Abandon lost disc throw and provisional?

[BillFleming]

Evidently so... still strange with this not being their first rodeo in Waco so to speak.

I've been a volunteer and I've been a Course Director. It's hard to get volunteers and harder to find people willing to work every day of a tournament. We had people who would volunteer every day except for the last as they wanted to follow the lead group. For the Memorial, the pros play Fountain on Thursday and Friday, moving to Vista on Sat and Sun. The AMs play Vista on Thursday and Friday, finishing at Fountain on Sat. There are usually a bunch of volunteers at Fountain on Thurs and Fri, but then they 'vanish' and show up at Vista because that's where the pros are....but they don't all continue to volunteer....many of them just show up to follow the pros around.

One issue is people expect something in return for their time and it gets harder and harder to offer enough value. For the Memorial, you get $5 "Memorial dollars" for every hour you work, you can turn them in for any tournament stamped items (any tournament, not just Memorial), but you can't use the money for stock discs, etc. Many people don't throw Discraft or DGA....so where is the value to them? I enjoyed volunteering, but I now have 7 Buzzzzzz's and other Discraft discs that I may never throw...but, for me, I really didn't start volunteering for what I would get out of it. I've quit volunteering due to the long hours taking a toll on my body.

I know of a tournament where the TD was giving the volunteers a limited edition disc. Had a bunch of volunteers show up, made the mistake of giving out the volunteer's pack when people showed up instead of at the end, and like that everyone vanished and there were very few volunteers that actually worked.

I don't know the answer, but it is apparent that few people want to truly 'volunteer'....they want something for their time and TD's have difficulty in figuring out what to offer that will bring in the volunteers, keep them there, and not cost an arm and leg.

 

[biscoe]

I've been a volunteer and I've been a Course Director. It's hard to get volunteers and harder to find people willing to work every day of a tournament. We had people who would volunteer every day except for the last as they wanted to follow the lead group. For the Memorial, the pros play Fountain on Thursday and Friday, moving to Vista on Sat and Sun. The AMs play Vista on Thursday and Friday, finishing at Fountain on Sat. There are usually a bunch of volunteers at Fountain on Thurs and Fri, but then they 'vanish' and show up at Vista because that's where the pros are....but they don't all continue to volunteer....many of them just show up to follow the pros around.

One issue is people expect something in return for their time and it gets harder and harder to offer enough value. For the Memorial, you get $5 "Memorial dollars" for every hour you work, you can turn them in for any tournament stamped items (any tournament, not just Memorial), but you can't use the money for stock discs, etc. Many people don't throw Discraft or DGA....so where is the value to them? I enjoyed volunteering, but I now have 7 Buzzzzzz's and other Discraft discs that I may never throw...but, for me, I really didn't start volunteering for what I would get out of it. I've quit volunteering due to the long hours taking a toll on my body.

I know of a tournament where the TD was giving the volunteers a limited edition disc. Had a bunch of volunteers show up, made the mistake of giving out the volunteer's pack when people showed up instead of at the end, and like that everyone vanished and there were very few volunteers that actually worked.

I don't know the answer, but it is apparent that few people want to truly 'volunteer'....they want something for their time and TD's have difficulty in figuring out what to offer that will bring in the volunteers, keep them there, and not cost an arm and leg.

Attracting/managing the volunteers is one of the 3 main things involved in running a big event along with fundraising and course prep (which overlaps with the volunteers a bit). If I can muster 100 volunteers for a Silver Series at Lake Marshall over the course of a weekend (Montross VA- population 338 and at least an hour from any substantial dg community) I feel like they should be able to draw sufficient spotters to a multi-year Elite Series event in a city like Waco. Realistically our 100 volunteers was still about 10 short of what we would have liked to have.

 

[araytx]

so basically every time you throw from where you went ob (& you can't see your disc), you want to declare it as a provisional.

Or, alternately, you could tell the group you want them to wait until you yourself confirm where the disc is. You do have the right to do so. The provisional in cases like this, is a "to conserve time" provisional in case you simply don't want to go down there and confirm where your disc is.

yep.

Not nec. -- depends.

 

[dmoore1998]

Attracting/managing the volunteers is one of the 3 main things involved in running a big event along with fundraising and course prep (which overlaps with the volunteers a bit). If I can muster 100 volunteers for a Silver Series at Lake Marshall over the course of a weekend (Montross VA- population 338 and at least an hour from any substantial dg community) I feel like they should be able to draw sufficient spotters to a multi-year Elite Series event in a city like Waco. Realistically our 100 volunteers was still about 10 short of what we would have liked to have.

To that point though, it may be easier to wrangle volunteers to a "we're just having this tournament, it's "small" (i.e. silver series, so not really small, just compared to elite) than it is for "tournament is again this year, who wants to volunteer AGAIN?".

For this particular hole though...I'm guessing they may have just figured a spotter on the fence was unnecessary. I also can't think of a worse spotting job than standing OB on the wrong side of the fence just to verify that every throw that clearly is OB is actually OB.

 

[biscoe]

To that point though, it may be easier to wrangle volunteers to a "we're just having this tournament, it's "small" (i.e. silver series, so not really small, just compared to elite) than it is for "tournament is again this year, who wants to volunteer AGAIN?".

For this particular hole though...I'm guessing they may have just figured a spotter on the fence was unnecessary. I also can't think of a worse spotting job than standing OB on the wrong side of the fence just to verify that every throw that clearly is OB is actually OB.

Most of what they would be doing would be offering their opinion (which players are free to ignore) where discs went OB to begin with and returning discs to players rather than determining if discs are actually OB- that would just be a side benefit.

 

[BillFleming]

Most of what they would be doing would be offering their opinion (which players are free to ignore) where discs went OB to begin with and returning discs to players rather than determining if discs are actually OB- that would just be a side benefit.

^^ This.

While spotters are necessary to let players know when their disc is OB, Biscoe points out a more important point....WHERE the disc went OB. The players can't always tell from where they are. A spotter is usually closer to the spot and can (again, usually) mark the spot better than the players can determine. That said, as a spotter, I have been "overruled" by a card. It might be difficult for a spotter to accept that the card says differently....but it is their decision...we are just "advisors". The card that overruled me apologized for not accepting my spot....I just responded that they have more eyes than I do and I had no problem with their decision. As for returning discs....spotters have to remember that they cannot touch a disc unless a player permits it. I would give the player the option....they can use my retriever or I can get the disc for them. Many chose to get the disc themselves (but that is from water).

 

[Cgkdisc]

In the 90s, one of the design guidelines some of our more prominent designers tried to follow "when possible" was to avoid blind routes (without visible reference objects), nasty rough areas and OB so players could see the routes and play alone without spotters or needing artificial marking like paint lines. This also meant TDs didn't need spotters for events unless they wanted them for showmanship or possibly to speed play on say par 4/5 dogleg holes. Following these guidelines for designing temp courses and even permanent layouts would reduce the need for tournament volunteers plus the significant cost and time for temporary markings. However, promoters seem to fear their courses being called "soft" by players and viewers more than being called too punitive or fluky.