During this past weekend at the Master's Cup (great job Marty and DDGC members!!) I had the opportunity to talk to a couple of pros on tour. I asked them "How tough is DeLa, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being most difficult?"
One player then asked, "Tough in skill or scoring?" He explained the difference: a tough course can require lots of skills (i.e. different shots, accuracy, distance) on the one hand, or can be tough to get a low score (i.e. there is a certain amount of "luck" involved). He said DeLa rated a 6 or 7 in the skill department, and an 8 or 9 in the scoring department.
I noticed several of the top touring pros had a tough time, and were frustrated during at least a couple of the rounds. I wondered how much of that was based on their view that DeLa isn't really a test of skills so much as a survival of the luckiest.
Obviously, Climo (the winner) was not lucky--he has tremendous skills and dominated the course all weekend. To me, I think the "luck" factor is a bit of an over-simplification. I would argue that even if you do hit a tree and go OB, or your 20 ft putt misses, hits a root, and rolls 55 ft down the hill (i.e. bad luck ), the test is to recover from the hole you're in and minimize the damage.
I hope others will chime in on what they heard in their groups from out of towners. I like to tout that DeLa is among the tougher courses in the world (for a variety of reasons), and I think that was borne out this weekend.
Go Santa Cruz! Steve
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Daviar Thomas
Legend
Re:Course difficulty - 2006/05/15 11:56
In the Sentinel today:
"This course is one you can never let up on. Every single drive, most of the putts...it's intense and it's mentally fatiguing. You're never sure if your disc is going to stay there or roll away". - Julianna Korver
I think she summed it up pretty well. It's not about luck or skill or length. Delaveaga presents a unique intensity on the mental side of the game. That's the real challenge at Dela - and it's really the only challenge in golf.
D
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John Steele
Legend
Re:Course difficulty - 2006/05/15 14:10
Well said Dave
We were talking about this issue on Sunday morning and the equation seems to work out that if your shots are working it's becuase of your skill, but if your hitting trees, than the course feels more like a crapshoot. I think most golfers at one point of another have felt this way about a course, or at least a hole or two on some course.
I have a list of holes I don't care for around NorCal, 4 at Penn Valley comes to mind, 5 at Bijou and all of Snowbowl. Mostly because I don't have a thumber, or very good distance with a backhand. The holes on my list tend to only have those options off the tee.
And there are some holes that seem to trully lack legitimate fairways. whatever that means .....
I heard one of the top rated players on the course say that hole 12 long wasn't really a golf hole. "That's not really golf" he said. "I would not have come to play this event just because of that hole".
That person had just taken few strokes to get out of the canyon .... and that same person probably appreciated the hole more when they finished in the top 4 in the Masters of 2004 & 2005
Chuck & I watched quite a few people just miss the basket off the tee. I have pictures of a number of people getting birdies on the hole, so I fuigure those people thought it was a better hole this wekend than others did.
I watched one player lay up safe on 12 from about 50 feet, not safe enough, landed on a root, rolled, and had to make a very mentally demanding 30 foot save. That kind of starin will wear on your round and your playing ability over time. What Julianna was eluding to.
Either way some fair ways are wide, and some are not, some have alternate routes that provide less risk, and less chance of birdie. That's how a course is designed.
The bottom line is that everyone plays the same course, the player can not contorl that. What the player can control is how they feel about the course, which can have a drastic effect on their results.
Delaveaga is a very physically demanding course, brilliantly desgined with fast greens. But in the end golf of any kind is a mental game much more than a physical one.
It is this combination that makes it interesting. And like so many things in life, golf tends to try and teach it's students that the more relaxed and positive they can keep their mental state over time the friendlier the challenges will seem, and the better their bodies will perform.
Now if I can just remember that
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Ed Buskirk
Legend
Re:Course difficulty - 2006/05/16 11:02
The one thing that I heard on course difficulty was from Jay Reading.
He said that some of the open pros were frustrated by the course being shortened for the final round. He and the other guys are accustomed to having the final round be the most challenging, not the easiest.
This may have played into the "luck" comments from others.
Perhaps the Super 18 Hole final round is the way to go??
Ed
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Daviar Thomas
Legend
Re:Course difficulty - 2006/05/16 11:08
The "luck" factor is more attributable to hitting trees and roll aways than the length of the course IMHO.
In the end, it doesn't make sense to change the format because a "few" pros felt that way. There were probably many more who were very GLAD the course went short on the last day.
The only suggestion I would have is to keep the last 9 holes long on the last day for the sake of the spectators who come to see "amazing".
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John Steele
Legend
Re:Course difficulty - 2006/05/16 11:20
That's the thing.
An errant shot that hits a tree or root and bounces out, gets attrinbuted to luck, where as the errant shot that bounces off a tree and into the basket goes down as skill.
Win the lottery, good luck.
Run down by a semi .. bad karma
The short format sunday is also about not being there too late, and the Masters is not the only event to do that by any stretch of the imagination. It makes for greater swing opprtunities I think.
I do like the super 18 idea a lot, but it is hard for the other players as they would never all fit. To get to a super sunday, you would need to follow the thursday to saunday format. Where everyone plays thurs & friday, and then there is a cut for Sat and or Sunday. Ufortunately most people can not take that much time out for disc golf tournaments, although it was done at the Masters in 98 or 99? I think ? No cut that I remember but we did play 4 days.
Problem is at this point in the game, if you cut half to two-thirds of the field on Saturday, who would be around to watch the finals?
Perhaps in a few more years.
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), the test is to recover from the hole you're in and minimize the damage.
