Disc below the playing surface

Question: I live in the beautiful country of Texas. Our fair nation is enduring a drought that is ruining crops, evaporating lakes, making grown men fight their own kids for the right to soak in the inflatable kiddie pool, and causing havoc on the ol' DGC. Aside from an increase in sunscreen consumption and skin cancer production, the drought is causing cracks to form in our wonderful, though mostly clay, soil. During one of my picturesque drives, my disc hit the ground and began to roll. As fate would have it, my disc made its way into a crack and plunged a thousand feet below, to the land, the land of the lost.

Is there a penalty in this situation? The disc is too deep to be retrieved with any ease which sort of implies a penalty yet the crack is not a normal course feature which may mean no penalty. Water feature usually refers to a regularly standing body of water so a big puddle would not be a stoke giving entity should a disc land within its confines. I could find nothing in the rules about disc swallowing cracks? If the disc is within one meter of the surface is there no penalty? How should I score this shot?

Christopher
SSDG: member # 00001

Response: The question can be boiled down to: "Is there a penalty regarding discs below ground in the PDGA rules?" Applicable Rules: None

Discussion: While the PDGA rules do specifically cover situations where discs are suspended ABOVE the playing surface, there are currently no rules (or allowances) for discs BELOW the playing surface. Since the rules do not address these situations it is up to the course pro/TD/course designer to determine how to handle these situations. This would be done in accordance with rule 804.01 Special Conditions. (Or the TD could declare that the cracks were Out-of-Bounds areas and play such occurrences accordingly.)

Without a decision being made along these lines by the TD, problems quickly will arise because such a shot can not be legally marked in accordance with PDGA rules. (Currently, 803.03, A, Marking the Lie, indicates that a shot must be marked with the mini marker touching the thrown disc.)

Conclusion: The PDGA Rules do not address this issue. The burden to provide for a solution in this situation would fall on the TD. In terms of casual, recreational play...there should be no real issue. The group could determine how they would handle such occurrences.

Other Comments: Many times in our great sport situations will arise that ARE NOT covered by the rules. This is one of the reasons that we have course pros/TDs/ course designers. The rules do provide several options in these situations: a) use the special conditions rules, b) make the questionable areas OB (taking great care to clearly mark the OB line with string or paint), or in the absence of all else c) simply do what is fair.