Certifying courses, is there an inspection process? Local officials?

[Bob Horning]

PDGA is closed for the weekend, other wise I would call them and ask. As many of you know I'm building the third course to the Gold Tee standards in the PDGA rule books. How does one actually get the course certified, by local PDGA officials?
Thanks,

[Greg_R]

There is no certification or process for certification. There are certifications and standards for the targets (baskets) that you use. Higher tier tournaments strongly encourage the use of standard targets (i.e. not a mix of different types of baskets). You can add your course to the PDGA course directory along with information (cost to play, course pro / contact, hole lengths, etc.).

A few years ago there was a course evaluation committee with very detailed evaluation procedures and documents. That group has pretty much died off but I still have access to all the documentation. I'd be happy to come out, walk the course and go through that old evaluation procedure. Note that this covers overall course quality (amenities on and around the course, location, etc.). A great gold course should ensure separation of scores between each division as well as between top and local pros. A fine line must be walked between "huck and pray" holes vs skill holes (i.e. skill separates the players, not luck). The only way to really get a good handle on the course is to hold a few tournaments and analyze the hole-by-hole results. If everyone in a division is shooting the same score on a hole then something should be done to create some separation. At Milo McIver, yearly incremental improvements were made after multiple years of holding the tournaments and analyzing the results.

If you are interested in the old course evaluation, shoot me a PM...

Greg Ruhl