taking away the 2 meter rule

[Cgkdisc]

The point is that a 1% risk (or less) is not a risk that influences a player's routing choice. The only "sensible" penalty structure would be if any time your throw hits an object or foliage and doesn't land on the playing surface, you would get a penalty. Thought of this way, rational people would say that type of penalty is foolish, even if it only happens 1% of the time. If this blanket penalty is foolish, then certainly restricting it to only obstacle hits and suspension above 2m becomes farcical.

 

[biscoe]

if californians want to continue to use a nonsensical arbitrary fluky rule let them.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Unfortunately, it likely influenced finish positions at Worlds last year, if not the winners, although almost all were from that area. I'm guessing that's partly why Feldberg is apparently on the warpath to stomp it out at least for Majors. I believe it may have been the only Major in the past several years where it was used as a blanket rule versus selectively, and not at all in most Majors.

 

[Brick Forcepush]

it would be the best thing to happen to the game

 

[aardvarkious]

The point is that a 1% risk (or less) is not a risk that influences a player's routing choice.

Maybe it shouldn't, but it certainly influences my routing choices. I often play on a mountain course that involves lodge pole pines. Many routes have you throwing over or through the pines, with your disc high up their trunks. At least once a round, someone gets their disc stuck above 2m. It happens frequently enough that it factors into my thought process on whether or not to risk the pines.

 

[DiscChainBasket18]

'Stroke' of luck %^)

This just happened Friday during a casual round. 2-meter rule never even came up. My buddy just marked it from below & took his shot. He was just happy to find it actually because we could not see the landing area very well. It seems a bit over the top to add a stroke for bad luck. "Like adding insult to injury".

 

[BENFTS]

I really hate that folks think the rule shouldn't come up and on lots of holes chuck there's much more that 1% risk so you should factor that in shot selection. Chuck you already stated arguments that aren't true there just your opinion, so Id like you to provide some evidence to back up supporting the removal of the rule. All I have read from the folks that want to change the rule is how its not fair that they messed their shot up and don't want a penalty for it.

I asked the group I was playing with yesterday if another player should have to take the stroke and tried to defend the removal of the rule so I might gain a bit of perspective and see this from your point of view. Every player was shocked when I suggested not using the rule.

 

[GripEnemy]

It my opinion, it should be eliminated, I am from the Philly area, and our area has the kinds of trees that will hold discs.
I realize the 2 meter rule is trying to make a point to the player to stay out of the trees or else, but we all hit trees from time to time and the 2 meter rule creates this random situation where sometimes a player gets penalized and sometimes they do not, so luck becomes more of a factor with the 2 meter rule, so I am for eliminating it.

:clap:

(FTFM)

 

[biscoe]

I really hate that folks think the rule shouldn't come up and on lots of holes chuck there's much more that 1% risk so you should factor that in shot selection. Chuck you already stated arguments that aren't true there just your opinion, so Id like you to provide some evidence to back up supporting the removal of the rule. All I have read from the folks that want to change the rule is how its not fair that they messed their shot up and don't want a penalty for it.

I asked the group I was playing with yesterday if another player should have to take the stroke and tried to defend the removal of the rule so I might gain a bit of perspective and see this from your point of view. Every player was shocked when I suggested not using the rule.

how do you guys not get that it is a random penalty and thereby unfair? it's like a section of a course being OB for one player but not for another based on luck of the draw.

 

[JeremyKShort]

I think it really depends on the hole. All of the courses that I play at, we don't ever use the rule. Any tree you get stuck in is going to result in a really lousy shot. However, I can see if there is foliage directly above the basket, that it would be beneficial to get stuck in a tree above, or close to directly above the basket.

I guess that's why it's optional, and just applies to places that it needs to.

 

[tomsdiscs]

I once played a course that had a certain hole on it that the fairway was so narrow, that I speculated that if you took the 10 best players in the world (Will, McBeth, Feldy, etc.) and then also took 10 middle of the pack Advanced players, and everybody got to throw 5 drives, you would probably see there was very little difference in how successful each player did, so much so, that the middle of the pack Adv guys would do about the same as the top 10 Pros.
And assuming this all played out, it is pretty clear that the hole had removed skill to a large degree and rendered it more about luck.
Now move to the 2M rule: take a hole that is so heavily wooded, and the only route is through dense trees/bushes, so much so that every player stands a very high possibility of hitting some vegetation. In this case, the 2M rule has had the same effect, mitigating skill and replacing it with luck. This is an extreme example, but holds true in some cases. The interesting thing about this thread, and so many others on DGCR, is we have people of varying experience and skills, speaking in such absolutes. If the heavily wooded hole with only one route was common on your course, that would justify getting rid of the 2M rule, especially if you hosted tournaments with people playing for money, prizes, etc.
Also consider the varying impacts on a players score - the top Pro who is fighting to roll up a 1060 round and likely only win by 1 shot, versus the 920 player who will be rolling up a couple double bogeys and several single bogeys.
And going back to the start of this post where I talked about the extremely narrow fairway - guess what ? A little time passed and bunch of big name Pros came to town and played that hole, and 2 guys immediately commented that at least one tree had to be removed from that fairway - Climo and Feldy !!!

 

[DavidSauls]

There is nothing fluky about the penalty. Throw the shot that you want if you get stuck in a tree than you shouldn't have hit it, plain and simple. You can make any argument for changing the rule but the fact remains that if a 1% risk is present you have accepted that, if you want to avoid that then throw a different shot and stop whining.

Hole with a tree halfway down the fairway. Everyone tries to miss it. Over a period of time 100 people make bad throws and hit the tree. 99 fall out, costing them 150' of fairway and a bad lie. 1 gets stuck, costing him 150' of fairway, a bad lie, and an extra penalty stroke. That penalty stroke is flukey. It seems to me so obvious that to me that I stuggle to find another way to say it. The penalty stroke is not for doing anything different than 100 other people did; it's just for the bad luck of the tree holding the disc.

It's not good enough to say, "Well, they shouldn't hit the tree." Penalty or not, they're trying to not hit the tree. The 1% risk of penalty doesn't change a thing. Just means that one unlucky person gets a flukey stroke penalty.

At Stoney Hill I hit trees over 2M high 20-30 times a round. I'm not sure I ever recall getting stuck over 2M high. I think I'm being generous with the 1%.... 0.1% seems more like it, here.

What's the purpose of the penalty if it doesn't change the way the hole is played, anyway? If no one's changing their gameplan for a 1% chance of a random incident resulting in a penalty?

 

[BENFTS]

how do you guys not get that it is a random penalty and thereby unfair? it's like a section of a course being OB for one player but not for another based on luck of the draw.

We all feel like its unfair that you throw a shot into a tree and can't get it then don't want to take a stroke for it. There is nothing random about it, you threw the disc it didn't just get up there all on its own. Get your game tight.

Playing De La yesterday and two of the guys playing on the card with me got 2m strokes added and both said "taking my penalty like a man" Nobody that I have spoke to in the last few days can even make sense of removing the rule and we all feel like those that want it removed need to get over it and learn not to hit trees.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Again you're basing a penalty on a shot that hits foliage and doesn't make it a certain distance to the ground. For consistency, the penalty should be applied to a disc suspended any distance above ground if it hits any object during flight. Whether you can reach it or not should have little bearing. There are permanent casual relief swamps and other bodies of water where you can't retrieve your disc and there's no penalty if you land there even though you know not to throw there.

 

[BENFTS]

Chuck I have never played a course where a swamp or creek or something of that nature is not marked OB. If you cant reach up and grab your disc then mark it and take the stroke. If your disc is 2in off the ground it would be quite foolish to call that a penalty because you are more than capable of playing that from where it lands. I don't see a reason to make a universal 2 inch penalty for coming to rest on a pine cone.

 

[JTacoma03]

I have to say I still don't see a good argument for removing the rule either...

1. I don't buy that the penalty is "random" any more or less than I buy an argument that the direction and force of a kick off of a tree is "random". There are factors that will influence whether your disc gets stuck if it challenges dense foliage and guess what, most of those factors are player controlled. The argument that "if it's not 100% controllable it must be random and/or luck based" is BEYOND flawed. There is no sport in the world where 100% control ever comes up, there's always lurking variables that may seem random on first glance.

Here's why this argument will never be resolved. We're all talking about different courses. Some courses are well designed, more courses are NOT. 2m rule in a terribly designed fairway will, in fact, seem more random. That doesn't mean the rule is the culprit, it means the hole design sucks. If that's the argument for not using the 2m rule then I would absolutely understand, but don't try to put logic behind the removal of a component of the game that you don't like just because a) you don't like it and b) your course is badly designed.

 

[Cgkdisc]

Sorry but the 2m rule is used to "save" poor designs and would rarely purposely be used by "good" designers in active fairways if it could possibly be avoided.

 

[araytx]

Again you're basing a penalty on a shot that hits foliage and doesn't make it a certain distance to the ground. For consistency, the penalty should be applied to a disc suspended any distance above ground if it hits any object during flight. Whether you can reach it or not should have little bearing. There are permanent casual relief swamps and other bodies of water where you can't retrieve your disc and there's no penalty if you land there even though you know not to throw there.

I want to chime in on the issue of 2 meters above the playing surface vs. some other arbitrary distance. And I came up with this because I am right at 6 ft. 6 inches tall. One point you made earlier, Chuck, was (to me) both valid and key. Unlike ball golf we don't really "play it where it lies." In ball golf, wherever your first shot ends up on the ground, is exactly where you'll hit it from -- not above it, beside it, under it, etc., with a few basic exceptions. We don't. When I throw a drive down the fairway and it comes to rest on the ground (as 90+% do), I eventually walk up to it, mark it, then release my next throw from about 3-4 feet above the ground behind a marker which demonstrates the spot where my disc actually lay. I don't release from actually on the ground "where it lies."

Now I can speculate (I have no evidence being relatively new to the game), on the reason for the 2m rule might have been started. It might be that if you couldn't throw from standing on the playing surface a reasonable spot from over where the disc was marked, that you'd be penalized for being too far over (or OB as some call it now). A reasonable overhand shot for the average dg'er might be close to 2 m released above the ground (it would have had to be selected somewhere to draw that imaginary line), so logically, that could be a reason for having a 2 meter rule defining when a penalty should be called.

And with that Chuck's idea about suspended any distance above ground and other earlier similarly leaning posts are negated.

 

[DavidSauls]

We all feel like its unfair that you throw a shot into a tree and can't get it then don't want to take a stroke for it. There is nothing random about it, you threw the disc it didn't just get up there all on its own. Get your game tight.

Playing De La yesterday and two of the guys playing on the card with me got 2m strokes added and both said "taking my penalty like a man" Nobody that I have spoke to in the last few days can even make sense of removing the rule and we all feel like those that want it removed need to get over it and learn not to hit trees.

If I ask WHY a disc stuck in a tree should be a penalty, you answer that I should quit whining and take the penalty, or learn to throw better. That's no answer to WHY it's a penalty.

If 100 identical bad throws result in 1 person taking an extra penalty because the tree happened to catch the disc, while the others fell out, that's random. I can't think of a definition of "random" that doesn't match that. It wasn't random that I hit the tree---yeah, it was a bad shot---it was random that the disc stuck in the tree.

 

[DavidSauls]

I don't buy that the penalty is "random" any more or less than I buy an argument that the direction and force of a kick off of a tree is "random". There are factors that will influence whether your disc gets stuck if it challenges dense foliage and guess what, most of those factors are player controlled. The argument that "if it's not 100% controllable it must be random and/or luck based" is BEYOND flawed. There is no sport in the world where 100% control ever comes up, there's always lurking variables that may seem random on first glance.

That's a straw man. I don't recall anyone arguing for 100% control, or defining random as less than 100% controlled.

Random, in the case of this rule, is unpredictable and occuring at such a low percentage as to not impact a player's decision. The player tries to not hit the tree. He doesn't try to hit the tree but not get stuck.

Yes, kicking of a tree or a bad roll or skip are also random. But there isn't a penalty stroke attached, beyond the effect on the disc's flight. Only 2M has a rule specifically penalizing a random, very-low-frequency occurance.