What is "a course"?

[Karl Molitoris]

Being an Excel spreadsheet freak, I've logged / charted all my "competitive" disc rounds over the past 3 years (since I've been playing this sport). Today, just for the heck-of-it, I tried to figure out how many courses I've played throughout the country. Couldn't do it because of one problem...I couldn't define "a course".

Per the PDGA site, at Warwick Town Park they list 18 holes (for this case, let's forget Wolfe Woods for a minute) - yet we know that you can play 4 standard configurations of the tee / basket combinations. Do you consider this as playing 1 course (Warwick) or 4 (S-S, S-B, B-S, and B-B) - assuming you play them all?

To confuse matters even worse, on the same Lestah street in Taxachusetts, the PDGA lists one of the establishments there as 2 x 18 and the other as 1 x 18...yet both have 2 sets of tees and 2 sets of baskets.

And as a side note to this, it is acceptable at Warwick (and duly noted on their scorecards) to play any of the 4 configurations, yet at Marshall Street I've never heard of (...maybe I'm wrong...) anyone playing 4 different configs at each MH or Pyr...the standard play is playing only the 2 each that are normally played.

Definitions? Thoughts?

Karl

[Bill Newman]

sheesh, Karl you clearly have too much time on your hands....the real question is are we gonna see you and your wierd discs at the FDR Ice Bowl on saturday???????

[Tom]

I have wondered the same thing playing Borderland. With 4 different layouts, you are playing 4 unique courses, but they are all located in the same park. If you define a course as 18 unique holes(or 27) then each layout is a different course. If you defina a course as everything at one location, then the whole thing is one course but there are still different layouts. I guess its up to each persons own definition.

[Gary Cyr]

Karl,

I can't wait till you can spend some of that free time diving for discs!!

[Karl Molitoris]

Bill,
Not really a lot of free time, I just can type fast. Can't make FDR Sat...am visiting the folks in NE CT.
Gary,
I plan on diving Buff again this spring (as I also plan on diving Buzzy's and Fairfield again).
Tom,
I hear you about the "unique hole" aspect, but then you've introduced another quandary, what makes a hole unique? Does sharing a fairway and a tee but having a different basket constitute uniqueness? Damn, now I'm even confusing myself!

Any other thought about what "a course" is?

Karl

[Fred Doot]

When playing any given layout at Warwick, the other teepads, teesigns and baskets are merely objects (one could call baskets metal bushes.) Warwick, Borderland, etc. each have different assigned pars, distances, etc. for each of their four layouts. As such, they're all different courses (they simply share ground.)

[Justin Anderson]

I know what you're saying Karl. I just started playing in June and I hit course #20 last Friday. Sure, no one but the person tracking it cares but I think to be honest with yourself you should track physically seperate courses. Courses which share fairways on each hole even if there are 2 tees and 2 baskets are, in my opinion, the same course. I recently played the Grange in Va (Go there!) and they have a wooded course and a more open one which share nothing. I would probably count each of those as seperate courses if I had been able to play both of them. My rule of thumb is if the "courses" have names other than White Tee/Blue Tee; see Maple Hill Elements/Airplanes.

Has anyonw played the Grange's Tiki par-2 course when it's lit at night? That is a ton of fun!

[discglfr05]

When playing any given layout at Warwick, the other teepads, teesigns and baskets are merely objects (one could call baskets metal bushes.) Warwick, Borderland, etc. each have different assigned pars, distances, etc. for each of their four layouts. As such, they're all different courses (they simply share ground.)

Good points, I would say that the main criterion for defining a "course" is when each layout has it's own tee pad, basket and par/distance information. At Borderland, each configuration calls for different type of shot- same fairway, but different shot, different angles. Partial sharing of a fairway on two or more configurations shouldn't matter so long as each configuration requires a distinctly different shot.

[Mike Dussault]

There are many more than four layouts for the Borderland course. I often play alternating odd Blue to White; even White to Blue.
Be creative design your own layout.

[Dave McHale]

I personally define what courses I have played by physical locations where fairways are shared. Warwick is slightly different in that I consider any of the 4 "normal" layouts to be one course ("Warwick") but I do consider Wolfe's Woods to be its own course (whereas by going TOO general, you could say that it would fall under the "Warwick Town Park" heading. However, "The Grange" to me counts as two courses... being Sunnyside and Darkside (and you could count the tiki course as its own thing too if you wanted )

i dont think you'll ever find a single consensus on your question though Karl

[Karl Molitoris]

Dave,
I agree...I don't there IS a consensus of opinion on this one...I was just interested in what / how others think about it (any way is not right or wrong, it just is).

All,
I hear what Mike is saying about Borderland (mix and match, alternate, etc.) but I just think it's interesting in how the Warwick crew set up and plays (normally) 4 distinct courses on a 2tee/2bucket config, yet the MH and Pyr crews - to the best of my knowledge - play only 2 courses on a similar 2tee/2bucket config. Is it a philosophical thing?!? And again, there appears to be a slight inconguity as to how these are listed in the PDGA web site; some "showing" 2 courses, others showing 1 (while they comprise basically the same set ups).

Karl

[Shane Peters]

Pyramids only has one tee per hole. Not that it's a bad thing, just thought it might clear some stuff up with.

[Arty Graustein]

Karl I think your depiction of the Maple Hill/Pyramids courses are a little bit off base in your last post. Not sure of the last time you played these courses, but significant changes, particularly to MH, have been made in the past couple of years. Pyramids has two baskets on every hole, but only one teeing area for both layouts. Maple Hill has two baskets and two teeing areas for every hole. Exception: holes 5, 11, 12, 13 have two baskets/only one teeing area (although soon 12 will have a 2 baskets and 2 teeing areas. 18 has one basket and one teeing area for both layouts. So I can kind of see the belief of Maple being two courses and Pyramids being one. The word that keeps popping up in my head is layouts. I think when compiling your stats you may be better off thinking in terms of "layouts" instead of "courses." I look at MH/Pyramids as 4 unique layouts.

[Karl Molitoris]

All,
Thanks for clearing me up; my mistake. Now that I think of it, yup Pyr has only 1 tee box per hole (guess I was delusionary).
Karl

[Rob Tatro]

I know that when we (and I came into the process later on when many of the teeboxes and baskets were already in) looked for the placements of teepads and baskets at Borderland, we always did so with the idea that we would have 4 different layouts to play - all with distinctly different pars and shot selection in mind (W-W, W-B, B-W, B-B). It's taken a little while for all of the holes over all four of the courses to become legitimately playable like they are now but I think it's fair to say that you could play any one of the configurations without feeling like you can't see the shot needed to find any one of the fairways.

I'm not sure what the plans are/were for Maple Hill ... my assumption always was that their philosophy would be to create 2 distinct courses on the property (elements /airplanes). While some of the holes could be played from elements tee box to airplanes baskets and vica versa, I think some of the holes would be very quirky? Hole 9 - elements to airplanes comes to mind ... not saying that it couldn't be done just not very well, especially me

Maybe Steve or Tom could weigh in ... interesting topic.

[Dave McHale]

hole 9, IIRC, was originally the "elements to airplanes" layout if you played to the long pin, before the patio teebox was built as the airplane tee. that was back when people would sometimes forgo the up-over-right-down fairway and try to barrel down the path to the right, trying to pop out down by the pin area.

[Mike Laterreur]

Now 14 Airplanes to Elements would be a fun one .... or 10 Elements to Airplanes.

[Morgan Wright]

Every time you are playing a course its a whole different course. One time you play, there is snow on the ground. The snow is an obstacle, it's a completely different course. Also there is the question of did they mow the grass or not. If you can't throw rollers because of hay field, that's a totally different course. Then there is the wind. If it's blowing from the north, then its a totally different course. Then theres the whole issue of who is in your group. If they talk a lot, that's totally different than if they are quiet. That makes it a totally different course.

[Pete Johnson]

I have been counting a course as a what is in the book. Except in the case of temporary courses and multiple courses atthe same location. I did not count different layouts on the same course ie borderlands, warwick. I started 2006 at 90 courses played and finished the year with 105 or so still havent officially checked

[boru]

Every time you are playing a course its a whole different course.

So by your reckoning, there are maybe 20 million courses worldwide? And none of them have been played more than once?

Makes a lot of sense. They should probably update the PDGA directory accordingly.

[Morgan Wright]

But the PDGA directory changes depending on what light you use to read it, what mood you're in, the quality of the print job, the intelligence level of the reader.

So the 20 million courses now become 20 billion...