No, actually I don't/haven't played in any DG tournaments at any level. I'm new to the sport, and to be honest, suck pretty bad. Does that somehow disqualify me from having an opinion on this topic? I've participated in many different sports at many different levels and each one seems to have it's own rule that's there for a reason, but left to subjectivity.
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To me, it would be wrong and a lack of sportsmanship on my part. I coudn't live with the fact that I took advantage of this legitimate rule, to impose a 4 stroke penalty on an opposing player that arrived at the tee as we were exiting.
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If I want to post here anymore, do I need to change my screen name?
You have no reason
at all to feel bad or unwelcome here. Your whole approach fits in great with the spirit of the game and the spirit of disc sports.
Craig is a long time player (skilled at the highest levels), competitor, promotor and TD. He has a long reputation for being a purist when it comes to competition. Both of your voices and philosophies have a ton of merit and discussion about it (even spirited) is good. I would say a huge majority of players lean towards your approach.
Here is one thing that has not been talked about yet in this thread. That is the prestige level of events and how that plays into the subjectivity of rules. This is an unwritten thing, but a dynamic that almost everyone buys into.
On the low end of prestige is casual play. Then local weeklies, minis, PDGA C-tiers, B-Tiers, A-Tiers, National Tour events and finally Majors. The lower the prestige, the more subjectivity, the more the event is aimed at teaching new players, and the more the spirit of fun/enjoyment overshadows the spirit of competitiveness.
On the high end of prestige, competitiveness overshadows everything and the fun is found in that (some do not find that fun, but many do). Of course, good sportsmanship is still desired, but rules are called objectively and there are lots of officials around to make sure of this.
The event in this thread was a 1-day B-Tier....pretty much a middle of the road event in some areas of the country, but in other areas this is almost as prestigious an event as there will be for most players who do not travel far for competition. For this reason, I personally am fine with how things were called.....but am more miffed by the loosy-goosy nature the TD ran things (the more prestige, the tighter the ship should be run).