Define "Professional" Disc Golfer

[ChrisWoj]

The whole statement is worse bud.

What they should be paid, we agree on.

What they are and what they call themselves is a professional soccer league. You calling that a mockery is you mocking them, and not respecting them as professional athletes.

I am sorry that I didn't pull your full quote, I figured you would be able to see the error in your ways, but your opinion seems to be the only one that matters.

I said that what they are being paid is what is making a mockery of their calling it a professional league. If you can't see how an abomination of a pay-scale would make something a mockery of what it espouses itself to be in that way - you're just plain short on reading comprehension.

As was stated earlier referring to baseball or football in the 1930s/1950s - When much of your league is composed of people who can not put their entire focus on their craft, and instead is stuck working side gigs like house cleaning or packing up Amazon boxes, and stuck competing against people who can spend their entire year training: that is not a league composed entirely of professional athletes. That statement is not misogynistic, misogynistic would be saying that that is how it should be. Misogynistic would be saying that these women DESERVE to be paid like something less than professionals. They compose themselves to the extent they can as professionals, but their pay scale simply does not allow it. Calling attention to the way that a league LIES about what it is so that the problem can be solved is not misogyny.

 

[Ahildy13]

I said that what they are being paid is what is making a mockery of their calling it a professional league. If you can't see how an abomination of a pay-scale would make something a mockery of what it espouses itself to be in that way - you're just plain short on reading comprehension.

You are the only person calling it a mockery though, which seems to be what you are missing.

I don't know what to tell you beyond that you are wrong.

You're a professional disc golfer! Take it and be happy!

Don't put down others because you're not good enough for your own high standards, and don't mock women because they get paid less than their male counterparts.

 

[ChrisWoj]

You are the only person calling it a mockery though, which seems to be what you are missing.

I don't know what to tell you beyond that you are wrong.

You're a professional disc golfer! Take it and be happy!

Don't put down others because you're not good enough for your own high standards, and don't mock women because they get paid less than their male counterparts.

I'm not mocking women. At no point in anything I've stated have I mocked women. I made the mistake of making it an edit, so I'll restate it here:

As was stated earlier referring to baseball or football in the 1930s/1950s - When much of your league is composed of people who can not put their entire focus on their craft, and instead is stuck working side gigs like house cleaning or packing up Amazon boxes, and stuck competing against people who can spend their entire year training: that is not a league composed entirely of professional athletes. That statement is not misogynistic, misogynistic would be saying that that is how it should be. Misogynistic would be saying that these women DESERVE to be paid like something less than professionals. They compose themselves to the extent they can as professionals, but their pay scale simply does not allow it. Calling attention to the way that a league LIES about what it is so that the problem can be solved is not misogyny.

 

[Ahildy13]

I'm not mocking women. At no point in anything I've stated have I mocked women. I made the mistake of making it an edit, so I'll restate it here:

As was stated earlier referring to baseball or football in the 1930s/1950s - When much of your league is composed of people who can not put their entire focus on their craft, and instead is stuck working side gigs like house cleaning or packing up Amazon boxes, and stuck competing against people who can spend their entire year training: that is not a league composed entirely of professional athletes. That statement is not misogynistic, misogynistic would be saying that that is how it should be. Misogynistic would be saying that these women DESERVE to be paid like something less than professionals. They compose themselves to the extent they can as professionals, but their pay scale simply does not allow it. Calling attention to the way that a league LIES about what it is so that the problem can be solved is not misogyny.

:wall:

No one besides you is using the word mockery, or saying that people are lying about being professionals.

It was your choice to bring those ideas into play. I have been consistent. If you make money playing a sport you are a professional.

I'm sorry that some sports don't pay enough for you. That doesn't mean calling them professionals is mocking other professionals.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Winning $50 at the local C Tier does not make you a pro. I don't care what the PDGA says. To call that professional is just absurd especially after reviewing the dictionary definition of professional.

Professional means making a living at it - at the very least.

Its really this simple: If you aren't making a living as a direct result of whatever activity or task you are not a professional at said activity.

/Thread

-Dave

 

[ChrisWoj]

You are the only person calling it a mockery though, which seems to be what you are missing.

I don't know what to tell you beyond that you are wrong.

You're a professional disc golfer! Take it and be happy!

Don't put down others because you're not good enough for your own high standards, and don't mock women because they get paid less than their male counterparts.

Frankly - I'm starting to wonder if you actually understand how the term "to make a mockery of" is used.

For example: when a player in the NBA is consistently using the rip-through move to draw completely idiotic looking fouls a broadcaster may state: "he is making a complete mockery of the rules!"

That broadcaster is not attempting to "mock" the rules of the sport. That broadcaster is not speaking ill of the rulebook. The broadcaster is speaking ill of the person "making" a mockery.

In the case of the NWSL, the LEAGUE and the LEAGUE'S PAY SCALE are what I am speaking ill of, not the players. The very article that you swiped your quote about the pay scale from is specifically speaking to how absolutely awful the pay scale is. The players in the NWSL themselves would agree that the league is making a mockery of the idea that it is a purported to be a professional league when the league can't even PAY them a professional wage. Absolutely none of that is disparaging of the players who are trying to be professional players, nor is it disparaging of their skill, nor is it disparaging of what they deserve to earn.

The target of the phrase is the league itself, a league which is woefully underpaying the players and is completely deserving of mockery for the way it is underpaying the players.

 

[ChrisWoj]

Winning $50 at the local C Tier does not make you a pro. I don't care what the PDGA says. To call that professional is just absurd especially after reviewing the dictionary definition of professional.

Professional means making a living at it - at the very least.

Its really this simple: If you aren't making a living as a direct result of whatever activity or task you are not a professional at said activity.

/Thread

-Dave

I think a lot of this comes from people placing wayyyy too much importance on the way the NCAA does/did things, which is relatively meaningless - it is the choice of one particular organizing body. The NCAA set particular limits on a concept that, for the longest time, was purely related to whether someone was a hobbyist vs earned a living at something. The size and influence of the NCAA has turned their idea of amateurism into the definition people choose to use, despite the fact that even the NCAA has changed their standards frequently decade over decade.

 

[jupiterboy]

It means you gettin' paid.

 

[discerdoo]

So I'm thinking about entering a tourney as MP60. Pretty sure I can take some money off the old dudes so I'm pretty sure I'm a pro.

Fight me about it.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I don't think the word pro is misapplied, it's the word amateur that's misapplied. The more encompassing pro definition would seem to be a competitor expecting to be compensated for their competition performance from the purse and/or their sponsors. The compensation can be cash, credits or merchandise with a tangible value. The only amateurs are players who compete for no prizes of tangible value and/or decline them if they win them.

The tradition for sports to define pros as those who play for cash and ams as those who don't has evolved, perhaps not intentionally, by using revenue generated from equipment sales and fees from "amateurs" and not returning full value to them as prizes, as one way to finance the pyramidal competition structure of each sport. It's not necessarily good or bad, just the way it has been in many sports.

Disc golf organically developed a twist on this traditional sports model by labeling our pro "merch prizes only" divisions "amateurs" as the sports industry's acceptable competition financing mechanism. Our "amateurs" have really been more like minor league pros than traditional amateurs in other sports, even at the recreational level, who played for no or few tangible rewards during school years.

Disc golf is unusual in that it started with adults playing as "pros" for cash and has been "Steady"ly working to devolve its way back to truer amateurism with school age play. Of course, new rules allowing NIL compensation for college athletes will eventually destroy any remaining amateurism in major sports until those athletes age into adult recreational softball and tennis leagues.

 

[sidewinder22]

Ken Climo - Semi Pro

 

[davetherocketguy]

So I'm thinking about entering a tourney as MP60. Pretty sure I can take some money off the old dudes so I'm pretty sure I'm a pro.

Fight me about it.

Nahhh...I'll just laugh near you about it

 

[foxdawg10]

Ken Climo - Semi Pro

They all were in that era. The Winnie Crew were some of the first folks who toured full time, and that lasted only until Feldy and Todd Branch went back to school.

 

[trashmonster1985]

Ken Climo - Semi Pro

Exactly, based off that definition there are about 15 "real" professional frisbee golfers.
This might be the dumbest thread I've seen on this site. Yall are arguing over nothing.

 

[coupe]

Winning $50 at the local C Tier does not make you a pro. I don't care what the PDGA says. To call that professional is just absurd especially after reviewing the dictionary definition of professional.

Professional means making a living at it - at the very least.

Its really this simple: If you aren't making a living as a direct result of whatever activity or task you are not a professional at said activity.

/Thread

Consult a better dictionary.

Professional, noun

a person who engages in some art, sport, etc. for money, esp. as a means of livelihood, rather than as a hobby - Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

[NB: "esp. as a means of livelihood," ergo, "making a living" is NOT integral to the definition of "professional."]

engaging in an activity for gain or as a means of livelihood - Collins English Dictionary.
HarperCollins Publishers

[NB: "or as a means of livelihood," ergo, "making a living" is NOT integral to the definition of "professional."]

: participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs; engaged in by persons receiving financial return -- Merriam-Webster

[NB" "or livelihood,' zergo, "making a living" is NOT integral to the definition of "professional."]

Nothing in the definition requires one to make a living as a direct result of participating in an activity in order to be a professional, only that one participate for gain.

That's apart from the adjectival definition of "professional:

(1) characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession
(2) exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace Merriam-Webster

And, since it wouldn't be a proper discussion without a comparison to ball golf … per the USGA Rule 2, by definition, simply entering a golf competition as a professional makes one a professional.

 

[Three Putt]

Ken Climo - Semi Pro

They all were in that era. The Winnie Crew were some of the first folks who toured full time, and that lasted only until Feldy and Todd Branch went back to school.

Basically in our (disc golf's) case, we aspire to being a professional sport with a "faked it 'til we made it" attitude.

I mean you couldn't make a living playing disc golf in the early 90's. Period. End of sentence. Disc golf had a "Professional" tour in name and a dream that one day it would grow so that someday that tour would actually be a professional tour that could financially support a large group of individuals playing disc golf.

The deep payout schedule always reflected that; otherwise you could have payed out top 10% instead of half the field. You pay out deep to keep a lot of people on the road; otherwise it makes no sense. It didn't make sense for a really long time. (It still makes no sense for Am divisions, but that's another story.)

Despite the fact that it was impossible to do, people always tried. The Winnie Crew got a lot of attention because the Internet popped up and they posted a diary of what they were doing, but R. J. Jerez and Harold Hampton were in a car rolling around the country in '96; they ran out of money and stayed with/worked for Dave McCormack for a few weeks that summer. Davey Mac was known for that; he was single and owned a construction company, so if you were a disc golfer on the road and needed to make some dough he would put you up and put you to work. Geoff and Johnny Lissaman were doing that in '99; they helped me design a temp course for a B Tier while they were in town.

'99 was far from the first time Geoff and Johnny Lissaman hopped in a car and rolled across the country for the summer. Ron Russell had been driving that blue van across the country for several years by then. Gregg Hosfeld had been on the road for over a decade by then (though he did the juggling/comedy thing and that probably paid more of his bills than disc golf).

That's barely scratching the surface; everybody knew the "professional" disc golf thing was a facade, but there were always guys out there on the road, livin' the dream. They all straggled home at some point and had to get a real job, but they were out there.

 

[Countchunkula]

I also want to mention that back when it mattered (before the USA decided it wanted to ship NBA players around the world stomping on other countries in the Olympics) an amateur was only an amateur until they took their first cash for play. In almost every sport. Then they were deemed Professionals, period, and unable to compete in amateur athletics. They didn't have to make a living at it - only to take some money.

That wasn't exactly true for all countries. Weren't all of the Soviet Olympians majors and colonels in the red army? There service consisted of training year round for their event and taking the occasional photo in uniform. The were very much professional athletes.

 

[davetherocketguy]

Winning $50 at the local C Tier does NOT make you a pro FFS. That's absurd.

engaged in a specified activity as one's main paid occupation rather than as a pastime.

There's you're definition.

 

[dehaas]

I don't think the word pro is misapplied, it's the word amateur that's misapplied. The more encompassing pro definition would seem to be a competitor expecting to be compensated for their competition performance from the purse and/or their sponsors. The compensation can be cash, credits or merchandise with a tangible value. The only amateurs are players who compete for no prizes of tangible value and/or decline them if they win them.

The tradition for sports to define pros as those who play for cash and ams as those who don't has evolved, perhaps not intentionally, by using revenue generated from equipment sales and fees from "amateurs" and not returning full value to them as prizes, as one way to finance the pyramidal competition structure of each sport. It's not necessarily good or bad, just the way it has been in many sports.

Disc golf organically developed a twist on this traditional sports model by labeling our pro "merch prizes only" divisions "amateurs" as the sports industry's acceptable competition financing mechanism. Our "amateurs" have really been more like minor league pros than traditional amateurs in other sports, even at the recreational level, who played for no or few tangible rewards during school years.

Disc golf is unusual in that it started with adults playing as "pros" for cash and has been "Steady"ly working to devolve its way back to truer amateurism with school age play. Of course, new rules allowing NIL compensation for college athletes will eventually destroy any remaining amateurism in major sports until those athletes age into adult recreational softball and tennis leagues.

Simple fix then would be for the PDGA to ditch the payout requirements for am divisions and make them trophy only? If you want to compete for prizes you play open. Simple as that, right?

 

[Cgkdisc]

Simple fix then would be for the PDGA to ditch the payout requirements for am divisions and make them trophy only? If you want to compete for prizes you play open. Simple as that, right?

Horse left the barn on that many years ago as I pointed out. Little chance that will ever become a requirement, just remain an option for TDs if they want to run that format, more likely for charity events.