Poll 50: Booze during tournaments

March 18, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

To continue our series of polls of items on the course and about the rules, we’re going to touch on a pretty interesting one here.

Booze.

It seems like this discussion has likely come up many times before. And in the end, the result is often the same — no alcohol during tournament play.

Let’s clarify this, though.

These questions are more about PDGA-sanctioned tournaments. After all, it’s tough to police the non-sanctioned tournaments, especially if it’s an extremely lax setup.

So having your cordials during an event is illegal by PDGA standards. Never mind that many courses are in public parks and might have already made it illegal for you to have alcohol on park premises.

But for here, we’ll stick with tournaments. In the player Code of Conduct, a part of the PDGA rulebook, Section 3.3.10 says:

“Possession of alcohol from the start of play until the player’s scorecard is submitted is not allowed. Such possession shall result in immediate disqualification at PDGA events sanctioned at B-Tier or higher. The Tournament Director may, at his sole discretion, elect to issue a warning to the offending player in lieu of disqualification solely at PDGA events sanctioned at C-tier and below. If a player has been previously issued a warning for alcohol possession at the same event, all subsequent violations shall result in immediate disqualification.”

That’s pretty implicit, no?

So let that stew for a bit. Before we get to the question and its merits, let’s go back and check last week’s question, which asked: Should people be allowed to smoke while playing in leagues and tournaments?

It was a lot closer than expected, that’s for sure.

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Poll 49: Smoking on the course

March 11, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

With such a good discussion with our last poll, it seemed like a good time to tackle this subject.

And it is quite a hot topic.

Now, at some point down the line, we’ll cover the wacky tabacky. For this poll, we’re sticking with the legal stuff, such as cigarettes, pipes and cigars.

This is quite the topic in many places and it can get emotional. So it’s understandable that there could be different sides and thoughts to this poll question.

But, we’ll hit that up in a moment. First, let’s revisit our last poll, when we asked you about bringing dogs on the course.

Though we didn’t get as many voters as we hoped, this really had a great discussion. So, before we get to the discussion, let’s see the poll results.

We asked if people should bring their dogs with them when playing a round of disc golf. This was extremely close with 76 voters (52 percent) saying yes and 69 (48 percent) saying no.

So it seems like people are slightly in favor of it.

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Poll 47: Buying discs in 2013

February 18, 2013 / P.J. / Leave a comment

For those of us in states where there is actually a true winter, the season is somewhat approaching.

For those of you with great weather all year, well, the “official” season seems to be coming upon us.

That’s right — disc golf season.

And with that will likely come many releases of discs from all sorts of companies, big and small. Some new plastic from Innova and Discraft, perhaps? Maybe a nice new rubber disc from Vibram? Or how about something from Latitude 64? Maybe you’re even salivating to see what this whole Prodigy thing is about?

Oh so many new discs will likely be coming at some point!

But we’ll get back to that when we talk this week’s poll.

First, let’s go back to last week’s poll and see some results.

We wanted to know how old you were when you first started this wonderful sport of disc golf. We received 227 votes for this poll and the results were close.

The winning age group was 21-30 years old, garnering 65 votes (29 percent). Right behind was 11-20 years old with 63 votes (28 percent). The group 31-40 years took third47 votes/21 percent).

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Poll 27: Your personal course directory

September 24, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

Psst… some good news (at least for me) — I finally got out to play a round of disc golf this weekend.

To be fair, it was but a nine-hole course. But it was disc golf nonetheless. And, it was on a course I had never played, which brings my total to 19 courses played. That’s quite a small amount from other people, I know. But it’s slowly growing!

It got me thinking to many of these courses I’ve played and the things I liked and disliked about them. But in the end, it was always an experiences and a course added.

From object courses to well-maintained ones, I’ve had the chance to play on some fun and cool course. And I look forward to the many more I’ll add in the coming years.

Before we get to this week’s poll question, however, let’s check back to last week’s and see the results and what some people thought.

Turns out people can spend some money playing this sport.

While it’s true that the sport, overall, is cheap (one needs but a disc and a place to play), it can become quite expensive when you factor in more equipment, travel and fees associated with tournaments and leagues.

But, in the end, it appears that many of our readers can keep it on the cheaper end. Of the 202 people who placed a vote, 47 percent (94 votes) said they spend between $100-$499 per year.

The prices went up after that. In second was $500-$999 (19 percent/39 votes), followed by $1,000-$2,000 (15 percent/30 votes). Ten percent (20 votes) of the people chose less than $100, and nine percent (19 votes) said more than $2,000.

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Poll 18: How hot is too hot?

July 16, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

Will the heatwave stop?

Or do you even care?

I realize we did a weather poll not too long ago, but I’ve seen many “excessive” heat warnings for the upcoming week and one of the other writers here offered that kind of poll. So I’m going to go with it.

But first, let’s check in on the poll from two weeks ago and get things wrapped up there.

We wanted to know if you had ever called somebody out for a rule or courtesy violation and the results were extremely close.

Of the 79 voters, 52 percent of you (41 votes) said you hadn’t. The other 38 (48 percent) said you had.

That’s quite close. So, let’s check a few of the responses to try and get a better picture of things.

Justin Allen says:

I think the area I play in, is the only little piece of the world where the rules to disc golf are not enforced or even recognized. Our weekly tournaments are a big jumble of people just randomly throwing plastic at chains regardless of who is furthest out, people throwing from adjusted lies, or just not paying attention to other players. I find it very annoying and try to keep whoever is in my group in line. This has earned me the title of disc golf hall monitor among my peers. I am awaiting my striped referee jersey and whistle.

That would blow my mind.

I am, by no means, a rules-crazed person, but that would drive me up a wall. If people are so blatant in destroying the rules, I’m not sure I could play in that league. There, eventually, becomes a safety factor, too. If people are just firing off discs whenever and wherever they want, somebody could get railed with a disc.

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Poll 17: Calling people out in a tournament

July 2, 2012 / P.J. / Leave a comment

This is one of those questions I’ve wanted to see answered for a long time.

I’ve heard some incredible stories about these things, too. Tournaments can be pretty intense, especially when players are quoting rule books.

We’ll get to that in a moment, though.

First, let’s take a peek back at last week’s poll results and comments.

We wanted to know if you were a fair-weather golfer or if you played in pretty much any sort of weather that Mother Nature threw at you.

The results didn’t fully shock me, considering it seems to match up with many disc golfers I know.

I might only like certain weather situations, but many others seem to see it differently!

A total of 72 players voted in this week’s poll and of that group, 50 percent (36 votes) chose that they play in any weather.

That was followed by “A drizzle is fine, but not a rainstorm,” which drew 25 percent (18 votes) and was followed by “That’s what they make umbrellas and rain gear for!” (10 percent/7 votes).

“Sunshine only for me” was fourth with four votes (6 percent) and “Cold or heat is fine, but nothing else” rounded out the top-5 with three votes (4 percent).

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