Stance Question

[Craig Smolin]

If you choose NOT to place your mini in front of your disc, where is the "front edge" of your lie? Is it the parallel line extending from the back edge of the disc in either direction or the front edge of the disc?

[Ryan Savage]

back edge of the disc. You must always stand directly behind your disc or your marker. Unless you can no physically stand behind the disc do to something like standing water or a tree then you can stand at the closet point behind your disc up to 5ft.

[Stephen Ditter]

Where does it state in the rule book perpendicular to the mini? We were discussing this the other not at Page and could not find it. I was always following the no closer to the basket and not beyond the mini for the off point.

For instance if the straight line from the basket to the mini is 22 ft. Then the off foot can not be past the mini or closer than 22 ft. As if a string is tied to the basket and arced from the mini. Which could be beyond perpendicular to the mini

[Josh Connell]

If you choose NOT to place your mini in front of your disc, where is the "front edge" of your lie? Is it the parallel line extending from the back edge of the disc in either direction or the front edge of the disc?

If you leave the thrown disc, it effectively becomes the marker, so all rules that specify marker apply to the thrown disc. Hence, back edge of the disc.

803.03 Marking the Lie
A. ...A player may instead choose, without touching or repositioning the thrown disc, to use the thrown disc as the marker....

803.04 Stance, Subsequent to Teeing Off
A. When the disc is released, a player must:...
(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

back edge of the disc. You must always stand directly behind your disc or your marker. Unless you can no physically stand behind the disc do to something like standing water or a tree then you can stand at the closet point behind your disc up to 5ft.

Wrong. For casual water and other casual obstacles you must take the closest lie no further than 5 meters, not feet.

803.05 Obstacles and Relief
B. Casual Obstacles to a Stance: ...If it is impractical to move the obstacle, the player's lie may be relocated to the nearest lie which is no closer to the hole, is on the line of play, and is not more than five meters from the original lie, as agreed to by a majority of the group or an official (unless greater casual relief is announced by the director).

For solid obstacles, like a tree, you must stand at the closest point behind that obstacle that is still on the line of play behind your marker. Not maximum distance specified since you must be immediately behind the obstacle.

803.04 Stance, Subsequent to Teeing Off
E. If a large solid obstacle prevents a player from taking a legal stance within 30 centimeters
directly behind the marker disc, the player shall take his or her stance immediately
behind that obstacle on the line of play. The player must comply with all the provisions of
803.04 A other than being within 30 centimeters directly behind the marker disc.

Where does it state in the rule book perpendicular to the mini? We were discussing this the other not at Page and could not find it. I was always following the no closer to the basket and not beyond the mini for the off point.

For instance if the straight line from the basket to the mini is 22 ft. Then the off foot can not be past the mini or closer than 22 ft. As if a string is tied to the basket and arced from the mini. Which could be beyond perpendicular to the mini

You have it right. The "zone" in which you can not take a stance is a circle with the basket at the center and the radius determined by the distance from the basket to the rear edge of the marker. It's never a perpendicular line. If you're far enough away from the target, the arc of the circle can be so slight as to be nearly a straight line, but it never is. And the closer you are to the target, the shorter the arc so you can, in theory straddle the target and still be legal provided your off foot is as far from the basket as the foot behind the marker.

[Chuck Kennedy]

Something a little odd is when you take relief behind a solid object (803.04E above), the object becomes your marker. You do not place a mini marker directly behind the solid object.

[Titan Bariloni]

a video to demo this would be cool..I kinda get it
I find rules are much easier to understand when shown not typed

you rules guys are

[Craig Smolin]

I was thinking about this question after watching a couple videos where several top pros take a "patent pending" stance ... where your non-throwing side foot (ie: my left foot since I throw right-handed) is placed behind your "marker disc."

The major problem I always encounter with this stance, which I use a lot, is not just proper placement of my left foot (I always use my toe and not my heel to avoid a foot fault), but making sure my right foot is behind the arc/line extending across the back edge of my mini.

According to Josh's ruling above, which is how I have always played this stance, could there ever be an instance where you could have a legal stance with your left toe behind your marker, but your right foot "ahead" of your marker?

[Josh Connell]

I was thinking about this question after watching a couple videos where several top pros take a "patent pending" stance ... where your non-throwing side foot (ie: my left foot since I throw right-handed) is placed behind your "marker disc."

The major problem I always encounter with this stance, which I use a lot, is not just proper placement of my left foot (I always use my toe and not my heel to avoid a foot fault), but making sure my right foot is behind the arc/line extending across the back edge of my mini.

According to Josh's ruling above, which is how I have always played this stance, could there ever be an instance where you could have a legal stance with your left toe behind your marker, but your right foot "ahead" of your marker?

"Ahead" as in closer to the basket? No. "Ahead" as in in front of a line extending from the marker perpendicular to the line of play? Yes, if you're close enough to the basket. This is what it looks like on any given stance:



Anywhere outside the blue circle is a place where you can legally have a supporting point. If the radius of that blue circle is small enough (under 4-5 feet), you could stand with one foot behind the mark at 6:00 and put your other foot out near 3:00 or 9:00, and still be perfectly legal. But the further you get from the target, the longer that radius gets, the distance along the "clock" in which you can straddle gets smaller. If you're 20-30-40+ feet out, it becomes physically impossible to get very far from 6:00 with your off-foot and thus tough to have that off-foot be "ahead" of the marker.

[Craig Smolin]

Thanks Josh ... you interpreted "ahead" correctly ... that's pretty much the scenario I was thinking about in my original post ...

[Mark Valis]

I was thinking about this question after watching a couple videos where several top pros take a "patent pending" stance ... where your non-throwing side foot (ie: my left foot since I throw right-handed) is placed behind your "marker disc."

The major problem I always encounter with this stance, which I use a lot, is not just proper placement of my left foot (I always use my toe and not my heel to avoid a foot fault), but making sure my right foot is behind the arc/line extending across the back edge of my mini.

According to Josh's ruling above, which is how I have always played this stance, could there ever be an instance where you could have a legal stance with your left toe behind your marker, but your right foot "ahead" of your marker?

"Ahead" as in closer to the basket? No. "Ahead" as in in front of a line extending from the marker perpendicular to the line of play? Yes, if you're close enough to the basket. This is what it looks like on any given stance:



Anywhere outside the blue circle is a place where you can legally have a supporting point. If the radius of that blue circle is small enough (under 4-5 feet), you could stand with one foot behind the mark at 6:00 and put your other foot out near 3:00 or 9:00, and still be perfectly legal. But the further you get from the target, the longer that radius gets, the distance along the "clock" in which you can straddle gets smaller. If you're 20-30-40+ feet out, it becomes physically impossible to get very far from 6:00 with your off-foot and thus tough to have that off-foot be "ahead" of the marker.

I know so many people that think it is a straight line from the back of mini and always say
" your other foot is past the mini but they don't realize they have to follow the arc.

[Kevin Cole]

WARNING: Math may be ahead. Abandon now if you are easily frightened.

Yes, you are all right about the arc instead of a line behind the marker. Just be careful, because that arc is not as steep as you think it is.

Lets say you are putting from 15 feet (since anything inside probably is a easy putt, and likely has no obstacles, or they are easy to get around.) I am 6 feet tall, and my wide putting stance is not much more than 3 feet wide. I'll use a 3 foot stance for this.

Given a 3 foot stance a 15 foot put, your off foot is only allowed to be 3.5 inches closer than the "straight line approach" if you take advantage of the arc. Make the putt 20 feet, suddenly you are down to 2.7 inches. 25 or 30 feet? 2.2 and 1.8 inches respectively. Even better, shrink your stance and the results are devastating. At a 2 foot stance; a 15 foot put allows for 1.6 inches on the off foot, and a 25 foot putt doesn't even allow for 1 inch.

My point is, even knowing that you can use the arc will rarely help you more than a few inches, and that's in the best case scenarios. Most of the time when you have these issues with arc vs line, you are dealing with difficult stances in the first place, and probably aren't going to get more than 2 inches of a benefit. Unless someone is standing right next to you (to notice you using an extra 2 inches on the off foot), when they call you on a foot fault they are probably closer to being correct than you are, or they wouldn't even notice. (Can YOU tell the difference of 2 inches when your opponent's feet are 3 feet apart?)


For those interested, you can use a forumula of...
(-stance/(tan(arcsin(stance/putt)))+putt)*12
to determine the distance in inches that an arc instead of straight line helps your off foot. both stance and putt are in feet, your answer is in inches. tan and arcsin are trigonometric functions.

-Kevin

[Titan Bariloni]

(-stance/(tan(arcsin(stance/putt)))+putt)*12

[Mike Cormier]

It came up a couple of days ago in a round: I'm a righty and mostly straddle putt. Ideally, I would put my right toe at my marker but that's not always an option. If you take your 11" behind your marker with your left toe, can your right toe be "ahead" of your left (still "behind" the marker) or does the foot behind your marker have to be "forward" of the "off" foot?

My answer was that your "off" foot has to be "behind" your "on" foot which does make for that awkward stance

[Matt Stroika]

It makes sense to just imagine the tangent line at the mark and forget about the arc. No one carries a giant protractor (Josh?).

[Josh Connell]

It came up a couple of days ago in a round: I'm a righty and mostly straddle putt. Ideally, I would put my right toe at my marker but that's not always an option. If you take your 11" behind your marker with your left toe, can your right toe be "ahead" of your left (still "behind" the marker) or does the foot behind your marker have to be "forward" of the "off" foot?

My answer was that your "off" foot has to be "behind" your "on" foot which does make for that awkward stance

Where your "off" foot can and can't be is entirely unrelated to the position of your "on" foot. So long as it is not closer to the target than the rear edge of your marker, your "off" foot can be just about anywhere and be legal.

It makes sense to just imagine the tangent line at the mark and forget about the arc. No one carries a giant protractor (Josh?).

I think unless you are within the 10m putting circle, the difference between the arc and the perpendicular line is negligible. At the very least, by visualizing the perpendicular at whatever distance you find yourself, you are guaranteed to have all supporting points be legally far enough away from the target.

Where it gets dicey as far as forgetting about the arc is inside the circle, where you can very easily have one foot in front of that perpendicular line and still be legal by rule. Not that it's a huge thing, but it will save the occasional argument about an otherwise legal putt if people don't learn the perpendicular line as the rule. Kinda the same way that the non-rule about not being able to advance on a putt until the disc comes to rest has perpetuated itself through the years. I've always believed that it began as a simple rule of thumb to establish balance that eventually got truncated to simply being a word of mouth "rule".

[Mike Cormier]

It came up a couple of days ago in a round: I'm a righty and mostly straddle putt. Ideally, I would put my right toe at my marker but that's not always an option. If you take your 11" behind your marker with your left toe, can your right toe be "ahead" of your left (still "behind" the marker) or does the foot behind your marker have to be "forward" of the "off" foot?

My answer was that your "off" foot has to be "behind" your "on" foot which does make for that awkward stance

Where your "off" foot can and can't be is entirely unrelated to the position of your "on" foot. So long as it is not closer to the target than the rear edge of your marker, your "off" foot can be just about anywhere and be legal.

So you're saying my "off" foot can be up to 11" CLOSER to the basket than my foot behind my marker? That will sure make those off foot straddle putts considerably easier.

[Todd Lapham]

Your "on" foot has to be behind the marker on a straight line from the basket no more than 11 inches back from the mini.

Your "off" foot can be anywhere that's not in the blue zone.

It's the mini that's the mark, not your "on" foot.

[Mike Cormier]

My next order of business was to apologize to you and Josh for having that wrong.... I remember having this conversation before and having it explained that the "on" foot had to be "forward" but either they were wrong altogether or it's changed since then... In any case I won't have it wrong anymore.

[Josh Connell]

My next order of business was to apologize to you and Josh for having that wrong.... I remember having this conversation before and having it explained that the "on" foot had to be "forward" but either they were wrong altogether or it's changed since then... In any case I won't have it wrong anymore.

The rule hasn't changed in at least 15 years (since I started playing). Whoever explained it to you had it wrong. Which is, unfortunately, not an uncommon occurrence in our sport. Rules tend to get passed down orally, and it becomes like a game of telephone where the rule the seventh or eighth guy down the line is told doesn't resemble the way the rule is actually written or intended. No need to apologize.

[Todd Lapham]

My next order of business was to apologize to you and Josh for having that wrong.... I remember having this conversation before and having it explained that the "on" foot had to be "forward" but either they were wrong altogether or it's changed since then... In any case I won't have it wrong anymore.

Yeah man, absolutely no need to apologize we've all been wrong before and as Josh said it's a fairly common thing in Disc. I still can't tell you how many people argue that the circle is 30 feet because "that's what their buddy told them."

[Josh Rogers]

My next order of business was to apologize to you and Josh for having that wrong.... I remember having this conversation before and having it explained that the "on" foot had to be "forward" but either they were wrong altogether or it's changed since then... In any case I won't have it wrong anymore.

YUUUUP! Nice shooting again, Mike

[Mike Cormier]

YUUUUP! Nice shooting again, Mike

Thanks... Been day dreaming about some of those shots all day yesterday and today lol... Can't wait to get back out