It's not really to do with the size

Somebody recently asked me if I'd like to see smaller targets in Disc Golf. I really couldn’t answer yes or no on that one. I think you have to break down the question into smaller parts. So what is wrong with our baskets? According to me, they're pretty fine. The occasional spit out, but that's about it. I think the real issue here is ”Why are we discussing the size of our targets?” This text isn't really about whether we should make our targets smaller or not. It's about how we could go about making Disc Golf more challenging without getting lost on the way.

Why should we make Disc golf more challenging?

Disc Golf has grown a lot in the last handful of years. More players, more tournaments, more cash. More of everything. We are maybe on the cusp of becoming a recognized sport, at least in Europe and America. This is all good news! The discs are getting better. More air time produce longer shots. And the pros are getting ever better. And here is the real reason why we are discussing our targets. When someone shoots the perfect score, or very close to it, on a tournament course, we may have a problem. The solution, according to me, is providing the players with a greater challenge. We must be able to separate the best players from the rest of the field. There are sports where the perfect score is very achievable, take bowling for instance. But in bowling you don't have to factor in weather conditions, bad breaks and such. In Disc Golf we do. The better player has to be able to come out on top due to his/her ability, not freakish weather conditions or bad breaks. We really have to separate the players by making the perfect score much harder to achieve. And looking back over recent seasons, there are a few ways we have been trying to do that.

1: The elevated basket

Or hanging basket, or what have you. This accomplishes almost the same thing as a smaller target. You have the know when to go for it, and when to lay up. A misjudged or a poorly executed putt gets you in greater trouble. Good things. But fetching the disc for a junior player from a raised basket makes me feel a bit weird. Maybe weld a ladder to the pole. But no, an elevated basket is not a good thing to me.

2: The OB everywhere strategy

As seen on USDGC and more and more venues. Yes, this is way better than elevated baskets. But is it good? I myself am not very accurate of the tee. I'm way better at getting out of trouble, problem solving on the course and getting good scores despite the fact that I may be a bit off from the tee pad. With the OB everywhere strategy I'm out. I can't keep in contention. Yes, I should be punished for shanking my drive. And on most courses I am punished by getting worse lies for my upshot. If my disc lands OB I have to take a forced penalty and immediately lose one stroke to an opponent who can keep it inbounds. I have no chance to repair my error, I just get punished. The same applies in ball golf. But in ball golf par is always a good score on a hole. In Disc Golf par is a missed stroke in most cases. Just check the leaderboards and you'll see what I mean. In ball golf, the typical winning score over 72 holes is between -10 and -20. In Disc Golf it's way lower. That's because putting is way more crucial to the score in ball golf than in Disc Golf. That is why I, being poor off the tee, have a very big disadvantage to the ball golfer who can't keep it in the fairway. Trust me, I've been in the rough for 20 years at ball golf courses, I know what I'm talking about here. :)

3: Speaking of ball golf...

These courses are designed by professional course designers. There is a fair balance between risk and reward; the poor driver can make up for his driving with good upshots and putting. You can go for the greedy line and get your birdie, or play it safe and make the par. In disc golf par is most often not good enough. So you almost have to go for it. That is why we see so many big numbers on USDGC. In Disc Golf, you go for it or you’re not giving yourself the chance to win. So should we compete on golf courses instead? Here we have options to set up longer courses to challenge the top pros. There's a new disc golf video out on YouTube almost every week now; awesome! I used to watch them all. Not so nowadays. Why? Well, they´re becoming increasingly boring to me. Disc golf on a ball golf course isn't that inspiring to watch. No point of reference as to how far the discs fly. Hyzer upon hyzer. The pin usually tucked in beside a sand trap that counts as OB. The regular green is of course out of bounds. Disc golf on a ball golf course was a rare occurrence a couple of years back, but nowadays it seems that every other disc golf tournament is held on a temp layout on a ball golf course. And this takes away from our sport, rather than adding to it.

Our courses are our homes. They are where we started playing, where we play for fun, where we met our disc golf buddies, where we made our first birdie and where we compete in our weekly leagues. We're still a small sport. But we get more and more exposure. I believe in my heart that trying to sell Disc Golf as a poor cousin to ball golf is wrong. We are not in our element on a ball golf course. We should host our tournaments on our own courses, for the sake of the sport.

Some examples

Disc golf, as it is played today, is not really challenging enough. I am a 970-ish rated player. A couple of years back I shot even with Dave Feldberg over the first 36 holes on two different courses here in Sweden. They are both recognized, both have held large events. Dave is one of the best players in the world; I am a quite good amateur. The problem isn't our respective talents; the problem is that we weren't challenged. Last year I took the lead by two shots in the Swedish Championships after the first round. I'm not good enough to do that, but the course wasn't challenging enough to make that distinction. And finally, according to the stats on the DGWT-tour site I putted the best of all in European Masters 2016. Within the circle, that is. I had the same percentage as Ricky Wysocki? I'm not a bad putter, but this is more or less an insult to him. Now Järva is a challenging enough course, so Ricky came out on top and I placed waaay down in the field. Just as it should be.

The challenging courses

Järva in Stockholm, Nokia in Finland, Ale white course in Gothenburg and a few more. These are true championship courses that separates the top pros from the rest of the field. These are the venues where we are hosting our big events. This is how it should be. One problem though. Over 90% of our disc golf courses aren’t up to the challenge. Does that mean that we can't host tournaments on them? Again; no. We must do that. We must make our home courses challenging enough to host tournaments on. For the future of the sport. We can make them longer by adding a back tee. But in many cases this is not possible. We don't have room, we don't have the manpower and the economy to achieve that. We could add OB everywhere. Players like myself would then forever (finally) be out of contention. The diversity among disc golf pros would dwindle. It already has begun to do so. Elevating baskets and put ladders to the pole so that our junior players can retrieve their discs? That is just silly.

Conclusion (and hopefully debate)

If you approach the question ”should we make our targets smaller?” in this manner, I believe the answer must be ”YES!”. We could keep our courses just as they are. Our baskets could be modified in a way that would only cost us time and effort, not money. I for one am dying to try it out. I am guessing Jussi Meresmaa in Finland is thinking about these things to, it would be very interesting to hear his arguments for smaller targets. I would love to see some discussion about these subjects! We are, after all, discussing the future of our sport.