Rules? Anybody?

[Shaolintrained]

Okay, after this last tournament there have been a lot of conversation about different rules and not all of them are mentioned clearly in the rulebook. If you could help me out, it'd be great.

1. If someone on your card adds up their score wrong, who gets penalized? The entire card or just the individual?

2. When teeing off, is it legal to start off the pad (to the right or left) and only place one foot on the pad when releasing your throw?

3. When throwing from a knee, is it legal to place a disc under your knee? or anything for that matter, a towel?

4. And finally, how do you handle a situation where a player walks up to their disc (which is next to the basket) and simply picks it up and walks away, doesn't put down a marker or even put it in the basket, just walks away? Do they come back and guess where the lie was or is it an automatic penalty?

Thanks for the clarification.

[some call me...tim?]

crap, don't have a rulebook with me, and the pdga site is still down, but off the top of my head:

1. in pdga play, each player should have their own scorecard, and therefore each player is responsible for his or her score. only the person with the mis-totaled card gets penalized. if somebody turns in all the cards without the totals added though, that's a 2 stroke penalty to all involved.

2. i believe the rule is that you have to have both legs inside the teeing area at the time of release. you can start wherever you want though.

3. i think there's been discussion back and forth about this, but its deemed legal, as it can be a safety issue. same idea as putting a towel down on a wet teepad.

4. they didn't complete the hole, 2 stroke penalty, i think. i believe a couple pros in the Beaver State Fling did this a couple years ago.

[Bruce]

Okay, after this last tournament there have been a lot of conversation about different rules and not all of them are mentioned clearly in the rulebook. If you could help me out, it'd be great.

1. If someone on your card adds up their score wrong, who gets penalized? The entire card or just the individual?

Each player is responsible for their own score and scorecard

2. When teeing off, is it legal to start off the pad (to the right or left) and only place one foot on the pad when releasing your throw?

No, all points of contact must be on the tee

3. When throwing from a knee, is it legal to place a disc under your knee? or anything for that matter, a towel?

Yes. There is a size limit, a few cm from memory, but with the PDGA site up I can't check/reference

4. And finally, how do you handle a situation where a player walks up to their disc (which is next to the basket) and simply picks it up and walks away, doesn't put down a marker or even put it in the basket, just walks away? Do they come back and guess where the lie was or is it an automatic penalty?

Automatic 2 shot penalty for failing to hole out. If it's a newbie and you're feeling generous, you could go with group opinion on the lie and let him hole out, and tell him not to do it again...


The only one of these that isn't clear in the rules is the towel one, that is answered in the Q&A on the PDGA site.

{edit - or what ^he^ said. Too slow again }

[cmlasley]

2. When teeing off, is it legal to start off the pad (to the right or left) and only place one foot on the pad when releasing your throw?

All points of support have to be on the tee at release. If that is just one foot, that is fine. I think you can start from wherever you want as long as all point of support are on the tee at release.

[jeremy]

These are the answers that I would think, come on Chuck I know you are watching.

1. If someone on your card adds up their score wrong, who gets penalized? The entire card or just the individual?
The Individual who's score is wrong. It is YOUR responsibility to make sure YOUR score is right.

2. When teeing off, is it legal to start off the pad (to the right or left) and only place one foot on the pad when releasing your throw?
You can start off the one side of the pad, you have to have a supporting point on the pad at the time of release with no part of your body supporting in front of the pad.

3. When throwing from a knee, is it legal to place a disc under your knee? or anything for that matter, a towel?
There was a large discussion on the PDGA Discussion Board that it was called building a lie. I don't remember the final ruling.

4. And finally, how do you handle a situation where a player walks up to their disc (which is next to the basket) and simply picks it up and walks away, doesn't put down a marker or even put it in the basket, just walks away? Do they come back and guess where the lie was or is it an automatic penalty?

What they would have taken, +2 strokes for not completeing the hole. I think you could go further into the ruling and say misplayed hole. Failing to hole out on purpose (cheating) with a DQ. I don't know exactly just some of my opinions.

[Chuck Kennedy]

2. When teeing off, is it legal to start off the pad (to the right or left) and only place one foot on the pad when releasing your throw?
You can start off the one side of the pad, you have to have a supporting point on the pad at the time of release with no part of your body supporting in front of the pad.

You have to have all supporting points on the pad at the time of release. But if you run up from off the pad, there's no problem if only one foot is on the pad as long as it's your only supporting point and your other foot (and all other parts of your body) is in the air at the time the throw is released.

[Chuck Kennedy]

3. When throwing from a knee, is it legal to place a disc under your knee? or anything for that matter, a towel?
There was a large discussion on the PDGA Discussion Board that it was called building a lie. I don't remember the final ruling.

You may place a towel or anything else under your knee as long as it's no more than 1cm thick (~3/8"). Most discs are taller than 1cm at the rim. But if your knee is in the middle of the disc, you could argue that in the contact area, the disc flight plate thickness was easily under 1cm.

[Chuck Kennedy]

On item 4, it sounds like you're asking what happens if a player discovers they didn't hole out and came back to do so. If this is discovered before any throws are taken on the next hole, then I would allow the player to return to the target, mark and toss it in. I would probably give them a courtesy warning for potentially playing out of turn.

The rulebook says the player automatically gets a 2-throw penalty for not holing out. However, it doesn't say when that occurs. I would say that if no more shots have been made, that the previous hole hasn't been completed and the player has time to mark their lie and play out. They don't have to run back and do it within 30 seconds because they have 30 seconds AFTER they get to their lie, which would be no problem in this case.

If additional shots have been made or the scorecard turned in before the player 'not holing out' 'was discovered, there's no question it's 2-shot penalty in PDGA play.

[Shaolintrained]

Awesome, thanks everybody, that's what we had thought. One more for you...

what happens if someone just picks up their disc without marking it and throws it in the basket?

[Chuck Kennedy]

803.03G Player gets a warning and no penalty for not marking.

[Chuck Kennedy]

The PDGA Rules still aren't accessible online right now. Here's an alternate online location for the rulebook which you can bookmark in case you need it sometime: http://www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=rule ... _rules.htm

[Fritz]

hehe, someone is taking their officials exam