PDGA Major: 2022 PDGA Champions Cup Apr 14-17

[Dcinmd]

I also give KT a ton of credit for her class in that situation. As a father, I don't think I would have been quite as understanding. Especially given all the circumstances. My response would have been "I'm very sorry there was this misunderstanding, it won't happen again. However, there's zero chance on gods green earth my young child is going to go stand amongst a big group of total strangers. If it's truly a problem, DQ me, and see how well that goes over with the public."

It is uttering amazing that not once did you put into context that this is a final round lead card of a national tour major. Not some local Saturday C-tier.

The hole entire reasoning for the age limit is so that the kid can be self sufficient and not need your and the entire card attention thru our the round. Daddy I need to go to the bathroom. Daddy I got stung by a bee. Daddy I am hungry.

This is a PDGA major not day care.

 

[_MTL_]

My only question about the whole thing is whether players should be expected to ID their caddies pre-round moving forward.

I believe it will happen. It's so much bigger than this discussion.

There are roughly 200 people that are suspended from PDGA play. You cannot be suspended and caddy.

I have absolutely no clue if one of those 200 caddied this weekend or not.

What about people banned from the park? What about people who by attending are in violation of restraining orders? What about convicted child molesters who can't be near children?

Extremely unlikely that that is the case, but if we are going down this rabbit hole, here we are.

 

[jakebake91]

It is uttering amazing that not once did you put into context that this is a final round lead card of a national tour major. Not some local Saturday C-tier.

The hole entire reasoning for the age limit is so that the kid can be self sufficient and not need your and the entire card attention thru our the round. Daddy I need to go to the bathroom. Daddy I got stung by a bee. Daddy I am hungry.

This is a PDGA major not day care.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if one of the top players in our sport didn't see an issue with it, and nobody else on the card had an issue with it, then that particular point doesn't really come into play here. The headline is that she was forced to be a spectator because she's too young, not because she's a petulant child.

The point your arguing is for why we have the rule. Which I agree we should have the rule. No question at all. No argument. My issue is with the enforcement, specifically, the timing of the enforcement.

 

[biscoe]

So according the the rules, he should have been given a courtesy violation due to her not following dress code?

Doesn't that seem like double standards?

What was she wearing that was outside the dress code? Too lazy to search video for it.

 

[Nale72]

So according the the rules, he should have been given a courtesy violation due to her not following dress code?

Doesn't that seem like double standards?

According to some I believe the proper action would have been that Elaine should have texted Calvins caddie, saying Chris could be dq:ed for Brittany not following the dresscode, and show him that text halfway through the round.

 

[ru4por]

I believe it will happen. It's so much bigger than this discussion.

There are roughly 200 people that are suspended from PDGA play. You cannot be suspended and caddy.

I have absolutely no clue if one of those 200 caddied this weekend or not.

What about people banned from the park? What about people who by attending are in violation of restraining orders? What about convicted child molesters who can't be near children?

Extremely unlikely that that is the case, but if we are going down this rabbit hole, here we are.

As someone stated earlier.....growing pains.

I was out on a Thurs afternoon, for one of the initial DGLO's at Toboggan. I was a riot, walking where I wished. Walking and chatting with several different groups of players. Sitting for a bit and picking up with another card. This likely needs to end as well. The development of spectator areas is the future. No more volunteers carrying a rope, creating a mobile, moving spectator areas. Rope them in and ensure only players, media, caddies and officials are allowed inside the ropes. Many want a big time sport, then big time decisions and actions must happen. No coolers, no umbrellas, no outside food or drink, no peeing behind a tree.

 

[Nale72]

What was she wearing that was outside the dress code? Too lazy to search video for it.

She had a tight tank top and Babcocks caddie had a big t-shirt with some text on the front and a huge picture of himself (?) on the back. Both are against the dress code in the competition manual. I myself might not agree with the dress code rule, but a rule is a rule.

 

[ru4por]

What was she wearing that was outside the dress code? Too lazy to search video for it.

She was wearing a tank top. Tasteful, not inappropriate, but outside the FPO dress code. Which I am assuming would be the standard for a female caddy.

 

[BillFleming]

From what I've seen on the different threads here, there were at least three rules violations by caddies. But only one got "penalized".

1. Kristen - caddy was too young. "Penalized"
2. Chris - Brittany not following the dress code.
3. Ricky - Ari (caddy/manager?) yelling frequently (I've seen posts that she yelled "Whoop" multiple times during his rounds).

While I agree that Kristen's daughter was too young by the rules, I think it could have been handled better. Her daughter didn't "suddenly" become Kristen's caddy in the final round - so it was okay/not enforced on the previous rounds. When something has been going on for a while, enforcing it should be done in a better way. In other tournaments, Matt Bell's balling up of his putter is illegal (thread in the Rules Forum), but it would be really rude to call him on it in the middle of a final round if he had been doing it all the time previous to that.

This was a PDGA run major.....they should have been more fair enforcing their rules.

 

[ru4por]

From what I've seen on the different threads here, there were at least three rules violations by caddies. But only one got "penalized".

1. Kristen - caddy was too young. "Penalized"
2. Chris - Brittany not following the dress code.
3. Ricky - Ari (caddy/manager?) yelling frequently (I've seen posts that she yelled "Whoop" multiple times during his rounds).

While I agree that Kristen's daughter was too young by the rules, I think it could have been handled better. Her daughter didn't "suddenly" become Kristen's caddy in the final round - so it was okay/not enforced on the previous rounds. When something has been going on for a while, enforcing it should be done in a better way. In other tournaments, Matt Bell's balling up of his putter is illegal (thread in the Rules Forum), but it would be really rude to call him on it in the middle of a final round if he had been doing it all the time previous to that.

This was a PDGA run major.....they should have been more fair enforcing their rules.

Kristin was not penalized.

It has been suggested that Kristin's child was not present in previous rounds. I am not sure what is true though.

 

[ToddL]

But if a rule, any rule, goes unenforced for that long, and now all of a sudden we decide there's an issue?

Sure, but what is "that long" in this case? She wasn't there for the first three rounds, and in round four she walked with the group for four holes. I don't think that's an outrageous amount of time at all.

My only question about the whole thing is whether players should be expected to ID their caddies pre-round moving forward.

There are probably a lot of policies that could be introduced, and maybe even a few that should be introduced.

During registration: identify your caddie, provide your caddie's identifying information
During check-in: present your caddie, caddie identifies himself, caddie receives non-transferrable tournament credential
During practice: only credentialed players and caddies are allowed on the course. no film crews, friends, family members, skins matches, etc.
At hole 1: identify yourself, identify your caddie, present credentials.

They're probably all good ideas, but either (1) we want to cling to the buddy-buddy way of doing things because it's friendlier, or (2) all that stuff takes more effort and more resources, and we're still working on getting the existing staff taken care of before we add more.

----

As a marshal of many events, I have to admit to having some blind spots. I'm busy watching pace of play, communicating with crowd control, keeping an eye on the troublemaker in the crowd, watching the discs in flight, checking for general rules compliance, providing input in tricky situations, etc. Sometimes I miss something that other people might pick up on. I can have a conversation with a player face to face and fail to realize they're violating the dress code. "Hey wait a sec, have you been wearing that shirt the whole round? Well, the round's over now, so just try to class it up for tomorrow, okay?"

 

[BogeyNoMore]

Kinda blows my mind that a bunch of hippies throwing frisbees at trees in the park some fifty years ago, has somehow evolved into this conversation.

 

[Shallows]

Kinda blows my mind that a bunch of hippies throwing frisbees at trees in the park some fifty years ago, has somehow evolved into this conversation.

Agreed. Less rules, less cops, people can solve their own disagreements. We're all here for the same reason.

 

[DatRedDude]

Can we just get rid of caddies? I'm tired of being asked by rec players if they can bring a caddy to the tournament.....

i giggled at this, cause its so true.

 

[VictorB]

Agreed. Less rules, less cops, people can solve their own disagreements. We're all here for the same reason.

the reason that most of us play is quite a bit different from the touring pros

 

[seedlings]

Agreed. Less rules, less cops, people can solve their own disagreements. We're all here for the same reason.

Making money is why Innova, Discraft, etc. are here.

 

[araytx]

Kinda blows my mind that a bunch of hippies throwing frisbees at trees in the park some fifty years ago, has somehow evolved into this conversation.

Agreed. Less rules, less cops, people can solve their own disagreements. We're all here for the same reason.

Well, at some point MONEY got added to that equation .... see?

 

[BillFleming]

Kristin was not penalized.

It has been suggested that Kristin's child was not present in previous rounds. I am not sure what is true though.

In a way she was.....she didn't get penalty throws added or DQ'd, but it did affect her game, so she was "penalized" in that way. (Which is why I put "penalized" in quotes...as it wasn't a form of official penalty).

You could be right about the daughter not being there earlier....all I had heard was that she was Kristen's caddy and that made it seem like this had been happening the entire tournament.

 

[BillFleming]

Can we just get rid of caddies? I'm tired of being asked by rec players if they can bring a caddy to the tournament.....

I think this was caused by Covid.....tournaments stopped spectators from attending or greatly limited them, but caddies were allowed. So, naturally, players wanted to have caddies so their spouse/family member/friend could walk with them.

Although I do know an AM player who has issues carrying a bag and not all courses are cart friendly, so he uses a caddy.

 

[Orioles_Lefty]

I'm confident the next version of the rules that will certainly include more rules with more sub-rules and more clarifications of the rules and sub-rules will fix everything. The future is bright!

(And it's funny how the rules situations that get debated have very little to do with actual game play but, instead, with the presentation of disc golf as a legitimate sport within the agreed to but also completely opaque parameters of what defines a legitimate sport. It's kind of sad.)