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I wish we could end the thread on that post.
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Nikko LoCastro intimidating a PDGA official at European Open '22
- Thread starter zenbot
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I wish we could end the thread on that post.
Talented juniors, in my experience, seem to often have a tough time keeping their cool after bad shots. I get it. They have all this talent and no frontal lobe and harbor the unrealistic expectation that good outcomes are supposed to be the result all the time. We have worked very hard on my son's mental game. My wife is a school psychologist with 25 years of experience and with her techniques and experience it's still not easy to keep it under control 100% of the time.
I've witnessed some tantrums from others too. There were a few bad ones at worlds, pretty ugly. I use that as a learning opportunity for my own son, along the lines of, "See how awful that looks? Pretty embarrassing, isn't it?"
I've talked with many other fathers who say the same thing about their own kids, how much of a struggle the mental game is for them, especially how it's really bad when just the two of them are playing alone. It helps to have strangers along on the card in my experience.
In one particular instance, a kid at worlds spiked his hat and sunglasses real hard on the tee after an errant drive. Another cardmate (who was well behaved the entire time I saw him) got together and whispered with my son that they wanted it to stop because it was starting to affect their concentration and he actually approached the tantrum-thrower and gave a warning. It stopped for the rest of the round.
The best and most long-lasting single instance technique I used with my own son about two months ago was when I actually levied a penalty stroke against him in a casual round. Since we both are very close talent-wise right now, the competition we have is just about perfect (his record against me this year is 20-25-3 thus far...just a year ago he beat me 9 times all year out of over 100 rounds), and that penalty stroke really stung for him.
It's by far the hardest aspect of having a talented 6th-grader who has 350' golf lines in him. All the time we share playing the greatest game ever is far and away worth the work we've put in on this issue.
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Too late to edit some more, coffee now reaching my own frontal lobe. The ex-high school newspaper editor in me really wants to swap the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs with each other!
uncle pennybags
Double Eagle Member
I don't know how it is where you are, but around here we play full contact Disc Golf. We even have defense in the putting zone! It's a lot like disc golf, football, and hockey had a baby.
I'll tell you one thing, it gets heated on the field during some rounds!!! If we had some sort of umpire or ref it would be soooooo much better. We'd have someone to take out our frustrations on when a play goes poorly!
biscoe
* Ace Member *
I think the current Disciplinary Standards are 3 years old... maybe just 2 even. Either way they were redone not long ago to replace stuff that was much less transparent and much more vague. Change has come fast in disc golf however.
Obviously a suspension has more direct financial impact on a touring pro than any other class of player. They also see more benefit from playing disc golf than any other group of players. I don't really buy that any of them have any real right to play disc golf for a living so have little sympathy for someone who squanders the privilege based on behavior that wouldn't be tolerated from a 6 year old.
I wonder what the outcome would have been had the incident occurred in a DGPT event rather than a PDGA administered Major. DGPT will need its own disciplinary process soon enough. I think when that time comes there is a fairly good chance the players have some say in its structure.
My guess is there will be some sort of touring player's association within just a few years and a TD's association in roughly the same time frame.
biscoe
* Ace Member *
And it would stop in most cases in pro groups with the same process.
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I bowled competitively growing up. Travel tourneys, scholarship money and all that. I bowled against (and got stomped by) many of the guys my age that have bowled on ESPN or Fox.
I got to this place where I'd not get a strike that I felt I deserved and throw my towel, kick around my bag, or maybe even kick the ball return. I was maybe 15 or so and I was bowling in this tournament. I absolutely stuffed the pocket and left a solid 9 pin. I'm on the approach to throw my spare and the lane malfunctions and the deck drops around my 2nd or 3rd step. I turn around and walk back and I slammed my ball back into the rack, knocking 2 or 3 balls (of my competitors) off the rack. Not totally sure who made the call, but I got yanked from the tournament. Even though I was in a decent spot to cash some scholarship money.
That definitely stuck with me.
joshmo65
Eagle Member
As a tournament director for a couple of B-tiers and an upcoming Silver Series event, if a player got up in my face after a ruling and threatened me, I'm done TDing. We are volunteers. We give up our time to provide a service to the community and I don't want to have it spent getting yelled at and threatened over a one stroke penalty. If this becomes the norm because the suspension was too lenient, I expect many tournament directors would be packing up shop for elite series events catering to the top pros. Good luck having a tour without volunteer TDs.
biscoe
* Ace Member *
I am also a Silver Series TD and feel exactly the same way.
biscoe
* Ace Member *
One of the headlines on CBS Sports this morning: "Watson discloses length of suspension he would accept."
Yeah, slamming competitors' balls is a no no in every sport.
I can understand that the tour may need its own disciplinary process. That's about all I've picked up on. I'd like to hear what process PM (or others not named BGC) would consider reasonable. What does "transparency mean?
ballgolfconvert
Eagle Member
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99% of all tournament volunteers would have never called the penalty in this situation and never would have been with the same group for such a long period of time. Or do we now have a precedent where every time someone issues a time warning you need an official in their group for the rest of the round. Going to need a whole bunch of officials. Or they could they could allow the warning to expire after a couple holes of good times and official could be using their time with the rest of the field.
dashiellx
* Ace Member *
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All good suggestions. Personally, I think there should be an official on every basket or card at the pro level. I mean, we're dealing with people's livelihoods. They should want profession officials.
99% of tournament volunteers cannot make the call. The solution is not to warn players and send out officials. The solution is for players to follow the rules. A concept you and Nikko seem to view as foreign. You continue to insinuate the rule was the catalyst, of the hideous display from Nikko. NO.....Nikko is fully to blame. There is no part of his adolescent tantrum, that can be parse out for deflection.
You simply have NO idea how a disc golf tournament is run. You seem to have NO idea what the principles, etiquette or appropriate behavior should be. You don't have any idea of what positions volunteers fill and the roles they play.
Your continued obtuse postulation for attention is thread barren.
seedlings
* Ace Member *
Maybe some day we'll hear an interview from that official to get a sense of his recollection of the incident.
_MTL_
Flippy Flopper
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Let's explore this from a fiscal standpoint.
First off, every card is simply not efficient. Every hole is the best option.
Currently at pro tour events there are two types of officials - full time PDGA staff members and contracted officials. My job description and the four of us on the competition team, well marshalling is part of our gig. Written in our job descriptions. So our salary covers over compensation.
There's 4 of us, so if we have one per hole, we need 14 people. This also assumes that the course is 18 holes (De La isn't) and the event only has one course being played at the same time (Ledgestone currently doesn't).
Assuming we want quality, the officials cannot be volunteers. Most areas, if not all areas, simply don't have 14 people who have run high level events that have the knowledge of all the nuances of marshaling and these big events. Even a TD who has run hundreds of A tiers still would need training as rules are different in ES and Majors. Also, A salary holds our contractors accountable. I know what the contacted officials make per day and am not going to disclose, but let's assume $10 / hour for the sake of simple math. 12 hour day, so $120 a day. Assuming 18 holes and 1 course, we are now at $1,680 in expenses per day.
Pro tour events are 3 days, sometimes 4. Majors are 4 days, sometimes 5. So let's say 4 days on average. $6,720 per event for 14 officials. But with extra holes and multiple courses, that figure is probably $10,000.
Since we know we can't get 14 people locally, we have to bring them in. When you are asked to travel for work do you sleep on someone's couch? Nope, hotel. Well, you also have to get there at earliest a day earlier to learn the event rules and the hole you are officiating. You also likely are learning the entire course in case you need to fill in for someone else.
A hotel is about $150 a night, $175 with taxes and fees. 18 people (remember, the four of us full timers aren't factored into the equation above, but would be for this) at 5 nights = $15,750.
Total investment thus far = $25,750
Now, you got to get there. Airfare and a rental car for a week is probably about $1500 a person. 18 people = $27,000
Total investment thus far = $52,750
And now we get into meal stipends. This averages about $60-70 a day, depending on where you are going. So we will say $65. 18 people, 5 days = $5,850
Total investment per event to have an official on every card = $58,600
There are 19 stops on elite and majors. That means this idea would cost $1,113,400.
Where does this come from?!? The entire PDGA Budget was $5,170,534 and this includes EVERYTHING the PDGA does.
Added cash? The only events with more than $52K added so far are Champions Cup, Ledgestone and European Open.
I agree that 18 officials is the future. But we aren't even remotely close and it's simply ill-informed to suggest otherwise.
This has been an issue as long as I've been playing disc golf. Disc golf has always done the "fake it 'til you make it" thing where it always tries to give off the appearance of being bigger than it is. So when you have your Million Dollar McBeth and the DGPT and all theses things, the perception is that the PDGA is a) bigger than it is and b) has a lot more resources at its disposal than it does. On the one hand, you want that perception when you are digging for sponsorship. You want companies to think they are signing on to a big deal. The flip side is that it bites you when people expect the PDGA to be a lot closer to their perception that it it. The current rapid growth of the sport makes it almost impossible to gauge where the PDGA is from day to day, which makes it even harder for the general disc golf public to be informed. Thanks for providing some data to help clarify that.
18 or more officials per event is very distant future. Not really worth discussing at this point IMO.
But, maybe there are some creative solutions/possibilities. What are the problems that need solving?
Foot faults?
Accurate lie determination particularly related to OB
Mando observation?
And TIME?
Other "issues"? OBs and mandos while imperfect don't seem to be causing a lot of conflict.
Foot faults? Seems to be a pretty minimal problem adequately addressed by mostly ignoring it IMO. Players do make mistakes, but the good faith effort seems pretty consistent with good sportsmanship.
So, back to the TIME issue and pace of play.
Turns out, it's both subjective and objective. Nobody wants to see someone have to rush in to deep rough and throw a crap shot trying to beat the clock.
But 30 seconds seems really long when the lie is open and the stance doesn't require cirque de sol.
What we have been told about the EO is that players were made aware that time would be monitored. Subsequently a warning was issued. Later a SINGLE one stroke penalty.
I don't get the drama and claims that DG has this significant rules enforcement problems.
What am I missing?
But, maybe there are some creative solutions/possibilities. What are the problems that need solving?
Foot faults?
Accurate lie determination particularly related to OB
Mando observation?
And TIME?
Other "issues"? OBs and mandos while imperfect don't seem to be causing a lot of conflict.
Foot faults? Seems to be a pretty minimal problem adequately addressed by mostly ignoring it IMO. Players do make mistakes, but the good faith effort seems pretty consistent with good sportsmanship.
So, back to the TIME issue and pace of play.
Turns out, it's both subjective and objective. Nobody wants to see someone have to rush in to deep rough and throw a crap shot trying to beat the clock.
But 30 seconds seems really long when the lie is open and the stance doesn't require cirque de sol.
What we have been told about the EO is that players were made aware that time would be monitored. Subsequently a warning was issued. Later a SINGLE one stroke penalty.
I don't get the drama and claims that DG has this significant rules enforcement problems.
What am I missing?
I guess the fuzzy math part for me is that the 19 stops. Does that include DGPT events? If so, why would the PDGA be on the hook for that? Wouldn't DGPT have to cover that?
Again this is just perception; the idea I've been getting is that the org with the deep pockets for something like this is DGPT. Having said that, I have no idea what DGPT finances are and have no idea if they are in position to drop a million dollars into tournament staff expenses or not. DGPT could still be running in the red for all I know. I'm kinda used to most of what I see of professional disc golf to be mostly smoke and mirrors, so it wouldn't shock me if they were.
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