Rules Comment: Disc lands under road...

[Kenny B]

I was reading a thread about this topic on the PDGA discussion board and logged in to comment, but the computer wouldn't let me!!! So I'm posting and starting discussion here instead.

The poster described the situation as follows: On the drive my disc flew into a drainage pipe (large enough to crawl in) under a dirt road that is considered in bounds. Do I have to crawl inside and play from in there? Or can I take my lie above the disc on the road?

There was lots of good discussion about this and here is what I think.

1.

803.03.A. After each throw, the thrown disc must be left where it came to rest until the lie is established by the placing of a marker. This can be done by placing a mini marker disc on the playing surface between the hole and the disc, directly in line with the hole, on the line of play, touching the thrown disc. A player may instead choose, without touching or repositioning the thrown disc, to use the thrown disc as the marker. The marker may not be moved until the throw is released. A marker inadvertently moved prior to the throw shall be returned to its correct location.

2.

Supposing the disc hand landed in a tree above the road and also above the very same spot in the drainage pipe mentioned above, where would you throw from then?

3.

803.08.A. If a disc comes to rest above the playing surface in a tree or other obstacle on the course, its lie shall be marked on the playing surface directly below it.

4.

In disc golf we use the playing surface to play on, and to me the road is clearly that. Therefore I think the player can mark his or her lie on the road.

5.

Further supporting my conclusion is...
803.01.F. Rule of Fairness. If any point in dispute is not covered by the rules, the decision shall be made in accordance with fairness. Often a logical extension of the closest existing rule or the principles embodied in these rules will provide guidance for determining fairness.


So what do you think?

[ChUcK]

I think the course needs a standing rule in regards to this drainage pipe.

[TreeLove]

You shoot from on the dirt road, no stroke.

Just like at Swope during Worlds. If you landed under the bridges, the ones over the dry creek beds (they were not OB for Ams), you played on the bridge directly above the disc, no stroke.

[douglaselvis]

I think you're chuckin' out the pipes Kenny!

[Ol' Bob]

When my drives land under the hole 8 bridge, I stand on the bridge and throw. Seemed like common sense.

[Sausage Fingers]

I tried this in a PDGA tourney at Terrace Creek. Then I get back after the round and they try to tell me I was supposed to crawl inside the cement tube filled with broken glass and hypodermic needles to take my shot. Good thing there weren't any locals on my card...:pirate:

[BornAgainPagan]

I Like Pipes, O wait, Wrong kind of Pipe. :biggrin2: My vote is take the shot from directly above the disc.

[DMajor]

This summer at the Flippin Ze Disc tournament in Leavenworth there was a hole on the lower course that was known as the rattlesnake hole because there were several rattlers spotted on the hole over the weekend. About halfway down the hole on the side of the fairway there were piles of huge metal pipes about 3 and a half to 4 feet in diameter and anywhere from 10 to 40 feet long. Tim Vache in my group threw his drive right smack in the middle of the longest pipe. The pipe was barely big enough to stand on which was the easier shot for him but we weren't sure about the ruling so he played from inside the pipe first and threw a miracle shot from his knees threw a super tight window out the other side of the pipe that landed about seventy feet from the basket. Then he crawled up on top of the pipe and threw an even better shot about 200 feet that landed right next to the basket. He then went and drained a seventy foot forehand anyzer around a tree to save his par from inside the tube and made his tap in from on top of the tube for a par both ways. We never asked the TD what the ruling was as he had a par either way but it was definitely entertaining to watch.

[Ol' Bob]

Gosh, I didn't expect to get through that post without at least a snake striking. I guess par looks pretty good after the lead-in.

[olydiscgolf]

Gosh, I didn't expect to get through that post without at least a snake striking. I guess par looks pretty good after the lead-in.


The funny thing about seeing rattlers on that hole....the sign by the basket that said "petting zoo"!

[Ol' Bob]

I have seven Rattlers. Maybe someday one of them will be in that basket.

[RonTheWhip]

The hole freaked me out, especially because my lie ended up RIGHT where the rattler had been spotted. I did see Barsby in the tube during our round and he shot from inside...

[mazza]

me personaly...i would throw from inside int drainage pipe...just to make the story that much better

[DMajor]

I have seven Rattlers. Maybe someday one of them will be in that basket.

The snakes won't mess with you if have a rattler in your bag. It has to be broken in though.

[Kenny B]

Now I’m second guessing myself…I’ve been reading more on the PDGA discussion forum where Bob from New Brunswick, NJ wrote the following

Question - My throw landed on a bridge that spans an OB creek. The TD has not said anything about playing from the bridge. Do I play from the bridge, or is my disc OB since it's above the creek? What if I'm on the bridge but over land? Does it matter if the bridge is more than two meters above the ground below?

Response - The answers to these questions revolve around the definition of OB. In the definitions section of the rules, it states that the OB line "extends a vertical plane upward and downward". Where does that plane end? The rules do not address that directly.

There seem to be two reasonable choices:
A: The vertical plane extends indefinitely up and down.
B: The vertical plane ends when it reaches another playing surface.

Option A requires less interpretation, and option B makes more sense intuitively. The Rules Committee has discussed the issue and has decided that option B is preferable.

[The term "playing surface" is used frequently and it is likely to be a source of confusion.] Something is either a playing surface or an object on the course. A bridge, though man-made, is intended for foot traffic and clearly qualifies as a playing surface. Since it is not an object on the course, the two-meter rules does not come into play.

The IB/OB status of a playing surface is not affected by the OB status of another playing surface above or below it. OB applies only to the playing surface that contains it. Otherwise, a number of non-intuitive rulings result. Examples are as follows:

1. In the bridge example, the part of the bridge that is above the OB creek would be OB. A perfectly playable lie on the bridge could be OB, a foot away from a lie that is IB, when there is no direct reason for it to be OB. Players will have difficulty extrapolating where the OB part of the bridge is, especially if the OB line below is uneven (if it follows the creek's edge). Even if the TD uses paint or string to mark OB on the bridge, those lines will see a lot of foot traffic and may not last.

2. At least one course has an OB culvert that runs under and opens into a fairway. If the vertical plane of the OB line extends indefinitely, then there is a strip of OB on the fairway over the culvert.

3. If an OB creek undercuts a bank, then the top of the bank is OB even if it is obviously playable. Someone would have to determine how far the creek undercuts the bank to figure out just where the OB line on the bank is.

4. There is an overpass with a street high above a section of the course. The street, of course, is OB. If the plane extends downward, then a street-wide chunk of the course below is also OB.

If you interpret the vertical plane to end when it reaches another playing surface, you get much more intuitive rulings in the above scenarios. The bridge is IB, the fairway above the culvert is IB, the bank that overhangs the creek is IB, and the ground below the street overpass is IB. All of the playing surfaces above are easily distinguished from those above or below which contain OB.

Conclusion - You play a disc on a bridge as you would play it anywhere else on the course. Assuming the bridge is not OB, you mark your lie on the bridge and proceed with the hole. If your disc lands under the bridge, you play it from under the bridge, taking any OB into consideration as you normally would. Of course, the TD or course designer is free to make any or all of the bridge OB, in addition to the creek below.


What he wrote makes sense to me and it would also make sense that in his example #3, if the creek that undercuts a bank runs dry such that the creek bed is IB, than you would have two stacked playing surfaces, both of which should be played from if a disc landed there. This is leading me to believe that it is okay to have stacked playing surfaces and that you do have to play from in the drainage pipe (unless the pipe is such that there is an unplayable lie).

[Ol' Bob]

So, in a given sized pipe, it might be a playable lie for a skinny man and not a fat man? Or, say a guy with a good fifth lumbar disc, or me, with my ruptured disc.

[Chuck Kennedy]

Consider a walk-in sized cave that is in a hillside. If you threw in there, you wouldn't be thinking about relocating the lie above the cave. Now, just think of the cave opening getting smaller and smaller. At some point, it becomes too small for taller people to get in there and throw and eventually no human might be able to take a legal stance in there and throw, but that doesn't mean the cave floor is not a "playing surface" any more. If you can't take a legal stance, that's exactly what the unplayable lie rule is there to address, along with lies where it may be unsafe to take a stance like in a nasty thorn area. Shooting a disc into a sidehill hole is just one of those bad breaks where an unplayable lie and penalty sometimes has to be taken. And, what structures happen to be above the hole such as a road don't matter.

[TreeLove]

So you can throw below your lie, but not above it? Sounds kind of arbitrary....

So if my disc slips through a slot in the cover and lands at the bottom of a small, deep, dry well, I must play from the bottom of the well? I can't stand on the well cover (above my disc) and throw?

[Chuck Kennedy]

My example was for essentially sideways situations. There's a Rules Q&A that covers the crack in the playing surface situation with the consensus that you could mark it on the well cover just behind the crack, even though the rules don't specifically cover this situation.

[TreeLove]

Thanks for your quick response, Chuck.

But what if the well had no cover? Say it is a 1-foot diameter well, 200 feet deep, and dried out for decades. Do I now have to play from the bottom of the well? (Extreme example, granted, but for theoretical purposes.)

Or, let's say it's a bridge over in-bounds terrain (maybe with only a foot of clearance). Or back to the pipes laying on the ground. I say, let verticality apply DOWNWARD or UPWARD. And let reasonableness reign. I say that stuck in a tree, or a well, under a bridge, inside dry pipes, etc. the player should be allowed to play any of them from a safe, reasonable surface, directly behind their lie, above or below it as needed. Just mark it, shoot it, and retrieve it (if possible), in that order.

Maybe in my retirement I will try out for the rules committee. If I could die having effected just one PDGA rule change, I could die a happy man!

[Chuck Kennedy]

There really isn't a problem because the unplayable lie rule handles any unrecognized special situations on a course. However, if there are regular situations on courses like some you mentioned, the course pro or TD has the option, in fact responsibility, to specify relief rules in advance such as going to a drop zone, playing from behind a well pit (which is a safety issue that should be handled anyway) or playing UP on a higher playing surface such as a wooden deck where a disc can slide under. For example, we have a small elevated footbridge on my local course where the rule is players may play up on the bridge without penalty if they are directly under it.

It's unlikely you will see phrases like " free relief to a safe lie" written in the rules for the same reason only the player can determine what's a playable versus unplayable lie. These are slippery concepts for a group to decide for another player.