notroman
* Ace Member *
Ok. I'm not sure that's true. If he's getting a break but Rick throws his disc from a few inches further that whats allowed, at that point is it really worth it? I understand your point and of course he has every right to make the call. I just saw the funny irony in it was what I was laughing at and surprised no one else did.
There different thoughts to this game. Allot of people don't make calls because they are focusing on their personal play. Others are emotional players. I again think that lead, feature, heck top 3 cards should have an official making calls when needed. Let the players play.
During casual rounds I can see letting rules slide - I mean, we're just all trying to have fun. During competition, at least at PDGA sanctioned events, I feel rules should be enforced. Whether the player gets a competitive advantage or not, if someone sees a rule infraction they should call it. I understand a lot of people breaking the rules do it unintentionally, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't get called on it. I can't think of any sport out there where someone breaks a rule and it's okay for everyone to just look the other way because "they didn't mean it" or "they didn't get a competitive advantage".
That being said, I can see the difficulty in monitoring/enforcing these rules as a player when you're trying to keep your mind in your own game. I agree that having an official actually making these calls would be way more ideal. I'm not sure where the TDs can find volunteers right now that know enough about the rules of the sport to make such calls that also aren't playing at the event already. I'm sure this topic has been discussed and I'm curious to hear all ideas that people bounced around.
As for Rick's infraction yesterday, he was not "a few inches further than what's allowed". He more than doubled the allowed distance from the mini, and it was clearly giving him a competitive advantage. He had a tree in his face that clearly proved to be an obstacle since he took so much time to decide how to throw his second shot when usually he's a very fast player. Planting that far back from the mini gave him a much better angle at approaching the green. When you're that close to an obstacle even a few inches makes a difference. When Nikko approached him to call the foot fault Ricky's foot was STILL nowhere near his mini and this is after he already took a step towards it. I am fairly confident that Ricky at that point knew that he foot faulted, but he wasn't about to second the call himself when it's an automatic stroke penalty with the new rules. I feel because of the harsher punishment for foot faults with the new rules we may see more of this happening this year.