USDGC

[CEValkyrie]

I almost forgot about the USDGC until Kenny posted on his facebook the other night. I just checked and there were 185 players last year and only 123 this year. I feel bad for Jason Poole who tried to qualify on Monday. They took the standard 5. I'm not sure how many people tried to qualify Monday but they should have let them all play.

Does anyone have the actual scores that they shot? I see projected and +/- but have no idea what the players acutally shot. I'm assuming Wiggins shot a 61 and Feldberg shot a 56. This is just the craziest format to me. A player shot a 92 the first round and is in the top 20. I wish they had a separate page for their stroke scores.

Please give me back the old USDGC 

[pdga#7648]

yes Brett. Feldberg shot 56. whatever they are -/+ that is -/+ their projected score

[tacimala]

I think it's a pretty cool format and a good way to reward people for playing up to their potential. Obviously a lot of us will never have the chance to play the real USDGC. Definitely not comparable though and almost should just be called something else entirely.

[Tafe Hemler]

Total # of players was kept down this year, they only wanted 120 or so, but a 3-way tie let in 3 more.  J Poole figured that the rounds are going to take longer this year (a safe assumption) hence the smaller field.

[Dan Michler]

Agreed Taylor.

Its interesting to see that 2 elite players, Feldberg and Wiggins, are at the top.  I think it says something for them knowning the course better than the amateurs.  Another factor might be that the course pushes you mentally more than the amateur players would have ever experienced before.  These advantages might be lessened in the later rounds.

[DiscGolfSchodt]

I saw Kenny on the disc golf guys vlog, and he said the first round was six hours long.

[Tafe Hemler]

Dana is tied for 4th w/ Feldberg heading into the final round tomorrow!  Go IL!

[dana]

If you can stomach it, watch the final video that is posted on pdga.com

Talk about some lead card action...

[Dan Michler]

If you can stomach it, watch the final video that is posted on pdga.com

Talk about some lead card action...

Only watched the 1st hole of coverage.  Ha, good stuff!  Folks he is stuck in the rafters....I especially enjoyed the 20 foot putt from the fairway.

You had to feel like superman in that group.

[stpitner]

After looking at the information about this tournament - I don't understand why this isn't a completely different tournament at a completely different time.  It's just a tournament with handicapping.  It completely changes EVERYTHING that was associated with the USDGC.  I'm happy that Spencer took advantage of this layout and finished in 2nd.  "Performance Edition" doesn't mean squat other than "we decided we wanted to screw with your brains when you think about the USDGC."  Honestly I'd say that in that format it doesn't deserve the title of United States Disc Golf Championship.

I guess that explains why I don't see Doss or Locastro's names on the list of contenders - unless Innova limited it to only Innova sponsored players.

Now it makes sense to me why these results aren't on PDGA.com.  They way they display the results are completely different.

I'd be ok if this was an AM event, not one of the top premiere M-Tier events on the calendar.  What if I play a couple tournaments before the last ratings update before this event and tank on purpose to get my rating lower just so that I can get a higher "expected" score?  yuck.

[Dan Michler]

Honestly I'd say that in that format it doesn't deserve the title of United States Disc Golf Championship.

I totally agree Scott.  Not sure why they kept the USDGC title for this event.  They should have stuck with the original statement that USDGC was happening every other year (which is the truth), and renamed the handicapped event.  Maybe then there wouldn't be so many angry pros ripping this event that really has nothing to do with the real USDGC.

[Bruce Brakel]

The USGA has a national handicap championship that my father used to play sometimes.  They don't call it the US Open.  My dad used to complain that a lot of players bagged their handicap just for this one tournament. 

As to Scott's question, the Innova/PDGA handicap tournament uses your highest rating in the 12 months before you qualified, or something like that, so it is hard to bag your rating unless you make a two-year goal of it. 

[stpitner]

ok, so they at least tried to get around the bagging issue.  However, even in the emails that I'm receiving from the PDGA from their weekly news update they are calling it the USDGC.  They chop off the "Performance Edition".  That right there is why they need to NOT CALL IT THE USDGC.  It's just begging for mockery of the sport to advertise that an 880-rated player won it all.  Someone that doesn't know the system would think that 900 would be the highest you could get rated or something like that.  It's just really silly.

[pickax]

Interesting...

http://www.usdgc.com/01/05/usdgc-has-best-of-both-worlds

Looks like the state coordinator no longer gets to send a player to the real USDGC, only the pseudo-USDGC.

[Bruce Brakel]

I suspect that this is not a long-term thing.  Innova is underwriting Charlotte Worlds and they probably needed to make room in their budget.  They took off 2011 and may take off 2013 from running the real USDGC, but I suspect that after that they will be done with the whacky r-USDGC concept.   The r-USDGC is really just a placeholder because it has been the Board's position that so long as Innova wants to throw money at the USDGC it is theirs, and the same with Discraft and USADGC, and Oldman/PFC and USWDGC for that matter, but he retired from that.  Now that the Board is packed with Innova pros, Innova could probably do alternating years indefinitely, but it has to be just as embarrassing to Harold as to the rest of us. 

This will be like that brief time period during Captain Kirk's era when Klingons did not have bony forehead ridges.