Memorial Drama

[Brall]

An article posted by PDGA that I found interesting.

Memorial Drama

TL;DR? I'll bold some good parts

The Memorial Championships presented by Discraft finally came to an end on Saturday after 4 long days of competitive play in Scottsdale and Fountain Hills. The Open divisions were the only ones who played a 4th round, and of those divisions only some of the players had a chance at cashing after 50% of the field was cut after Friday's round at Vista Del Camino.

Paige Pierce started the day with a 9 stroke lead over Valerie Jenkins, after 3 days of huge drives off the tee followed by excellent putting left her sitting at 12 under par. Catrina Ulibarri started the day in 4th place at 5 over par, which left her 5 strokes to gain for her to have a shot at 3rd place. She fought hard and outplayed Sarah Hokom for the round shooting a 957 rated –3 for the round, but missed a putt on the 18th hole that would have tied up the score. Paige never gave Valerie much of a chance to make a run at the lead and Val never gave Sarah and/or Catrina a chance at knocking her out of 2nd place. Paige took home the title after shooting -4 on the day, beating Val by 2 strokes and giving her an impressive 11 stroke victory.

The MPO division was….well…just crazy. Will Schusterick, Garrett Gurthie, Gregg Barsby, and Ricky Wysocki started the day on the lead card after great rounds all week put them all within a few strokes of each other. The second and third cards were stacked with all-stars as well. Nikko Locastro started the day on the third card after an unfortunate finish the day before. He took a 7 on the par 3 16th hole after back-to-back putts hit the chains, spit out, and rolled down the hill all the way to out of bounds. Nikko shot a 1087 rated –13 on Saturday and jumped all the way from the third card to finish 4th place for the tournament.

Gregg Barsby played great all 4 days of the tournament, including a 1093 rated round 1 on Wednesday at Vista Del Camino that put him on the lead card. His ability to throw precise and powerful forehands and backhands, combined with great upshots and putting, kept him within range of winning the tournament outright all week. In the end, he would finish 3rd overall after a 1059 rated final round and a grand total of -44 for the tournament.

"I knew I'd have to shoot in the 30's to catch him." Said Paul McBeth about Will Schusterick after the tournament ended. Think about that for a moment. How often do you think to yourself that you'll need to shoot in the 30's to catch someone. Probably never, because very few people would think to themselves they need to shoot 17 or 18 under par, and actually believe they can do it. McBeth followed through with his plan and birdied 17 out of the 18 holes on the course, breaking the course record and finishing with an 1126 rated round!

On the tee of the 18th hole, Will and everyone else around quickly caught wind of McBeth's record breaking round, which left him only 1 stroke off the lead when Will stepped up to tee off. The pressure was on and he needed a great drive to assure him the victory. With hundreds of people in the gallery lining the fairway, Will fearlessly crushed a midrange right at the basket, flying over almost 400' of water on a perfectly straight line before sliding straight towards the pin. He was left with a 15' putt for birdie, and hit it. He had won The Memorial for the first time and he celebrated with the other members of the Prodigy team.

I was just as happy as Will, because for me, it meant I could finally put down the phone and stop tweeting for the first time in 4 days. I sat down on the grass near hole 1's tee pad and was overjoyed to be finished. My enjoyment was quickly interrupted as dozens of people came rushing over to hole 1, yelling something about a sudden death playoff. What?! Why?! How?! Who?! More tweeting?!

Yes, more tweeting. In the excitement of winning, Will turned in his scorecard without adding up his strokes. For doing so, he took a 2 stroke penalty and was now tied at -48 with McBeth. The gallery swarmed hole 1 as Paul McBeth stepped up to the tee. Hole 1 is a 400' par 3 that requires an over the water shot to a basket sitting right up against the water's edge. Too short and you're wet. Too deep and you could skip OB, and even if you don't go OB, you still have a terrifying downhill approach towards the water. Paul played his drive long and safe, forcing Will to either do the same, or try to park it for the win.

Will opted for the latter. He put a backhand drive out over the water and after watching this hole dozens of times over the past few days, it was clear to me that he was on a perfect line. Spectators knew it too, and they started cheering for him while it was still in midair, fading towards the basket. It hit the ground about 30' off to the right of the target and softly skipped right up to the pin. Parked. McBeth played an upshot but landed short, and Will confidently ended the drama with a short putt for the sudden death victory.

Will would have been pretty upset with himself if he had lost, as the difference between 1st and 2nd place was $1100. It was one of the strangest but most exciting finishes I've ever seen. It's not often that someone who breaks a course record and shoots 17 under par finishes in 2nd place to begin with. And then for that player to get a chance at winning the tournament because the 1st place finisher forgot to add up his score…wow.

13x world champion Ken Climo took home 1st place in the Open Masters division with a convincing 9 stroke victory over the 3 different players who tied for 2nd place; Jonathan Baldwin, Phil Arthur, and Scottsdale local Rex Rogers. The surprisingly large field of 50 Open Grandmasters players was won by Jim Oates from Orange Vale, CA. He took down the title after winning by 13 strokes over 2nd place finisher Tim Keith from Trussville, AL.

The 2013 Memorial Championship was once again a fantastic tournament and a great way to start the National Tour series. Dan Ginnelly, Matt Warren, Keith Murray, and everyone else involved in running the event all deserve a big thank you for doing such a great job. Live tweeting and scoring will be back for the Texas State Championships starting on March 15th in Austin, TX.

What an exciting way to end the tournament!!

 

[apparition]

It's really important and obvious for people to realize that the "drama" comes from a PDGA tournament technicality. The PDGA needs to re-evaluate arbitrary stroke violations like this. Not all stroke violations are unreasonable, but this particular stroke violation is. Every single PDGA rule should be written and enforced with the intent of guaranteeing accurate and fair tournament results. Instead of unfair stroke violations that could very possibly lead to inaccurate tournament results, they should embrace an alternate penalty structure for non-play related infractions.

For example, Will should have been fined $25 for not writing his total down. $25 for the PDGA and the whole tournament isn't put on the line because of something that isn't related to how he performed.

 

[dashiellx]

It's really important and obvious for people to realize that the "drama" comes from a PDGA tournament technicality. The PDGA needs to re-evaluate arbitrary stroke violations like this. Not all stroke violations are unreasonable, but this particular stroke violation is. Every single PDGA rule should be written and enforced with the intent of guaranteeing accurate and fair tournament results. Instead of unfair stroke violations that could very possibly lead to inaccurate tournament results, they should embrace an alternate penalty structure for non-play related infractions.

For example, Will should have been fined $25 for not writing his total down. $25 for the PDGA and the whole tournament isn't put on the line because of something that isn't related to how he performed.

That's actually a pretty good idea.

 

[tbird888]

It's really important and obvious for people to realize that the "drama" comes from a PDGA tournament technicality. The PDGA needs to re-evaluate arbitrary stroke violations like this. Not all stroke violations are unreasonable, but this particular stroke violation is. Every single PDGA rule should be written and enforced with the intent of guaranteeing accurate and fair tournament results. Instead of unfair stroke violations that could very possibly lead to inaccurate tournament results, they should embrace an alternate penalty structure for non-play related infractions.

For example, Will should have been fined $25 for not writing his total down. $25 for the PDGA and the whole tournament isn't put on the line because of something that isn't related to how he performed.

If you think it's unfair now, I believe it used to be a DQ.

 

[DavidSauls]

I wouldn't view turning in a correct scorecard as a "technicality". It strikes me as an essential aspect in a sport where scores are kept by the players, not an official.

Should we change the rule just for certain players? Certain events? Certain places (1st place MPO only)?

Or across-the-board? As a TD, I'm not enamored with the idea of trying to collect $25 fines from the guys on the bottom Intermediate card.

 

[mj20300]

You are required to add up and verify your score, its not that hard to do.

 

[Halcón]

Not only is it not hard to do, but Will had time to mark it down, as seen in his video. He'll never do that again.

 

[tbird888]

Wasn't Phil caddying for him? This shouldn't have even been an issue.

 

[mattc]

You are required to add up and verify your score, its not that hard to do.

yep, take care of business first

 

[Chainchaser]

If you would have tuned in last night to the radio show you would have found out that Will totally owned that mistake and had nothing bad to say about the TD or anything else. He realized that it was his mistake and only his. I asked him if he would ever make that mistake again he emphatically said and I quote "NO". He said he let the side stuff get to him and had people check the scores but then just forgot to fill it in as he was just so excited with the win. I will have the podcast out this weekend.

 

[ru4por]

Most of these rules are obviously adopted from our ball counterpart. I agree, it does not seem unreasonable to penalize, with strokes, for inaccurate scorekeeping. This is a self scored sport and mistakes and intentional miscalculation must be treated the same. Could you imagine trying to interpret intent.
I was more confused by the author spending four days tweeting instead of watching.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Ball golf does not require scorecards to be added, just that the individual scores on holes be correct. The TD or scoring official is responsible for adding the scores. Wrong score on a hole is a DQ if it's lower than the correct value or you keep the score on the hole if it was entered higher than the correct value.

 

[Discwrangler]

You are required to add up and verify your score, its not that hard to do.

No it's not.

 

[joshmo65]

I just don't like how penalties effect your round rating. Especially penalties such as not totaling your score which doesn't have any impact on the score that you actually shot.

 

[Cgkdisc]

The mental game is part of your score. So small penalties not directly produced from your throws reflect that. Your rating indicates that the scores for some players will occasionally include dumb stuff. But I agree that penalties like par+4 on holes for being late may not reflect a player's throwing prowess. So that's why we drop rounds that are more than 2.5 standard deviations below their rating.

 

[_MTL_]

Ball golf has paid staff running events. Disc golf has volunteers.

Just my thought behind why a player should always have to total their score when in ball golf they don't.

 

[Cgkdisc]

It would be interesting to know if the USGA rule transitioned from players being required to total their scores to the current rule where they don't have to. Maybe there was an event in 1947 that Bill Hoosteric almost lost for not adding his scores that triggered their rule change?

 

[Rob Martin]

I wouldn't view turning in a correct scorecard as a "technicality". It strikes me as an essential aspect in a sport where scores are kept by the players, not an official.

Bingo.

 

[unclemercy]

alright another thread about this. wheres that one guy who makes threats to call us all names?

 

[JC17393]

I just don't like how penalties effect your round rating. Especially penalties such as not totaling your score which doesn't have any impact on the score that you actually shot.

Courtesy warnings/strokes count too, and they have nothing to do with how you shot either.

Fact is, the rules are there for everyone, and following them is a part of playing the game. If you can't comply with them, you take the penalties that you deserve. Just like if you don't want an OB penalty, you don't throw OB, if you don't want a scoring penalty, put your scores down properly and total your card correctly before turning it in. It really should be the absolute easiest penalty to avoid in the entire game.

I'm always disappointed when a rules violation occurs, there are always some people who wants to argue that the rule itself is wrong or unfair or "stupid". Good for Will owning the mistake and making no excuses. It's not as though this is a new rule or an obscure rule...it's been there for a long long time, and most players comply with it without even a second thought.

If you want an example of a truly obscure rule costing a player a tournament win, take a look at Dustin Johnson a couple years ago at the PGA Championship. He missed out on a playoff for the win because he took a 2-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker. Problem was that he wasn't aware that he was in a bunker. He was in a sandy area which were plentiful on that course. Just so happened that the course rule in place for the tournament was that all sandy areas were to be played as hazards. To his credit, he didn't whine and complain, he took his penalty and accepted responsibility. And there were no calls to have the course rules changed either.