Yet another question for Chuck

[Stephen Ditter]

At the team challenge on Sat. a player in my group experienced some serious grip lock on hole one. Instead of flying over or towards the pond, the disc zoomed at a 45 degree angle and landed really deep into the woods to the right of the fairway. (when I say deep I mean fairway 18 deep)

I thought maybe the player should use the unplayable lie rule and just re-tee. My group disagreed and the player hiked thru the woods found his disc and played from there. I think it took at least 3 throws just to make it back to the fairway.

I'm not a big fan of the unplayable lie rule, but couldn't the player have legally used that rule and just re-teed?

thanks

-ditterman

[Chuck Kennedy]

Yep. That's what the rule is for. The group has no say in whether a player chooses to use the unplayable rule. If the 2 meter rule was in effect, the group would have to go look for the disc before the unplayable could be called in case the disc was above 2m. That might change whether he would want to be throwing his 4th from the tee or 3rd from under the tree. No reason to feel uncomfortable using the rule since it would have still been penalized worse or the same as throwing in the OB pond. It's also possible the disccouldn't be found and the lost disc penalty would put him back on the tee with the same net effect as using the unplayable rule.

[Karl Molitoris]

Steve,

The "group" was wrong.

The player ALWAYS has the option of "just taking a 'stroke and distance' penalty" ANYTIME they want to. In any situation (if, of course, it's their shot).

Ball golf and disc golf are similar in this respect; as in both sports the "maximum" penalty any 1 shot can cause is a "stroke and distance" penalty (in effect 2 shots). Unless the TD stipulates differently (which probably would be met by massive grumpiness (by players) and wouldn't be "OK'd" by the PDGA)...just my guess.

Karl

Oops, day late dollar short!