We've had discussions about playing the holes on the same course in the wrong order or from the wrong tee pad on the right hole, but what about a group of players that starts playing on the holes of an adjacent course? What then?

This actually happened 2 weeks ago. The group played 2 holes on the wrong course, in the middle of their round, before anyone let them know that they were on the wrong course. They completed those 2 holes and were getting ready to play the 3rd when it was noticed.

So what is the ruling?

Look it up yourself! /msgboard/images/graemlins/smirk.gif :D

I did SA.

Did they tee from the correct course and hole out on the incorrect course to start, or start on the incorrect tee ?

It is a two throw penalty for each player.

Sounds like section 5, non-sequential play. The holes played count, plus 2 throws.

But what if they skip difficult holes and play easy ones? 2 throws doesn't seem enough. Is it +2, and the score for 20 holes?

If the misplay is discovered after a subsequent throw has been made, the hole being played shall be completed. Immediately thereafter, the player shall proceed to play the course in its proper order from the point where the misplay began.

I know if you play the correct holes, but in the wrong order you get your score plus two strokes. (been there done that!)

However if you play holes that aren't even part of the course you're playing it may fall under practice throws, which could get very costly very quickly.

As a side note I'd say the TD probably didn't have the course marked well enough if that happened. All tees in play would be clearly marked. Any tees not in play should be barricaded by at least sticks or yellow tape.

when i looked at the rules, i determined that since the holes played weren't a part of the course, the strokes wouldn't count. it is was a 2 stroke penalty. it was the best ruling we could make.

the worst part about it was that they went from the RED course to the BLUE course. you would think they would notice the baskets were a different color!!!!

If you're playing the holes of another course, then discover it and go to the correct course, it's a late penalty with par+4 for the holes already missed. It should be treated as if you haven't shown up on the correct course yet for whatever reason.

Hey, I agree with Chuck for a change. :)

His answer sounds the most workable. You can't really count the holes played because no one else in your flight/division is playing those holes. You can't really treat is as practice throws because then all the holes still have to be played, and the rest of the players are already several holes in to it.

"Late" sounds right.

Immediately thereafter, the player shall proceed to play the course in its proper order from the point where the misplay began.

Where does the par + 4 get scored?!?

slo, it's not non-sequential play. Non-sequential play requires the players to play the correct holes in the wrong order. The players in question played holes that were not part of the course. Very different.

"Regardless of the number of holes skipped ,or played in the wrong order, <font color="red"> a total of two penalty throws shall be added to the player's score for the misplay infraction</font> . The score earned from any completed hole(s) shall stand. Any completed hole(s) shall not be replayed. "

since the holes were not part of the course, it really wasn't a completed hole. maybe it would fal under practice strokes, but it is kind of a gray area if you ask me. the rule just doesn't address this situation and it might be something to look at if they are working on the rules.

thanks for bringing that up, nick!

Chuck or Rhett, where would the group begin play in your interpretation? If a player misses a the start of a round, they take par +4 until they tee off with the group. How would that work for the entire card?

Except the original question mentioned that it happened in the middle of the round. There is no provision to apply par + 4 for missing holes in the middle of the round.

I would think that the holes can't count, and that all holes must played.

If they teed from a correct tee and played to an incorrect basket (801.04.B.3), or if they played from the wrong tee (of multiple tees) to the correct target (801.04.B.1) the penalty would be score plus 2. If they played from the wrong tee to the wrong basket on multiple holes, the only directly applicable rule would be practice throws, but 801.04.D states that completed holes stand and there is a single 2 throw penalty.

The group played 2 holes on the wrong course, in the middle of their round, before anyone let them know that they were on the wrong course. They completed those 2 holes and were getting ready to play the 3rd when it was noticed.


Ugh, not as clear as the version Chuck alluded to.

You could call every shot taken on the non-holes practice throws, with a penalty for each, because the disc was thrown and the lie was not changed. The players should proceed to the hole that they were supposed to play next and complete their round. Since they did not play holes that were part of the course, it can't be ruled "non sequential play". Since the holes are not part of the course that everyone else is playing, it isn't fair for them to keep the scores for those holes in place of any holes they are supposed to play.

In keeping with the Rule of Fariness, if that part of the course is confusing and it is pretty easy for someone unfamiliar with the course to make the mistake, the TD could assess a 2-throw penalty. Even though this particluar case isn't specifically addressed in the rule book, it is a mis-play and the most similar rules call for 2 throw penalties.

I think the TD would be technically correct to assess practice throw penalties for each shot taken, but that seems overly harsh for the situation.

You're getting confused by the fact that players are on another course. From the perspective of the competition round on the correct course, the simple fact is that the players didn't show up on time. What they were doing is irrelevant. They know what hole they were supposed to start on since presumably they went to that hole number on the wrong course. The correct hole for them to go to is whatever hole they should be on with the current flow of the other groups playing the correct course. They are either behind the group with a starting hole higher than them or ahead of the group with a starting hole below theirs, whichever is "better" (benefit of the doubt).

Didn't realize it was middle of round. I would say players keep their scores on the holes plus a 2-shot penalty for each hole misplayed. In addition, compare the pars on the holes played versus those skipped and add or subtract the net difference between them if not all 3s.

I'll be certain to have signs on the courses at Highbridge to prevent crossovers like this in tournament play for the Mid-Nationals next week. There are a few spots where that could happen on a hilltop with four active courses.

I'm lining up with Rhett on this. The misplayed holes weren't part of the course, so I think it would be wrong to keep those scores. Practice strokes seem unfair too since they were not intentional. Also, no one was late since they played together as a group.

Give 'em each two strokes and walk them to the correct hole on the correct course.

I see about the non-sequential. But I don't think you can punish with practice throws, as some will need a lot more 'practice per hole'. :D

But what actually ended up happening to the group?

Practice strokes seem unfair too since they were not intentional.



What do fairness or intent have to do with interpreting the rules??? :eek:

What difference does it make (in the context of rule interpretation) whether the whole group unintentionally wanders onto a course not in play or some slub practices his putting by playing catch with his girlfriend in the parking lot during a hole back up?
Either way you have one or more players throwing from a spot that is not a tee nor a lie in play.

Okay I just played the rules zealot (bad cop)......

Being the compassionate softy I am (good cop), I'd have to point out it would be well within the TDs discretion to assess a 2 stroke penalty and allow the group to complete the round on the appropriate course if at all practical. (If they played 14 holes of the wrong course during the final round of play I'm afraid he'd have little choice but to DNF the entire group).

It may not apply in this example but another good cop alternative is to reverse the holes played in the afternoon round. For example, if the group played the wrong holes in the morning that were going to be played in the next round, you just use their scores on those holes for the next round plus a 2-shot penalty.

i'm totally with Rhett on this one, for the reasons he already stated.

Didn't realize it was middle of round. I would say players keep their scores on the holes plus a 2-shot penalty for each hole misplayed.

801.04.B(5), Non-sequential Play, specifically limits the number of penalty throws to two, "regardless of the number of holes skipped or played in the wrong order." From that it may be inferred that the misplay of consecutive holes is to be treated as a single misplay rather than as multiple misplays: an inference supported by 801.04.D.

Because neither of the misplayed holes were part of the stipulated course, none of the procedures or penalties set out in 801.04.B directly apply to the misplay under consideration. Given that, the penalty and procedure for resuming play must be inferred via the "logical extension of the closest existing rule or the principles embodied in these rules," 803.00.E.

On the issue of the penalty to be assessed, given that:

a) 801.04.B(5) and 801.04.D imply that the misplay of consecutive holes is to be treated as a single misplay;

b) in none of the examples of misplays cited in 801.04 is the penalty for a single inadvertent misplay greater than two throws; and

c) 801.04.B(5) is the only specific type of misplay detailed in 801.04 that explicitly addresses the circumstance in which multiple holes are misplayed,

it is arguable that the "closest existing rule or principles embodied in these rules" (803.00.E) limits the total penalty in this circumstance to no more than two throws.

(It could be argued, however, and not with justice, that since 801.04.A explicitly stipulates that players are responsible to play the course correctly, all the throws made following the completion of the last correctly played hole should be counted as practice throws.)

Similarly, since 801.04.B(1-4) address misplays that arise during play on the correct hole while 801.04.B(5) addresses misplays that arises from playing the incorrect hole. Since both non-sequential play and playing holes that are not part of the stipulated course are instances of failure to play the stipulated course, 801.04.B(5) provides the closest parallel within the existing rules or principles embodied in the rules to the situation under review. Based on that, play is to resume "from the point where the misplay began."

Finally, since the misplayed holes were not part of the stipulated course, it may be inferred by logical extension of 803.00.A ("the player who plays the stiuplated round our rounds in the fewest throws plus penalty throws is the winner") that if the two penalty throws are assessed for failure to play the stipulated course, the throws made on those holes should be dropped; if penalty throws for failure to play the stipulated course are not assessed, the throws should be treated as practice throws. In either case, play is to resume from the point at which the misplay began.

Each player in the group recived a 2 stroke penalty and moved on!

When we all tried to find the violation in the rules book it falls under everything!

I think i came up with potentialy 18 added strokes

yep, i broke that rule 2 years ago, to add too my list of rules broken. i beleive it was 2 strokes added per mis played hole or was it 4.
still haven't broken the jump put rule yet.
i think this mite be a good test :mad:to start breaking rules in 1 round

what happened was they got off the course. once they realized the had played a couple holes on the wrong course, they immediately went to the correct hole and resumed play.
clint asked me, as a certified official what my ruling was. i found the rule limited the penalty to 2 strokes, but counting the holes completed seemed to apply only to playing holes that were actually part of the correct course in the wrong order, not a hole that was not part of the course. so my judgement was that each should take a 2 stroke penalty as that is what misplays seem to be limited to if a hole is completed. i know othing matches it exactly, but i think the rule of common sense applies, especially since they immediately reported it and were willing to take whatever penalty it was deemed they should get. i say, kudos to DJ and his group for reporting themselves for a rules violation. you don't see that every day!

In my first tourney, we actually had an entire devision play their first round on the wrong course. All the women were supposed to start on the Beast course Hole 7 at Mason County in Ludington. In stead they started on Beauty 7. There was only one card of females at the tourney, so the TD decided to just let the round stand as it was(wasn't discovered until they were handing cards in).

practice throws. there were no misplayed holes, they weren't on the course in use for the event at the time. hole 10 at tinicum is not a "hole" per se for an event at tyler. same holds true at codorus even though the courses are close together.

look at it this way- if rhett and nick (in the lead group at us masters) stop play after hole 9 and throw discs at the practice basket for a half hour before they play hole 10 they are taking practice shots- agreed? why would the interpretation be any different just because they were playing holes in some alternate universe? they are still throwing discs and not playing holes.

why would the interpretation be any different just because they were playing holes in some alternate universe? they are still throwing discs and not playing holes.



I see your point and agree that yours is a valid interpretation, but I think this is different than throwing at the practice basket for half an hour. These players actually thought they were playing holes on the correct course. That being the case, I think the non-sequential play interpretation is more fair to the situation.

This scenario should be added to the non-sequential play rule so that this infraction is treated the same regardless of who the TD may be.

Gary, no they were not the first holes played (in my hypothetical, Rich could answer what the actual situation was).

Rhett and Chuck, so, they could not be ruled as late (par plus 4), if this is appropriate then they would have �withdrawn� from the event.

Steve,� Okay I just played the rules zealot (bad cop)......� Disc Golf Rule Zealots does not mean bad cop, it means being enthusiastic about knowing the rules and getting rulings right. It is not actively trying to screw people through overuse of the rules.

I�ll have to dig deeper, but in general I agree with Rich�s ruling: �What happened was they got off the course. Once they realized they had played a couple holes on the wrong course, they immediately went to the correct hole and resumed play.
Clint asked me, as a certified official what my ruling was. I found the rule limited the penalty to 2 strokes, but counting the holes completed seemed to apply only to playing holes that were actually part of the correct course in the wrong order, not a hole that was not part of the course. So my judgment was that each should take a 2 stroke penalty as that is what misplays seem to be limited to if a hole is completed. I know nothing matches it exactly, but I think the rule of common sense applies, especially since they immediately reported it and were willing to take whatever penalty it was deemed they should get. I say, kudos to DJ and his group for reporting themselves for a rules violation. You don't see that every day!�

Rarely do our rules provide for more than a 2 stroke penalty for a single violation, other than destruction of the course or courtesy violations which may require DQ.

So knowing all this how would you phrase the request to the PDGA Rules Committee so that they can update our rulebook to handle such a situation more succinctly?

actually, the more i think about it. according to the rules we should have recorded the scores for the holes played out of sequence on the scorecard for the next round. john made a point that these weren't actually holes used in the event, but they really were. there were for the second round, so they WERE played out of sequence technically. what do you guys think about that?

also what would happen if someone played a hole that wasn't being used? i would think maybe john would be right in that case and they would just be practice throws. if you aren't sure of the course, maybe the way to go is to wait for the group behind you and confirm if you can't find an official nearby?

That's what I said in my earlier post on the previous page. If the holes or tees are being used in the afternoon, save those scores. When we've had players play the wrong tee on a hole for some reason, we've had situations where they could just play the opposite tee the next round. They still get the 2-throw penalty. I'll fiddle with reported scores so the ratings are done properly.

So knowing all this how would you phrase the request to the PDGA Rules Committee so that they can update our rulebook to handle such a situation more succinctly?

So knowing all this how would you phrase the request to the PDGA Rules Committee so that they can update our rulebook to handle such a situation more succinctly?



Your request should say: "Read the thread I started on the message board about Playing the Wrong Course (http://www.pdga.com/msgboard/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=398339&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&fpart=1) ."

I think they are intellegent enough to read this thread and understand what needs to be done.

imo transferring scores to another round opens several other undesirable cans of worms. got to get to work now though. :(

That's what I said in my earlier post on the previous page. If the holes or tees are being used in the afternoon, save those scores. When we've had players play the wrong tee on a hole for some reason, we've had situations where they could just play the opposite tee the next round. They still get the 2-throw penalty. I'll fiddle with reported scores so the ratings are done properly.



If you counted the scores for these holes in the second round, then they would incur a two-shot penalty for that round, since they'd be out of sequence. Even if they were the first two holes played, they would have been played before the start of the round. And since the second round is a whole other thing, both penalties would apply. Better to just penalize the first round mess-up and play the second round clean.

Hey Chuck,just so you know,I being one of the players who made this mistake would have DNF'd if i was getting alot of strokes like i thought i would!

Now,if the TD and an official made a ruling why are you going to change it in the ratings????

Sure,DNF is not what i would choose to do on a regular basis but there is more to this than you are reading!

For instance,2 of the 3 players holed out on two holes,1 player(myself) only holed out on one of the holes becouse i was the one who caught the error.So how many strokes are you giving me,considering the scores for those holes were never reported?

The entire group left it up to the officials to decide the outcome and now it's going to be changed???

Without all the facts i might add!

The specific example is where a course has two sets of tees and you're playing the longs in the morning and shorts in the afternoon. The only group in the Rec division doesn't realize there's a new long tee on a hole and doesn't play it. So, I let them play that long tee in the afternoon along with all of the other shorts as planned. So they could get ratings, I switched their morning and afternoon scores on that hole. Adding a penalty wouldn't have done anything since it affected everyone in that Rec division of three. Actually, I can't remember whether this might have been before ratings and under an older rules version. I probably applied the penalty but might not today. I think the practice is less common now due to ratings, but in the past, older or womens divisions might play tees that weren't exactly the same as everyone else on a few holes.

I realize this is a tangent from the specific situation in this thread. But it does highlight an area that is sticky with the rules where the TD is sometimes more to blame than players for not marking the course specifics as well as possible. The big copout is that players are expected to know and play the stipulated course. But unlike BG (usually), we do shotguns, temp tees, temp baskets, temp courses and different combinations based on division in a round with many times less than profesional and permanent signage. But nowhere is the TD at risk for not doing this well.

Now,if the TD and an official made a ruling why are you going to change it in the ratings????




I'm not doing anything to change your scores. I'm not sure where you got that impression? We've discussed how things like this might impact ratings but not that we were actually doing anything to change scores.

chuck, in an earlier post you said:

"I'll fiddle with reported scores so the ratings are done properly. "

given that post's position relative to the intial discussion topic, if you read the whole post quickly you could get the idea you meant that you were planning to do some tweaking on this specific case.

That's what I said in my earlier post on the previous page. If the holes or tees are being used in the afternoon, save those scores. When we've had players play the wrong tee on a hole for some reason, we've had situations where they could just play the opposite tee the next round. They still get the 2-throw penalty.

And what do you do about the fact that they would then be deliberately misplaying the next round?

That may be acceptable in non-sanctioned play, but it doesn't wash for sanctioned tournaments.

803.00.A presupposes (and therefore, mandates) that player play not only the stipulated course, but the stipulated round. 801.04.A requires a player to play the stipulated course correctly, so the players who misplayed the holes during one round are required to play those holes during the round they are part of the stipulated course. Any failure to play the stipulated holes, whether by omission or substitution of alternative holes, incurs an additional two stroke penalty for failing to play the stipulated course.

I have to agree that using the scores from these misplayed holes for the next round is not a good idea. They would most likely end up playing that round out of sequence. Just give 'em two strokes and be done with it.

So knowing all this how would you phrase the request to the PDGA Rules Committee so that they can update our rulebook to handle such a situation more succinctly?

"A situation arose at a recent tournament, in which a group mistakenly played two holes which were not part of the stipulated course before realizing their mistake, whereupon they returned to the point at which the misplay began and resumed play from there.

"Although paragraph A of Rule 801.04 mandates that players play the course correctly, and � B lists examples of specific types of misplays and the penalty procedure for each, it provides no direct guidance in this particular circumstance since all of the examples in 801.04.B presuppose a misplay occurring on a hole that is part of the stipulated course. After consulting the Rulebook and with the concurrence of several certified officials present at the tournament, the TD assessed a penalty of two throws to each player rather than to count the throws made on the non-course holes as practice throws, since the most severe penalty stipulated in Rule 801.04 for any type of inadvertent misplay�including a misplay spanning consecutive holes�is two penalty throws.

"As a point of clarification, what is the proper penalty procedure for a misplay that arises from playing a hole or holes that is not part of the stipulated course, and might it be appropriate to add a paragraph to Rule 801.04.B detailing that procedure?"

Sounds good. Click the "Contact" link above, paste that message in a PM to the Rules Committee and let us know what they say.

yes, that was a sticky situation!

and don't worry, DJ. the ruling of the TD and an official is final. and as far as ratings go, the scores that were put down were for the same holes as everyone else. chuck was talking hypothetically. your only penalty will be the 2 strokes we assessed. this thread is maor about what we should do in the future if this kind of thing happens.

Yes, all throws should technically be treated as practice throws.

Yes, the Rule of Fairness allows the TD to instead asses a 2-throw Failure to Play the Stipulated Course penalty.

Either action is justifiable.