Let the courses & it’s designers define what makes TGCT…

[Dubsonic]

...Not TCGT define what makes the courses

I am noticing some of the conditions on these “Tour Editions” are feeling a bit little bit disingenuous to the original course designs & their designers. I enjoy a good challenge and being rewarded for quality shot making, however some of the slopes on these greens, and sizes of these fairways are feeling a bit forced and rushed for my taste. I just hope “touring up” courses isn’t slowly becoming the gold standard moving forward.

For example, I really thought the beautiful 4.5 rated Fire Rock Ranch was challenging and rewarding on it’s own merit (kudos to the chef btw) and didn’t require such a hasty hollywood facelift. I am not sure why this is being done, but by doing this it instantly alters the integrity of what got the course it’s 4.5 rating in the first place.  What was a 4.5 star Fire Rock Ranch course would get a bump down to a 3.5 in my eyes. Each tournament is a celebration of the hard work that goes in to designing these wonderful courses and I feel that the lustre has in some ways been taken away from Fire Rock Ranch for the sake of making it more challenging.

My resolution, if “Touring” up courses is becoming a standard, is to at least alternate a “Tour edition” course and a “As Designer Intended” course between the major tours (PGA & EURO). This would at least give a player an opportunity to choose which type of course they would prefer to attack on a given week. It’s a level playing field either way. Ideally, these “altered” deep rough, lightning stimpmeter Tour Editions should be reserved for majors as they do in real life.

I don’t mean to come across as confrontational on this topic. I am merely stating that courses selected for tournaments should not be altered once they have been approved in our TGCTours Database. It’s what made them so special in the 1st place.

My 2 cents.

PEACE!

[GoldEaglex12]

Mar 28, 2015 21:03:49 GMT -5 Dubsonic said:

...Not TCGT define what makes the courses

I am noticing some of the conditions on these “Tour Editions” are feeling a bit little bit disingenuous to the original course designs & their designers. I enjoy a good challenge and being rewarded for quality shot making, however some of the slopes on these greens, and sizes of these fairways are feeling a bit forced and rushed for my taste. I just hope “touring up” courses isn’t slowly becoming the gold standard moving forward.

For example, I really thought the beautiful 4.5 rated Fire Rock Ranch was challenging and rewarding on it’s own merit (kudos to the chef btw) and didn’t require such a hasty hollywood facelift. I am not sure why this is being done, but by doing this it instantly alters the integrity of what got the course it’s 4.5 rating in the first place.  What was a 4.5 star Fire Rock Ranch course would get a bump down to a 3.5 in my eyes. Each tournament is a celebration of the hard work that goes in to designing these wonderful courses and I feel that the lustre has in some ways been taken away from Fire Rock Ranch for the sake of making it more challenging.

My resolution, if “Touring” up courses is becoming a standard, is to at least alternate a “Tour edition” course and a “As Designer Intended” course between the major tours (PGA & EURO). This would at least give a player an opportunity to choose which type of course they would prefer to attack on a given week. It’s a level playing field either way. Ideally, these “altered” deep rough, lightning stimpmeter Tour Editions should be reserved for majors as they do in real life.

I don’t mean to come across as confrontational on this topic. I am merely stating that courses selected for tournaments should not be altered once they have been approved in our TGCTours Database. It’s what made them so special in the 1st place.

My 2 cents.

PEACE!

You make some good points here. I think one of the main issues with taking a course that's medium firmness and making it firm/fast, is that the designer most likely didn't design it for those conditions. I have no issue with fast/firm courses, in fact, I love the challenge and I would love to see tourney winners only shooting -20 to -30 eventually. But in order for a course to be a great course in firm/fast conditions, it has to be designed in a way that suits those conditions.

[coruler2]

Just a note, the firmness of Fire Rock Ranch (Tour Version) is still medium firmness. The greens were changed from medium to fast...which acts slightly firmer v. medium speed greens (especially rollouts of longer shots).

I think your points are fair and everything is being evaluated to try to improve the tours.

[GoldEaglex12]

Mar 28, 2015 23:53:41 GMT -5 coruler2 said:

Just a note, the firmness of Fire Rock Ranch (Tour Version) is still medium firmness. The greens were changed from medium to fast...which acts slightly firmer v. medium speed greens (especially rollouts of longer shots).

I think your points are fair and everything is being evaluated to try to improve the tours.

Yup. I wasn't referring to your course, and I very much enjoyed my rounds there! I found that the greens were fine for the most part. I was generally making a point that intended course firmness/speed needs to be taken into account when being designed in order to make the course play fair. A lot of courses couldn't simply be set to fast/firm as they were previously designed.

[Deleted]

Mar 28, 2015 23:53:41 GMT -5 coruler2 said:

Just a note, the firmness of Fire Rock Ranch (Tour Version) is still medium firmness. The greens were changed from medium to fast...which acts slightly firmer v. medium speed greens (especially rollouts of longer shots).

I think your points are fair and everything is being evaluated to try to improve the tours.

I noticed this on the first hole as well, definitely it was far from firm, so not sure what all the moaning is about. have to admit I was not a huge fan in the contest, but this course played perfectly IMHO in the PGA Tour.

I notice a lot of griping about any course that is challenging, not everyone wants to play lawn darts.

I suggest TGCTours take the European tour and make it a level 2 behind the PGA tour, or in the alternative let these people go play the WEB, they obviously do not wish to play golf or be challenged in any way whatsoever. Let the players who want to play golf, play golf and play the hardest conditions on the hardest courses against the best players.

[Dubsonic]

Speaking from a top 50 player perspective as well (Puerto Rico Winner), I am not implying not to play challenging courses. My post is merely suggesting not to alter courses for TGCTour purposes.

My preference would be to select courses with already established ratings in our Database, if that course happens to be a 5 Star 140 slope rating so be it.

Magnolia national is a perfect example of this. It's a beautifully challenging course in it's own right and it's course handicaps and play counts, should remain intact moving forward. I would hate to see the "Tour Edition" label slapped on last minute.

There is a reason they were rated so highly in the 1st place and altering them last minute for TGCT purposes doesn't do them justice.

Can't wait for the Masters btw! 

[Deleted]

Hey all,

     You know I can't resist to weigh in and give my take. Nice discussion in my opinion. This is part of the reason I am trying to get the community and the designers especially as part of the community, to contribute to the thread I'm working on for young course designers (it's in the Designers section under Tips and Tricks). Which even experienced designers couldn't benefit as well from once it is fully developed and properly contributed to. It could help also to increase the quality of initial submissions. I'm working on the second draft to clarify and categorize most of it right now. What I need from the community is for them to contribute their ideas and cross check for errors so we can reach a consensus on what is good, realistic course design that focuses on general play-ability and course layout in all conditions. The basics of good course design. If we all work on it together and get a really nice version then maybe tgctours might pin it at the top for all designers to see. I also welcome any members of the staff as of course they are members of the community many of them valuable volunteers that contribute greatly to the site. In addition valuable contributions from the senior staff members of tgctours is also welcome and frankly necessary for the project to really take off.
     Another thought that occurred was in relation to the term "Lawn Darts", it refers I think to conditions where you can stick the ball pretty easily close to landing if not on landing. I personally like varied conditions as long as very sticky (soft) and icy (hard) are rare and since for now I think we really only have 3 settings of firmness, regardless of what the course tells us, that means medium most of the time. Green speed I prefer to vary as well with really fast and really slow being rare. Which actually brings me to "Lawn Darts". Putting difficulty might be an area that might be worth exploring beyond the simple "turn off the grid" solution. I've been exploring the ideas of having HB give the game some new options like removing the putting marker instead of the grid or disabling the "smoothing out feature" that adjusts the stroke range of the putter or both. This would make playing on "Lawn Dart" days more challenging without removing the grid.
     Last I heard HB is thinking about making the firmness more of a sliding scale possibly in the May update  which is great  as it will give us more varied conditions to work with. But that should not prevent us from developing sound courses that play well in all conditions. Finally in response to the original post.

     I will always believe that there is a distinction, although not always clear, between Course Difficulty and  Course Conditions. Course Conditions affect play-ability difficulty which in a way contributes to Course Difficulty. Course Conditions should always vary and initial Course Difficulty which I call "Core Course Difficulty" is the true underlying foundation that all of these other factors play upon. "Core Course Difficulty" should be able to stand up to most but not all Course Conditions, sometimes under certain Conditions the course should feel unplayable and present that level of difficulty to the field.

     I do get your point and a more deliberate and transparent process when making changes to courses put into the tours is always a good thing once tgctours has come to a decision. However I enjoy and encourage a variety of pin and or tee positions and changes in lighting, firmness, green speed, wind (once we get some control) , in other words course conditions and I think there might even be times where changes in rough length are appropriate. Although I would tend to agree these are most likely better off reserved for Majors. Maybe tgctours could have a regulatory committee to restrict and regulate changes made to the original design when prepped for a tour. It probably works like this now but a more deliberate and transparent one might work better.

-Mike  

[Audentior]

Great post Dubsonic.

This is a really interesting debate.

Ill just post my thoughts in order I came up with them, referring to your original post, and to some of the current responses.

1 - sometimes we see it the other way round too, where a course is released, and then an easier version follows.
- I think this happens because designers want as many people to play their courses, and come back and play them again, as possible. If they originally release a course, that gets a great rating, but some of the better players are hitting -15 etc on it, why not create a harder version for that player to try his hand at. The chances are they will because they already know its a decent track and are more likely to try the new one. As a designer, it boosts your longevity.

2 - The reverse of 1, sometimes does mean, particularly courses with 4 pins, you're asking a LOT of the community to play your course 4 times, unless its on a tour. To get the entire thing handicap rated you're asking for over 800 plays! A monumental ask, considering the speed at which excellent courses are being released nowadays.

3 - It's a little similar to when I've been asked to extend some of my 9 hole courses into 18. I'm never going to do so, because they were intended to be 9 hole courses and making them 18 would negate their existence in the first place.

4 - Not everyone is THAT good. Some players, no matter how hard the course, will smash it up. Although I think these people, in the whole grand context of TGC, and TGCT, aren't that many in number. I think we probably see most of them on the forums tbh. I'm not one of them, if you've watched TGCT Live, I'm pretty awful, and you know sometimes I just want a nice easy course to play. So they do have value being in the game.

5 - TGCT tours is now so big, some of the events are going to have to be on difficult courses to separate the field. Similar to 1, some designers will want their best work, even if easy, on a tour, so making a harder version, especially if version 1 was so well rated, is a great way to do this, without creating a whole new course.

6 - to StoneComet's point about the community coming together to define a good course. It's a very valiant idea, but there are so many opinions on what's good and bad on these forums alone, that coming to one singular agreement about what's good, in my opinion (if I'm proved wrong I'll happily hold my hands up) probably won't happen. What one person thinks is great another wont, in any forum of people that will always be the same. One of the things the HB Forums, and this community here, are great at I believe, is letting people know how a course will be. For example, if I want an easy course to play, I can look through the forums here or on HB, or the course reviews, and find the one I'm looking for. As reviewers/ tournament hosts/ tour leaders of courses, I actually think everyone does a great job in laying out what to expect from a course.


So they are just a few thoughts I have on this.

[Dubsonic]

Great hearing some of our better course designers chime in on this.

[Deleted]

Mar 29, 2015 14:05:36 GMT -5 Audentior said:

Great post Dubsonic.

This is a really interesting debate.

Ill just post my thoughts in order I came up with them, referring to your original post, and to some of the current responses.

1 - sometimes we see it the other way round too, where a course is released, and then an easier version follows.
- I think this happens because designers want as many people to play their courses, and come back and play them again, as possible. If they originally release a course, that gets a great rating, but some of the better players are hitting -15 etc on it, why not create a harder version for that player to try his hand at. The chances are they will because they already know its a decent track and are more likely to try the new one. As a designer, it boosts your longevity.

2 - The reverse of 1, sometimes does mean, particularly courses with 4 pins, you're asking a LOT of the community to play your course 4 times, unless its on a tour. To get the entire thing handicap rated you're asking for over 800 plays! A monumental ask, considering the speed at which excellent courses are being released nowadays.

3 - It's a little similar to when I've been asked to extend some of my 9 hole courses into 18. I'm never going to do so, because they were intended to be 9 hole courses and making them 18 would negate their existence in the first place.

4 - Not everyone is THAT good. Some players, no matter how hard the course, will smash it up. Although I think these people, in the whole grand context of TGC, and TGCT, aren't that many in number. I think we probably see most of them on the forums tbh. I'm not one of them, if you've watched TGCT Live, I'm pretty awful, and you know sometimes I just want a nice easy course to play. So they do have value being in the game.

5 - TGCT tours is now so big, some of the events are going to have to be on difficult courses to separate the field. Similar to 1, some designers will want their best work, even if easy, on a tour, so making a harder version, especially if version 1 was so well rated, is a great way to do this, without creating a whole new course.

6 - to StoneComet's point about the community coming together to define a good course. It's a very valiant idea, but there are so many opinions on what's good and bad on these forums alone, that coming to one singular agreement about what's good, in my opinion (if I'm proved wrong I'll happily hold my hands up) probably won't happen. What one person thinks is great another wont, in any forum of people that will always be the same. One of the things the HB Forums, and this community here, are great at I believe, is letting people know how a course will be. For example, if I want an easy course to play, I can look through the forums here or on HB, or the course reviews, and find the one I'm looking for. As reviewers/ tournament hosts/ tour leaders of courses, I actually think everyone does a great job in laying out what to expect from a course.


So they are just a few thoughts I have on this.

Elz,

     Thanks for the observations. I agree it's a monumental task. It's one of the things I believe I have a knack for. Taking varying points of view and different segments of a community and bringing them closer to consensus. In my opinion it is well worth  the effort. The guidelines I am trying to establish take very little into account about a course that could be considered subjective. They intentionally have very little to do with any aesthetics or beauty of a course for this reason and should not be confused with nor are they a replacement for "tgctours.com's Official Course Grading Criteria".
     I'm beginning to study real life course design and I know there are plenty of community members that are more knowledgeable than I on the subject. In the end they would simply be basic course design guidelines (like those that real life course designers must use as rules of thumb when designing real world courses). They would be a point to begin from and points to watch out for when designing a course for realism and general play-ability. There are always exceptions to guidelines and the idea would be for a designer to be able to build upon these using whatever creative license they might feel like exploring. I'ts a starting point not an ending one.

Thanks,

Mike

[mcbogga]

Mar 29, 2015 8:44:12 GMT -5 steve2golf said:

Mar 28, 2015 23:53:41 GMT -5 coruler2 said:

Just a note, the firmness of Fire Rock Ranch (Tour Version) is still medium firmness. The greens were changed from medium to fast...which acts slightly firmer v. medium speed greens (especially rollouts of longer shots).

I think your points are fair and everything is being evaluated to try to improve the tours.

I noticed this on the first hole as well, definitely it was far from firm, so not sure what all the moaning is about. have to admit I was not a huge fan in the contest, but this course played perfectly IMHO in the PGA Tour.

I notice a lot of griping about any course that is challenging, not everyone wants to play lawn darts.

I suggest TGCTours take the European tour and make it a level 2 behind the PGA tour, or in the alternative let these people go play the WEB, they obviously do not wish to play golf or be challenged in any way whatsoever. Let the players who want to play golf, play golf and play the hardest conditions on the hardest courses against the best players.

Don't touch the Euro tour! Otherwise well said, and I also think the web.com should play easier courses. On the top tier you should come to compete - not have a stroll in the park.

And to address one of the other posts:
Then there absolutely room for easier courses, just not on the top tier. Then I think that most courses can be made tour worthy without upping firmness. Pin placement and stretching some tees goes a long way. If the course is soft there is nothing wrong with having the flag 3yds behind a bunker on a slight downslope. Much of the advice floating around on set ups on here is for normal Wednesday club competition set ups, not tour.

[edi_vedder]

Mar 29, 2015 8:44:12 GMT -5 steve2golf said:

I suggest TGCTours take the European tour and make it a level 2 behind the PGA tour, ...

NO!