Hoser
Dec 14 2010, 05:36 PM
803.04 (stance, subsequent to teeing off) tells you how to take a correct stance at �the marker disc.� That�s your marker, right? Yeah, sure, that�s what �the marker disc� has to mean. If it could mean anyone else�s marker, then every marker on the course would be in play each time you throw, and you�d always be failing to stand correctly at all but one of them.

Logically, then, it�s impossible for you to take a correct stance at anyone else�s marker � because you wouldn�t be in a stance at your own marker.

803.10 (throwing from another player�s lie) says, �A player who has thrown from another player�s lie shall receive two penalty throws without a warning.�

803.10 implies � the rule doesn�t say it, but we see it in our mind�s eye � that you took a stance that would have been legal if the other player�s marker had been your own marker, and then you threw.

Yet we�ve proved it�s impossible to take a correct stance to throw �from another player�s lie.� Therefore 803.10 must penalize wrong stances. Which ones?


� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way if the lie were yours.

� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except you are touching the marker.

� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your off-foot is closer to the target than the rear of the marker is.

� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except you are touching OB.

� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except it�s not the least-displacing stance.

� You�re standing behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is one inch too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� You�re standing almost behind another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is 6� too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� You�re standing quite near another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is 12� too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� You�re standing sort of near another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is 1M too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� You�re standing in the neighborhood of another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is 3M too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� You�re standing in the general vicinity of another player�s marker, in a stance that would be correct in every way except your plant-foot is 10M too far back or to one side, to touch the 30cm segment of the LOP.

� Your stance is midway between another player�s marker and your own marker.

� Your stance is closer to your own marker than to another player�s marker.

� Your stance is closer to your own marker than to another player�s marker, and within 1M of your own marker.

� Your stance is closer to your own marker than to another player�s marker, and within 12� of your own marker.

� Your stance is closer to your own marker than to another player�s marker, and just barely not in a correct stance at your own marker.



Where in the rulebook is the dividing line that separates throws that ARE �from another player�s lie� v. throws that ARE NOT?

If there is no dividing line, then how can 803.10 be fairly applied?

DShelton
Dec 14 2010, 05:50 PM
Rule 803.04 tells you what a legal stance is:

A. When the disc is released, a player must:
(1) Have at least one supporting point that is in contact with the playing surface on the line
of play and within 30 centimeters directly behind the marker disc (except as specified in
803.04 E); and,
(2) have no supporting point contact with the marker disc or any object closer to the hole than the rear edge of the marker disc; and,
(3) have all of his or her supporting points in-bounds.

Throwing from another's lie is simple throwing from behind another's marker.

Anything else is a stance violation according to 803.04 (F)

Hoser
Dec 14 2010, 06:48 PM
DShelton,

Throwing from another's lie is simply throwing from behind another's marker.

In that list of stances in Post #1 � which of those stances are �behind another�s marker� enough to deserve 803.10�s two-stroke penalty? What rule tells you so?

cgkdisc
Dec 14 2010, 07:01 PM
Hoser, you may want to read the USGA ball golf rules for many of your questions because the wording or equivalent are almost directly borrowed from there for parallel disc golf situations.

Jeff_LaG
Dec 14 2010, 07:07 PM
Mike,

I again question whether you starting threads like these is simply to get an honest answer and a clarification on possibly confusing wording in the PDGA rules and to help our rules committee members to fine tune and hone our rules wording (something we can ALL get behind and support)

or to essentially lampoon the PDGA rules and serve as a plug for the Rules of SnapChing.

Which is it? :confused:

Hoser
Dec 14 2010, 08:30 PM
Chuck, do you mean USGA 15-3 b ?

If a competitor makes a stroke or strokes at a wrong ball, he incurs a penalty of 2 strokes.

The competitor must correct his mistake by playing the correct ball or by proceeding under the Rules . . .

Strokes made by a competitor with a wrong ball do not count in his score . . .

Based on golf�s �make a stroke at a wrong ball� rule, disc golf�s �throw from another player�s lie� rule does use the 2 stroke penalty but doesn�t correct the misplay from the correct lie and does count strokes from the wrong lie.

None of which answers the question, �What disc golf stances qualify for 803.10�s two-stroke penalty, and what rule describes the limits of those stances?�

DShelton
Dec 14 2010, 10:31 PM
Mike,

I again question whether you starting threads like these is simply to get an honest answer and a clarification on possibly confusing wording in the PDGA rules and to help our rules committee members to fine tune and hone our rules wording (something we can ALL get behind and support)

or to essentially lampoon the PDGA rules and serve as a plug for the Rules of SnapChing.

Which is it? :confused:

I think it's the later, and it will be only a matter of time before someone takes notice and stops it.

DShelton
Dec 14 2010, 10:41 PM
DShelton,

Throwing from another's lie is simply throwing from behind another's marker.

In that list of stances in Post #1 � which of those stances are �behind another�s marker� enough to deserve 803.10�s two-stroke penalty? What rule tells you so?

Obviously you're trolling now, since I explained it so simply that my grandson could understand it. I will no longer feed the troll. I'll find someone who can.

Jeff_LaG
Dec 15 2010, 12:19 AM
I think it's the later, and it will be only a matter of time before someone takes notice and stops it.

It doesn't violate any forum rules or anything like that, but as I've previously mentioned, you win more flies with honey than with vinegar. I have a feeling that this approach is going to be quite counterproductive and turn many people off to Snapching.

august
Dec 15 2010, 09:08 AM
803.10 does not penalize stances of any kind. It penalizes a throw made from another player's lie.

jconnell
Dec 15 2010, 09:11 AM
It doesn't violate any forum rules or anything like that, but as I've previously mentioned, you win more flies with honey than with vinegar. I have a feeling that this approach is going to be quite counterproductive and turn many people off to Snapching.
I'm with you Jeff. I've stopped replying and arguing with the guy already, but when I was, it felt far more like I was defending the rules of disc golf rather than arguing the validity or viability of "snapching" as an independent game.

I also question the sanity of anyone who would rather ignore 30+ years of evolution and wholly try to re-invent the wheel than try to work from within to improve and build upon what's already there.

davidsauls
Dec 15 2010, 10:01 AM
Perhaps the part of the rule 803.10 that was strategically omitted from the original post will help.

Or maybe you can just call the TD on your cellphone and get a ruling.

It IS a burning issue....I saw it happen in 1996 and it's bound to happen again.

DShelton
Dec 15 2010, 11:26 AM
It doesn't violate any forum rules or anything like that, but as I've previously mentioned, you win more flies with honey than with vinegar. I have a feeling that this approach is going to be quite counterproductive and turn many people off to Snapching.

What I was getting at was the fact the he is trying to get people to stop playing disc golf and migrate over to Snapching, using the PDGA forums to do so. What organization in their right minds would allow that for very long?

IMHO, if someone is so disenchanted with the rules disc golf that they invent a whole new game, then they should leave the sport. If their sport is that much better, then people will flock to it. I think it will actually turn out like the XFL; it sounds great until it is put into real practice.

Hoser
Dec 15 2010, 02:48 PM
Jeff, thank you for your Post #5.


Some disc golfers feel that the PDGA rulebook is fine, just as it is. They say it contains everything you need, to rule on the field of play. And critics should quit whining, and throw.

Are they right? Is there any evidence that the PDGA rulebook isn�t doing a good job of governing disc golf?

Well, there may be evidence in a discussion thread from summer 2007. (You�ll find it midway down page 14 on the list of thread titles: �Stance violation� by Arlskipshot1. The last post was August 2007.)

A TD had to rule on this scenario: a player marked his lie, set his disc down by his bag a few feet away, and went to help another player find a lost disc. Then he came back and threw from his disc instead of from his marker. He started walking, then saw his marker in his path, and alerted the group to the misplay.

You�d think the PDGA rulebook would clearly rule on �throw from not-your-lie,� a foul that every disc golfer has committed at one time or another.

The thread�s participants � a czar, a rules guru, a 17-year-veteran TD, the RC chairman, and 29 others � opened their rulebooks and gave this scenario their best shot. The TD changed his mind in three different rulings. The RC Chair made a ruling, then retreated and said he would support whatever the TD ruled. Various players insisted that the scenario was governed by 803.04 stance foul OR 803.01B practice throw OR 803.03 marking the lie OR 801.04B(1) wrong tee OR 803.01F Rule of Fairness.

And these disc golfers � who presumably read the rules more than most PDGA members � believed the following things that are contrary to the rulebook:


� Players� intent can and should influence rulings.

� The only way to distinguish between a stance foul and a practice throw is the player�s intent.

� A stance foul happens when your wrong stance is touching the LOP within 30cm behind the marker. Any stance that�s off the LOP is a practice throw.

� When the RC wrote �extra throw� in the practice throw rule, they only meant throwing a mini in anger after missing a putt.

� When you miss a fairway run-up, virtually everyone will call a stance foul and not a practice throw because it has the �feel� of a stance violation.

� It�s okay for a TD to rule that a wrong stance, not called within 3 seconds, is a stance foul under 803.04 and it gets a warning, no penalty.

� When you�re playing a hole, your play is �active� and the stance rule governs all your stances. When you�re between holes, your play is �inactive� and the practice throw rule governs all your stances.

� After you mark your lie, any other place where you lay down that thrown disc becomes your mis-marked lie. And if you throw from that disc, then you are throwing from your lie but just throwing from a wrong place.

� Any place that you throw from, is a lie. If it�s not your correct lie, then you are playing a wrong lie.

� The Rule of Fairness should be used to resolve two conflicting rules that each completely govern a situation.

� Fairness means that if two rules conflict, the more lenient rule should apply.

� It�s okay to extrapolate from a rule that doesn�t govern the scenario, rather than apply either of two rules that do govern the scenario.


Some may look at the �Stance violation� thread and the other 600 threads on this forum and say, �Well, most players are just stupid and ignorant and lacking in character, and they�re too lazy to really read the rules.�

In writing Rules of SnapChing, we have taken a different attitude: most players have plenty of character and smarts and energy and a willingness to read and use good rules. After 30 years of PDGA rulebooks, if the membership isn�t making sense of the rules, then the problem lies in the rules, not in the players.

We aren�t alone in feeling this way. But so far, we�re the first ones to write an alternative rule system and put it in public view so PDGA members can have a chance to compare PDGA rules to something besides ball golf�s rulebook.

The �Open Letter� thread has gotten more than 4100 hits � that�s in the top four readership of all threads in the past two years. Disc golfers are interested to see an alternative rulebook. They want to see how it stacks up, and see if it can work better for them than the only rulebook choice they�ve ever had. They�re curious.

Most of those 4100 hits come from people who won�t post on these threads. They won�t put up with being sniped at, having their misspellings made fun of, or having their intelligence and character dissed by people who disagree with them. But they�re out there reading these threads and THINKING.

Does it hurt disc golf, to stir the membership to think about flaws in the rules and consider solutions for those flaws? Is it best, for the future of the game, to just give up and quietly accept whatever the PDGA hands out?

Jeff, we�re going to try to be courteous in our posts. We�ll give players benefit of the doubt, and treat them with respect. We staunchly appreciate how hard the RC, with good guy Conrad Damon at the helm, works to serve the membership. We know their task isn�t easy: it has taken us fifteen years to get Rules of SnapChing ready for you to assail it with every critique that we could ever aim at PDGA rules.

Do we hope our threads raise awareness of Rules of SnapChing? Yes � and we invite you and everybody else to try to chop our rules down. And while you�re chopping, we welcome the 4100+ hitters on the �Open Letter� thread to ponder what kind of disc golf they want to play and what rules are best for that game.

As for this current �Throw from another player�s lie� thread: will anybody name a rule that says exactly which stances do, and don�t, deserve 803.10�s two-stroke penalty? We hope so. Otherwise, 803.10 can�t work unless you assume stuff that�s nowhere in the rulebook. And that would be unacceptable in a rulebook that�s supposed to govern a major sport.

Jeff, we regret losing you and DShelton and Jconnell. Of course you have every right to criticize us, loud and clear, in any thread we post. Meanwhile thousands of disc golfers are forming their own opinions. And millions of future players are going to need a disc golf rulebook that they can use all by themselves on the field of play. We�ve got those folks in mind, as we critique today�s PDGA rules.


Mike & Matt

Hoser
Dec 15 2010, 03:01 PM
Jconnell, thank you for your Post #11


I question the sanity of anyone who would rather ignore 30+ years of evolution and wholly try to re-invent the wheel than try to work from within to improve and build upon what's already there.

We completely, 100%, whole hog, in-one-ear-and-gone-tomorrow, AGREE WITH YOU. No sane person would ignore thirty years of rule evolution and try to reinvent the wheel.

Well, we didn�t exactly ignore that evolution. We studied all nine PDGA rulebooks (1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1997, 2002, 2006 and 2011) from beak to tail. And we tried an interesting experiment: we pulled out a single rule � the mando rule � and tracked it to see how that rule evolved in thirty years.

The result was surprising:


1980 & 1983. Throw forward across two lines. One line is perpendicular to a line drawn from the mando object to the hole. The other is perpendicular to a line drawn from the mando object to the tee. Both lines exist only on the �correct� side of the object. If you throw past the wrong side of the object, you must throw back across those two lines �without having to follow the direction arrows� � apparently meaning you can throw back on either side of the object, though the lines don�t exist on the �wrong� side. Anyway, once you throw back past the object, then you must throw forward past the object on its correct side, crossing both lines.

1986 & 1988. Similar to 1980, except you must �pass over� two planes instead of two lines. (The rule doesn�t say how much altitude it takes to pass over a plane.) If you miss the mando, your disc �can be thrown back across the planes in the reverse direction.� Since those planes exist only on one side of the mando object, the word �can� (rather than �must�) implies that you have the option to throw back on either side of the object. Anyway, you then must pass the mando correctly by throwing forward to �pass over� both planes.

1990 & 1997. All lines and planes are gone. �If the disc should pass a dogleg on the incorrect side, the player must throw the disc back to �unwind� in order to pass to the correct side.� I.e., throw back always on the wrong side of the mando object.

2002. A single �mandatory line� is marked by the TD. The rule doesn�t say whether this line must be perpendicular to anything. If the TD doesn�t mark a line, then the mandatory line is an imaginary line perpendicular to a line from the tee to the mando object. This mandatory line extends through the object in both directions. If you throw past the wrong side of the object and land across that line, you�ve missed the mando. Throw next from the TD�s drop zone (1 stroke penalty), and pass correctly.

2006 & 2011. Same as 2002, except if no drop zone is provided, mark your relief lie within 5M of the mando object and 1M behind the mando line on the correct side.


Two things surprised us, about the mando rule�s evolution.


� We thought there would be a purposeful track of fine-tuning improvement in the rule. Instead, we saw changes that look random, as if the RC was just trying stuff to see how it might work.

� The wide range in mando treatment, over the years, shows that there are many workable ways to play mandos. None are more right or wrong than the others, they�re just different ways to play the course.


Now, with our curiosity aroused, we tracked the evolution of other individual rules the same way: stance (tee, fairway, putt), relief from obstacles, OB, lost disc, play another player�s lie, wrong tee, wrong target, play holes in the wrong order, mark lies, add scores, and return scorecards promptly.

We discovered that those other rules, too, have evolved in a meandering track, like the mando rule did. (If you want the details, we can give them to you.)


We concluded, from the thirty-year evolution of PDGA rules:


1. There are a lot of interesting ways to play disc golf.

2. Ways that haven�t been tried yet, might work well, too.

3. There�s no such thing as �the way disc golf has always done it.� Disc golf�s rules always have been, and still are, in flux.

4. The RC�s frequently-changing attempts to adapt golf rules to disc golf, suggests that disc golf is a unique game that needs its own rules.


Our decision to write a whole new rulebook, that�s not based on golf, WAS INSANE. But we had a pretty good role model: an insane character named �Steady� Ed Headrick. We aren�t the first nutballs to start from scratch to write a rulebook for a new sport. Ed already broke that trail, for disc golf.


Mike & Matt

Hoser
Dec 15 2010, 03:07 PM
DShelton, thank you for your Post #13.


He is trying to get people to stop playing disc golf and migrate over to Snapching, using the PDGA forums to do so. What organization in their right minds would allow that for very long?

Wow. You really think that�s what we�re doing?

Haven�t you realized yet � SnapChing IS DISC GOLF played a slightly different way. We�re not trying to get anybody to migrate anywhere, or get people to stop playing disc golf. We�re trying to get millions of people to have the most possible fun playing disc golf and enjoying the game�s tremendous potential. Nothing would please us more than for the PDGA to publish great rules that attract those millions of players and that inspire public support to grow disc golf into a major sport.


Mike & Matt

davidsauls
Dec 15 2010, 04:00 PM
Some disc golfers feel that the PDGA rulebook is fine, just as it is. They say it contains everything you need, to rule on the field of play. And critics should quit whining, and throw.

Are they right? Is there any evidence that the PDGA rulebook isn�t doing a good job of governing disc golf?

Well, there may be evidence in a discussion thread from summer 2007. (You�ll find it midway down page 14 on the list of thread titles: �Stance violation� by Arlskipshot1. The last post was August 2007.)



I don't know anyone who thinks it's fine, or contains everything you need, or has claimed any such thing.

If the evidence that it's not doing a good job governing disc golf is an incident 3 1/2 years ago, I'd say it's governed disc golf 99.9999% well over that time. I won't, because it hasn't, but it's a straw man argument to act as if someone's said the PDGA rules are perfect, find an imperfection, and dismiss the entire rulebook based on it.

Jeff_LaG
Dec 15 2010, 04:53 PM
Mike,

All the points you make about the discussion thread from summer 2007, the fact that your "Open Letter” thread has gotten more than 4100 hits, your current “Throw from another player’s lie” question in this thread AND your "Multiple Misplays" thread having unacceptable PDGA Rules wording, etc. are 100% valid. I don't disagree with you one bit on any of it.

However, I still have a big issue with your current approach. Your Open Letter was a perfect way to introduce your concept to the disc golfing world and I applaud you for it. However, now you're creating these new threads about multiple misplays and throwing from another player's lie with a very obvious and underlying tone of plugging the Rules of SnapChing. It seems to me to be a somewhat disingenuous way of advertising your SnapChing concept. You're drawing disc golfers into these new threads under the guise of thinking they are legitimate PDGA rules discussions and interpretations. Instead of aiming to help our rules committee members to fine tune and hone our rules wording (something we can ALL get behind and support) it's completely transparent that these threads are geared almost exclusively to plug the Rules of SnapChing.

I suggest keeping all your points in your "Open Letter” thread - then people know exactly what they are getting into when they open the thread. Again, I have a feeling that continuing to do the same is going to be quite counterproductive and turn many people off to your Snapching concept.

Hoser
Dec 15 2010, 05:33 PM
Jeff, thank you for your Post #18.


You surprised us by agreeing with us in your first paragraph.

So we'll surprise you by agreeing with your second and third paragraphs.

Thanks for your critique. We do get a tad, um, enthusiastic sometimes.


Mike & Matt :o :o

wsfaplau
Dec 21 2010, 08:23 PM
...