Teeing off from O.B.

[Working Stiff]

I'm running an event this weekend at a course that has never had an event before, trying to anticipate things that could come up. There is a hole on this course where the left side O.B. line is a walking path that turns and moves to the right in front of the tee, so the tee technically is O.B. On the regular tees you would have to drop your disc to not get your shot in bounds at some point as the path is right in front of the tee, but on the never before used B tees you are 50' behind the path with a bush that someone theoretically could hit short of the path.

I'm assuming that if you managed to do that you would have to re-tee with a stroke O.B. penalty. That seems pretty harsh. Although it is a nice downhill run the shot is 440'. If you mess up the drive there you are already back on the tee, shooting three from the tee at 440' seems excessive. I could send them to the regular tee as a drop zone, but that is still shooting three from 390.'

Basically if I blew off the O.B. stroke and had them re-tee shooting two from the regular tee as a drop zone, would I be completely out of line?

[Chuck Kennedy]

Just mark a drop zone farther down the path where it seems like a 1-throw penalty and throwing from there would be fair for any tee throw that ends up OB however it gets OB.

[curt]

Also, being completely unfamiliar w/ the course, I thinkg you should make it very clear that the side of the path surrounding the teebox is OB. Otherwise, you'll have people saying to themselves "Well, the teebox can't be out of bounds, so logically, this side of the path must not be out of bounds for this hole.

Also, would it make more sense to just not have there be any OB on this hole? It sounds like if someone lands OB, it will be a pretty bad shot that will likely cost a stroke anyway. Is it necessary to punish players further (this is an honest question, it may well be. I don't know the course at all) at the cost of confusing the players during the tournament?

[Working Stiff]

Just mark a drop zone farther down the path where it seems like a 1-throw penalty and throwing from there would be fair for any tee throw that ends up OB however it gets OB.

I could do that, but it would be a "mark it every time we play" kind of deal since the parks department doesn't want it permanently marked in that part of the park. I would like to avoid the "just another thing I have to deal with" aspect of it.

[Working Stiff]

Also, would it make more sense to just not have there be any OB on this hole? It sounds like if someone lands OB, it will be a pretty bad shot that will likely cost a stroke anyway. Is it necessary to punish players further (this is an honest question, it may well be. I don't know the course at all) at the cost of confusing the players during the tournament?

Waving off the O.B. on that hole has not been a popular idea with the people I have talked to, but it is a possibility. The course has a lot of O.B. already. However having inconsistent O.B. (the path would be O.B. on #2 and # 3 but OK on # 6) is confusing as well.

I could just blow it off and hope nobody hits the flipping bush.

[Chuck Kennedy]

You could make the area near the tee a 'buncr' instead of OB with a penalty. If there's a mark or crack along the path approximately equal distance to the pin from where the front of the short tee is located, you could make it so any throw in the buncr area behind the crack has no penalty but the player moves to the short tee playing their second throw. If they go across the path past the crack, it's treated like a regular OB with penalty and played where it went out.

[A.Mutt]

You could make the area near the tee a 'buncr' instead of OB with a penalty. If there's a mark or crack along the path approximately equal distance to the pin from where the front of the short tee is located, you could make it so any throw in the buncr area behind the crack has no penalty but the player moves to the short tee playing their second throw. If they go across the path past the crack, it's treated like a regular OB with penalty and played where it went out.

I think this sounds like a very fair way to handle it ... although if you aren't going to give a stroke penalty for an OB teeshot, I'd be inclined to make people take their second shot from the same tee.

[Working Stiff]

You could make the area near the tee a 'buncr' instead of OB with a penalty. If there's a mark or crack along the path approximately equal distance to the pin from where the front of the short tee is located, you could make it so any throw in the buncr area behind the crack has no penalty but the player moves to the short tee playing their second throw. If they go across the path past the crack, it's treated like a regular OB with penalty and played where it went out.

That will work. Thanks for the help.