PDGA Course Evaluation Program Ready to Roll
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As a result of many member suggestions, PDGA has introduced a rating system for disc golf courses. Similar to the ratings that are generated for hotels, restaurants and other facilities, these ratings are intended to provide detailed information for players and also help courses focus on ways to improve their facilities. This is not simply a rating of how difficult or well designed a course may be. The scores are to reflect the overall appeal of the course, taking many factors into account. These ratings will be generated through the PDGA State and Provincial Coordinators. There may also possibly be an annual contest among the top-rated courses to determine the best disc golf facilities of each year. We'll see about that in the future. The resulting ratings and awards could be used by events to help promote tournaments that are being held on superior facilities. This program is the culmination of about two years of initial formulation by the PDGA Board and at various Worlds DISCussion sessions. Then, after that we formed a committee of about twenty people to take on the challenge of turning this idea into a workable program. Players may think that there is lots of general agreement on that question, but that is not true. And, certainly, there are many different kinds of "good." Lines had to be drawn between an appealing course and what was judged to be a well-designed course. How are we to evaluate a wonderfully designed course on a terrible piece of property? Likewise, we also had to deal with the reverse. How good is a poorly laid out course on a fabulous site? With a bit of thought, you can easily see how involved the discussion would have become. Slowly, over about another 16 months, each of these issues came on the table and got sorted out. We used the feedback of a number of folks in the Course Evaluation Group to work out the issues, primarily including Nick Kight, Dave Gentry, Cliff Towne, Chuck Kennedy, Dan Roddick, John Houck and others. Nick emerged as a leader and has been asked by the PDGA to serve as the initial Course Evaluation Director. If you'd like to get involved at the top level of this program, Nick is also looking for a few people to assist with the processing of evaluation submissions. If you, or someone you know, is looking for a way to contribute to this new program, please contact Nick through the PDGA Contact Webpage. At this point, we're ready to have our State and Provincial Coordinators begin to do some evaluations. If you or your club manages an existing course and you'd like to have your course be considered for evaluation, contact your State or Provincial Coordinator. He or she will be able to tell you what's involved and how soon your course can be considered. Because we're just starting out, the scores for the first year will be subject to revision in case we find any systematic problems. To see what the final product looks like and see the evaluation factors that are involved, go take a look at: PDGA Disc Golf Course Evaluations Webpage The plan is to incorporate the course evaluations into the PDGA Course Directory. When you pull up a course listing, the evaluation score will link directly to a display of all the course evaluation data on that course. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing your course on the evaluation web page. The PDGA Course Evaluation Committee |
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