Help Finding Discs in Tournaments

[davetherocketguy]

If the disc is not thrown off the course property than it is not out of bounds in my view. Water is not out of bounds, it is a hazard, as should be any overgrown or swampy areas that are contained within the course property.

No. We have a pond where swimming is not allowed. If it were a hazard then that means you have the option to play it where it lies with a stroke penalty. It has to be OB or the course gets pulled. We cannot have DG'ers fooling around in the water. So guess what, OB it is.

 

[Cgkdisc]

No. We have a pond where swimming is not allowed. If it were a hazard then that means you have the option to play it where it lies with a stroke penalty. It has to be OB or the course gets pulled. We cannot have DG'ers fooling around in the water. So guess what, OB it is.

Could be a Relief Area (806.04) instead which is just another form of a hazard, especially since players are presumably losing their disc in it.

 

[Jimb]

Ps: And don't start throwing around the word 'fair'. Using the word "fair" anywhere in a rules discussion is rife with ambiguity. "Fair" is in the eye of the beholder.

Could you explain this to my 5 year old? :clap:

 

[Karl]

Could you explain this to my 5 year old? :clap:

May the force be with you trying to explain ANYTHING to a 5 year old.

 

[ejvogie]

Still easier than getting Karen to understand she's not always right

 

[ru4por]

If the disc is not thrown off the course property than it is not out of bounds in my view. Water is not out of bounds, it is a hazard, as should be any overgrown or swampy areas that are contained within the course property. I know disc golf rules say differently, but that is where the problem lies. The areas of the course are not defined properly in disc golf and as a result the penalties often do not make sense. Stroke and distance should only be in effect when the disc leaves the confines of the course or a disc is lost outside of a hard to search area.

Golf courses are nearly always on private land. This is not true of disc golf courses. Often a park or municipality have designated sensitive ecological land, that they do not wish to have heavy traffic. Liability rules can be different as well.

 

[Steve West]

If the disc is not thrown off the course property than it is not out of bounds in my view. Water is not out of bounds, it is a hazard, as should be any overgrown or swampy areas that are contained within the course property. I know disc golf rules say differently, but that is where the problem lies. The areas of the course are not defined properly in disc golf and as a result the penalties often do not make sense. Stroke and distance should only be in effect when the disc leaves the confines of the course or a disc is lost outside of a hard to search area.

Since 2019, golf does not use the term "Hazard". They are now called Penalty Areas.

Since 2018, disc golf has used the term "Hazard" to mean an area where the thrower gets a penalty but plays from the lie.

I agree that water, swampy areas, etc. should not be in play. The only way for that to happen is for the TD to designate them as such. (I think that is the same as for golf.) By choosing between OB, Relief Area, and Casual Area, the TD can decide whether the result should include a penalty, and where the lie should be moved.

I know it really doesn't make sense to call the area where you take a penalty and move the lie outside the area "out of bounds". But, neither does calling each segment of the course a "hole". Maybe it's better to live with it than try to change it.

 

[biscoe]

Maybe it's better to live with it than try to change it.

Yep- while I wish the dg terminology lined up better with the golf terminology and believe that it would have been wise to have made it so from the get go that horse has left the barn, trotted up the road to the local bar and is sitting around enjoying a cocktail at this point.

 

[DavidSauls]

Wandering back from the discussion of what the playing rules should be, or even how they should be named, to the original question of whether the lead card in high-level tournaments has an unfair advantage because the gallery gives them an army of spotters and perhaps disc searchers:

It is an advantage.

But how much of one? How many lost disc penalties are being assessed on the cards lower in the field, and do they affect the outcomes in any significant way?

For the high-level events at which galleries might be present, don't they also tend to have spotters on blind shots and holes where discs are in greatest danger of being lost?

It seems to me that, even if you could craft a rule to prohibit help from the gallery, it would be another cure that's worse than the disease.

 

[Steve West]

I think any advantage of having more people to look for the disc is less than the other types of differing conditions that players face. These include weather, cardmates, delays, camera pressure, laxity of enforcement and on and on.

The way to deal with these is to have the players who are most nearly competitive with each other playing at the same time and on the same card. As long as each player is measured fairly against the players who are performing a little better or a little worse, then by the transitive property of inequality we will get the correct ranking.

And that's what a tournament is supposed to do. While it would be nice, we don't really need to measure the exact absolute difference in performance between the best player in the tournament and the worst.

As far as rules changes, one that would help would be to eliminate the needlessly double penalty for lost disc. Instead of adding two to the player's score and make them throw again, we could just add one to the score and make them throw again. Then, any advantage garnered from a preferentially-found disc would be reduced by a full throw.