The Community of Disc Golfers and About All Things Disc Golf

The True Definition of "Bagger"

I just went onto the PDGA website to look up a local player who recently won a tournament. The tournament wasn't listed with his information so I then looked up the actual tournament results. What was disturbing was that the guy who won the Advanced division would have placed second in the Open division. The guy who won the Advanced Masters division would have won outright the Pro Masters division. Maybe they are just afraid of cash. Or they don't like a challenge. I don't get it.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Disc nut on August 1, 2011 at 6:38am

looks like he played in the right division. just because you win doesnt mean your a bagger. Hes rated a 945 thats a advanced player.

Permalink Reply by Bruce Brakel on July 30, 2011 at 8:06pm

A bagger intentionally jiggers his rating down to play in a lower division, or doesn't join and plays tournaments where the TD does not have the cahones to ban non-members from inappropriate divisions. A member who is playing where his rating allows is not a bagger. And an advanced player who chooses not to play for cash is not the true definition of bagger; he is the true definition of amateur.

Permalink Reply by Jim Coonradt on July 31, 2011 at 12:36am

Well then it must have been a helluva day and I hope that both those players move up soon. Maybe the ratings system just isn't very good at reflecting player's true talent. Both players would have placed second and fourth respectively if they had both chosen to play in the Open division. And they would have beat a field of quality players, some of which I have personally watched play previously. Maybe they are just very fast learners.

I guess what is strange about the whole situation is that in ball golf players are always trying to reach that next level, so they wouldn't even consider staying in an amateur status unless they were attending college or something. There are a few guys like that playing in the PGA and Nationwide tours, although they are competing directly against the pros as a way of testing themselves. Here we have guys with obvious talent who just wipe the competition in the amateur division. I realize that entry fees are higher for the pro divisions but if you have that much talent you will probably more than make up for it by winning or placing in the cash a few times. Just saying, it's kinda like playing baseball against the little leaguers. You have to challenge yourself. I haven't played tournaments since before they even had the current ratings system. And although I never won anything in the Advanced division I decided at some point to move up to the Open division as a way of pushing myself. And it did help my game as well. Now I compete only in the local league but I believe that those previous experiences of playing against the best players was indeed a great learning experience for me.

Permalink Reply by Shawn Boucké on July 31, 2011 at 6:43am

If they play like they did at the tournament all the time, they will be moving up without question. They are only able to play in Ams because they obviously don't play like that normally.

definitely a "helluna day"

Permalink Reply by Jay Dub on July 31, 2011 at 8:12am

You could try just playing golf, enjoying it and not worry so much what others are doing.

Permalink Reply by Dusty L. Kerr on August 1, 2011 at 5:59pm

Not worried about ourselves but new players that is what makes disc golf grow

Permalink Reply by Kent on July 31, 2011 at 9:01am

I played in a non-sanctioned tournament last year, (which I knew I had no shot of even placing), but the guy that won our division beat everyone by 17 strokes, and after everything was done, admitted playing down to save ten dollars. He would have taken first in the open division by 1 stroke. And the guy he took the stack of plastic from in the advanced division was his brother. That is the definition of a "BAGGER", sandbagger and douchebagger.

Permalink Reply by Justin NUDGA#15 on July 31, 2011 at 12:28pm

We all know who the local baggers are. They are baggers before the competitoin starts. We cant call the winners baggers unless they were baggers before they won. We all have great days. Its all hind-sight.

Permalink Reply by David Sauls on August 1, 2011 at 11:29am

I think we should scour the results for Open players who have really bad tournaments, and force them to move down to Intermediate. Sure, they may be very good most of the time, but they're obviously capable of playing 910-rated golf when everything falls apart.

Permalink Reply by Jim Coonradt on August 1, 2011 at 2:25pm

I don't believe that Amateur divisions were meant to be a place that you should "park" yourself in for several years. It should be a division that you are in until you get better and move up. I personally don't get the mentality of wanting to stay in a division just because you think that you can consistently win in it. And I am definitely not saying that anyone who played that tournament was doing that. For me I was very motivated to move up to the Open division because that is where all of my friends were playing and I wanted to challenge myself. Now people may have said bad things about me for doing so but I know that it did indeed improve my game. For me it was definitely the correct decision.

I also realize that it is hard to just look at results from a single tournament and try to draw conclusions. And maybe the rating system doesn't do a very good job of reflecting ability. After all, our local player who won that tournament, Jordan Cowles, is still listed at exactly the same rating as he was before the tournament. Surely his rating went up. Maybe all of this is just a symptom of the fact that disc golf just has not made it yet, that if disc golf was a bigger sport like ball golf we would have completely separate tournaments for the best players. Obviously we can't do that now as a sport because we just don't have enough participants. Also the payouts just aren't great enough to draw people from all over like they do in ball golf.

Permalink Reply by David Sauls on August 1, 2011 at 3:30pm

People play in tournaments, and choose a division to play in, for a great variety of different reasons. Not everyone is working their way up to Open. In fact, there are a lot of tournament players who will never reach Open---perhaps for physical limitations, perhaps time limitations, perhaps because they just don't care to.

I've rare seen anyone park in a division and keep winning it, especially outside age-protected divisions. I have seen fast-rising players linger for a year, in a points series or staying amateur to go to AmWorlds, but that's about it. (Fortunately, where I live we don't have the non-PDGA-member local baggers that perhaps other regions have).

Permalink Reply by MonTTy #794 on August 1, 2011 at 5:33pm

Coonradt you need to lay off these guys. The Am1 guy had never won in Advanced before and the Adv Masters guy was only playing in his 3rd event. Certainly not baggers, their ratings and history shows that. I like seeing players have "break out" rounds and events, it's inspiring and keeps the sport interesting. Calling them out in public is a big mistake as well.