefensible results that were put out.

The bottom line is, we never talked about improving judging from there and I think that was a huge missed opportunity, indeed, one we have to get right going forward. Because we are living Groundhog Day somewhat. I do think the Major judging has been much better from what I can see as a contestant; the top ten isn't far off where I'd have it and I'm sure some of that would be personal preference. We won't please everyone, but we are repeating the same old ways again and again. Should every judge look for the same thing? Of course not. But we need to help amend that. Pithy had a great suggestion about mentoring, I've done a stream talking through judging and what to look for, we've tossed around some ideas about changing formats, but really, not much has come from it from what I can see. Mayo's doing a great job in implementing a couple of different things for CC, but I think it'd be great to have a big discussion of what we think should happen. And yeah, we need to consider all views from rookies to 'elite' alike. Because how can we really hold a rookie designer who wants to judge to standards that they're unable to reach if we haven't thought about it? I would 100% be happy to be a mentor for newer judges - I love doing the tutorial stuff (it's the teacher in me) and trying to help people get better.

With that in mind, I think a lot of the WC judging was indirectly caused by us contestants. When we hype the contest that much and push the field, who was left to judge? If you aren't in that top tier, you are still learning and will find it tough to split the top guys, which leads to things like critiquing minutiae such as bridge alignment because it's all the judge feels comfortable critiquing etc. Lots of ideas have been bounced around, but we're in no better a position IMO. I'm very happy to be one of the people kicking that conversation off; certainly, I've got a different way of judging Dream Team that I think will solve a lot of these issues for that contest, but whoever it is, this will keep happening unless we discuss it.

At the end of the day, I absolutely love the contests, but I hate the feeling of dread that I currently have for pretty much everyone involved (judges, organisers and contestants) as results are released that there's a clanger out there.

[reebdoog]

AS the runner from the WCoD this year...I didn't know what to do. All I could do is put my head down and keep things as positive as I could. If folks enjoyed it...great. If not there was nothing I could do.

I know I said I'd so some judging videos and I never did. That's on me. If that would still be helpful I'd be happy to do it. Part of this is that contests are a form of competition but it's like an art competition. I mean sure you can judge courses using SOME set standards...but for the most part it's a matter of who best executes their vision in a way that is enjoyable to those that don't share that vision. That is a massively tall order. I think that a lot of times we end up with courses that have very little vision at all and are more of an attempt to meet some unspoken criteria that "judges" look for or that the community fawns over. Then on the flip side we have judges that try to check off boxes and measure things against some imagined perfect course instead of attempting to interpret and enjoy the vision of the designer. There are competing philosophies and there is really no way around that.

How do artists or designers improve? By designing more. How do judges get better? By judging more. Instead we get judges that are in and then out again or judges that say "well we got a good result so I did everything right". It's not easy.

I don't know...I honestly think the only permanent solution to all this is to start treating every single contest like simply a celebration instead of a competition. You can go ahead and compete, fine...but I think that having cuts and ranking top to bottom may need to go away and instead we simply play the courses, critique them in video, go ahead and have judges notes that are private...but then just announce the winner and two runners up (in no order) and call it a day. Does that sound like participation trophies? Yes it does... but if it keeps the parents from fighting at the 5 year old T ball game then so be it.

[b101]

I have no issue with being upset (personally) or other people being upset. I'd like to see more of a check/balance system where, when we KNOW a result is dead wrong, we look at it again. I think mentoring newer judges would solve a lot of that, but equally having a judging coordinator or contest coordinator go to a couple of judges and ask them to look at a course again considering certain things might be a way forward.

I agree with the art form comment and that paragraph is spot-on. But what I think we need to stop happening are things like Frankston being hammered because judges didn't know what a Sandbelt course was and either nobody told them or nobody questioned it. I'm not talking about the 'I didn't win so I'm out' grumbles, more the crazy outliers. Meh, hard to word this perfectly, but my comment is not about the childish designer who spits their dummy out because they didn't win, but the guys who legitimately got screwed over where a judge just didn't understand something. We need to help both judge and contestant in that situation, in my opinion. I could be wrong, but that's still my prevailing sentiment from WC - didn't feel great for judges, contestants or even our winner.

This is in no way a dig at you or those judges by the way - simply stating a case study where I think we should be doing everything to avoid happening again.

[reebdoog]

Also I can tell you that had I not COMPETED in WCOD as well as running...I'd have blown up a lot of that mess in a hot minute. That's nothing on CiBorg, I saw the judging scores and notes and honestly it was not just a matter of catching outliers. His hands were a bit tied. However, as the contest runner? Yeah. Mah hammer would have been out full force. I feel like competing was the wrong call and that's on me (and you idiots that told me to compete. jerk faces...). If any judge wants to get upset at me for that...go for it. I'd still have blown it up prior to first round results.

*EDIT* and I'm sorry if that wouldn't have helped folks all feel better but I think in the end it would have done more good than harm.

[Deleted]

I agree with almost everything in the last several posts, and I’d be fully supportive of Ben, Reeb, Mayo, Wes, etc. etc. etc. being a part of a constructive judging solution for the future, and I say that with full inclusion regardless of the silly design syndicates or not. Anybody with constructive ideas should be equally welcome to provide insights that might be valuable.

As to Jeremy’s post, I’m disappointed in myself (heck, I wrote some of those tenets two years ago). But that doesn’t matter, and nothing I’ve contributed to this community puts me ahead of anyone else. If I’m contributing to the problems, I’m no more a part of the solution either. To whomever the generous donor was, I apologize to you personally. It’s very cool that you were going to do that, but you have every right to feel the way you do.

[b101]

Throwing one final idea out there... For next year's WC, what do we think of two parallel contests, where if you're in one half of the draw, you judge the other half. Could then do a head to head at the end with everyone else judging the final two.

I think that would solve a HELL of a lot of issues.

[ryanmcconnell]

Did the prize from WC get lost in the mail or was it just taken back after I posted a dinosaur eating a goat?

[Terry Grayson]

And before anyone thinks anything about a DAM and KEG
turf war let me say for myself I love both sides bunch of good dudes
And I value all their thoughts and friendships

I just happened to have the perfect opportunity to throw that pic out there and they all took it as I intended a friendly jab

Good talk and love you all at least as much as my luggage

[b101]

May 20, 2020 15:46:11 GMT -5 Terry Grayson said:

And before anyone thinks anything about a DAM and KEG
turf war let me say for myself I love both sides bunch of good dudes
And I value all their thoughts and friendships

I just happened to have the perfect opportunity to throw that pic out there and they all took it as I intended a friendly jab

Good talk and love you all at least as much as my luggage

We bloody love that pic.

[gamesdecent]

Yeah I think my contest days are probably over. If y'all want me to help judge any I'd be happy to do so.

[zzfr33b1rdzz]

May 20, 2020 15:30:09 GMT -5 b101 said:

Throwing one final idea out there... For next year's WC, what do we think of two parallel contests, where if you're in one half of the draw, you judge the other half. Could then do a head to head at the end with everyone else judging the final two.

I think that would solve a HELL of a lot of issues.

That may help Designer judging a Designer - but we also need to consider the Player Judge -- one who doesn't design, but plays....and I don't just mean plays the game, 'cuz there are plenty of 'game' players that have some real world golf knowledge as well.

Judging from a player perspective will likely have much different results that those the judge from the perspective of a designer.

There's got to be some happy median there somewhere..

For the record - if Judging is needed for any of the upcoming contests - I would be more than happy to help out.  I've been in 4 completed contests and one currently active thus far.  Not saying I'd be any good at it, but from what I've learned with my experiences in the contests, I think I would (at least) be a half-way decent judge.

As for results and the cuts.. not sure what's good.  I suppose it all depends on the format - like WC is setup with brackets like the World Cup - that makes sense..

I guess in the end - we're always going to have disagreements and opinions that one should've been picked over the other - not really sure there is any way around that, but with regards to Mayo's post - it's really up to us as the contestants as to how we actually end up dealing with the adversity we face when the results come out - - We all just need to remember, and I've said this before, no matter what the results are - there is really only one winner - the community for which the designs are made for.

[zzfr33b1rdzz]

May 20, 2020 15:46:11 GMT -5 Terry Grayson said:

And before anyone thinks anything about a DAM and KEG
turf war let me say for myself I love both sides bunch of good dudes
And I value all their thoughts and friendships

I just happened to have the perfect opportunity to throw that pic out there and they all took it as I intended a friendly jab

Good talk and love you all at least as much as my luggage

What's your FOOD type Terry ?