Should the PDGA investigate?

With the recent losing of the RED HAWK course at Plantation INN, Crystal River Fl. should the PDGA have an investigation about this incident? Should they then punish the people responsible for such actions which occured at this years Players Cup? Is it not the duty of the PDGA to uphold the image of a sport that some of us want to see grow and develop? YES< YES< YES> What would you do? Are you just the casual player or do you travel to many events in your state or further? Shed some light on this subject and show me the other side that I could be missing.

[Atrain]

Swan said:

Which is pretty much, flying frisbee's = hippies = reefer madness. Sadly this will not change in my lifetime no matter how hard its fought.

Aaronv said:

Steady Ed is rolling over in his grave right now. I wasn't even born when this sport started, but still know that this sport was started by pot smoking hippies. There is a place for everyone in this sport, just like any other sport. You just happened to pick the one that has a fair amount of stoners in it.It's not a stigma. It's history. Love it or leave it, because you can't take the stoner out of a sport started by stoners.

Ultimate frisbee has become quite a legitimate sport from it's humble beginnings very similar to disc golf and is no longer associated with anything but the sport itself.

[Chainchaser]

It should not be about ganja vs. non ganja it should be about what is best for the sport. Being a person who played this game in 1979 to the middle to late 80's I will say that it was a game for stoners. I was one of them. Me and a buddy would hop in the car roll up a couple doob's and go to miami white water and play a couple rounds of frisbee golf with our regular whamo frisbees. It was a great game and we had fun playing it!!Now lets go 25-30 years forward and I have since grew up, quit smoking weed and have a couple kids. I recently(in the last 3 months) started to play disc golf once again and i am trying to get my sons interested in it too. I would hate to go to the course and see a bunch of stoners or beer drinkers for that matter doing there thing in front of my kids. I have no problemn with you doing it(I think marijuana should be legal) but please do it in the privacy of your car or home. It's really as simple as that.
Now as far as the Players cup and that situation this sport will not join sports such as bass fishing or bowling unless it can shake some of it's past history. People may scoff at bass fishing but a second place finisher in a major bass fishing tourney will bring home more than a pro disc golfer does in a year. Look up the numbers. How does bass fishing do it. They try to promote atleast a semiclean status. The stigma of a fat lazy drunk fisherman sitting on the bank passedout is slowly being replaced with a guy or gal who drives a 30-40 thousand dollar bass boat that is wrapped in sponsor logos who can make not only a decent living but a great living off of catching a fish. Some make a great living just promoting bass fishing and not even competing in tourney's. For disc golf to do this and attract big sponsors(even ones that have nothing to with disc golf) they will have to shake the persona of the game that is for stoners only. Sorry dudes but that is reality. In bass fishing some people hate the big money involved but also that big money has brought about amazing advances to sport of fishing and if disc golf can do the same then the future is bright for the game. It may not please everyone but when your out playing these nice new courses that the big money people are bringing in you will see the benefit of it. So please when your out have some courtesy, clean it up a bit and give the sport you love a fighting chance because if you don't, this great game will stay where it is at and never be able to develope into game where the top pros and even the second tier pros can make a living at it which will benefit all disc golfers. If your going to do it( which i have no problem with you doing it)make sure you smoke it in your car or drink that beer before hand not during. Besides it is not allowed in the public parks anyway so do it discretely and when it comes to a major event then resist temptation because if you can't hold off burnin a fat one for a few days to allow the sport you susposedly love get noticed then you have a problem. IMO!!!
So it is not about ganja vs. non ganja but it is about reality and reality is that you ganja dudes are going to have to clean it up a bit for good of this whole sport I am not passing judgement on you but i am saying that give your sport a chance and just be a bit more discreet about what your doing and I think that would go a long way to helping promote this great game. Whether the incident at red hawk was true or not it still is in the public eye and if there is a company out there looking to put their money in this sport that incident will be a black eye no matter how you look at it.

[biscgolf]

i've been playing pdga events since 1995- there is MUCH less illicit activity occurring today during events than there was back then. is it gone entirely?...no, but the situation has improved and will likely continue to.

the idea that the pdga is an "old boys club" is absurd- only graham of the office staff and rothstein on the BOD could be remotely considered such and to apply the term to graham is a stretch. imo it would function better if it were, the newer folks have been the ones who perpetuate the striving to be all things for all people which results in doing a half-assed job of too many things rather than a good job of just a few.

[eric beich]

and really, if you took pot out of the picture, there are other issues there still.

same with a course nearby, we had issues that made the city come close to shutting it down. pot was part of it, but again, even if we were to leave that out, there were other issues causing problems.

big picture people..big picture.

[millman]

The PDGA needs to act on this disgrace to our sport. But I have very little faith they will do anything about it. The PDGA will not dare touch one of their coveted Pro's. This will all get swept under the rug and some jackalope from the PDGA will say it's just hear say. There's nothing we can do. When they know what goes on on the tour. The PDGA and their rules have become a joke. As stated by the PDGA, there is to be no illegal drugs or alchol consumed from the 2 minute warning until the round has ended. A real governing body would ban it completly from tournaments from the first day to the last. It's pretty bad when I play in a B tier and it smells like a Cypress Hill concert. Beleive me If I see you do it I will report you. Of course in a C tier its the TD's decision which is a joke. It should be a forfeit and a PDGA suspension. I don't want to hear any pot heads crying about my comments either. If you think it's ok to toke it up or get drunk in a public place where kids and family's are then be a man and go do it in the middle of a mall. Yeah your a big man getting away with it on a disc golf course but are to much of a coward to do it anywhere else in public. I had planned on playing the Red Hawk in the next 2 years but thanks to some jack ass pro's that won't be possible now. Like I said before in my blog, grow up, get a real job and stop being a leech on society.

[ROBEY the one.]

some peoplle r more discrete than others. it happens every where, on disc golf courses and not at disc golf courses.
Nathan said:

As someone relatively new to the sport....does this seem to be a major problem at Disc Golf courses everywhere? I've only played at a handfull of courses around my area and really hadn't noticed.

[nitegolfer]

Yes, the PDGA should investigate. The PDGA has a duty to not allow a subset of its members to be blamed by another subset of its members for something that possibly had nothing to do with the final outcome (new owner not DG friendly, looking for an excuse, seen it before).

Looks like this year's Player's Cup may have knocked off the Octadecadence...I mean...the Octadecadisc tournament from the halls of DG history.

[Patrick Brogdon]

Discretion. People should take responsibility for their actions. Just as many others, I used to. I agree with the taxation/legalization belief. But have some "Sense". Febreeze the hotel room... do something. If the olympic proposition goes through, I'd hate to see a performance enhancing drug test on some of the competitors. This is the same as the littering issues with our courses as well though, people have to take responsibility for their actions.

[Chainchaser]

This is the problem whether or not it was used as just an excuse to do away with the course and me,you and everyone else on this forum knows that the statement was just that, an excuse, it was used!!!!So the pot smoking, which I really have nothing against thats your choice, is seen by outsiders as something on the lines of well what did you expect from a bunch pot smokin' disc golfers which in turn is a detriment to this sport. The PDGA should be more of a governing body and need to give TD's the power to enforce the set rules. I Garauntee you if an angler in a elite bassmaster tourney was caught smoking pot or drinking beer on his/her boat during a tourney(not to say that these guys don't drink and smoke pot)that person would be disqaulified imediately and maybe also suspended. Disc golf in it's present state cannot compete for big sponsor money if changes in the sport are not made. From what i see it is on the brink and muit change it's persona in order to move forward. This is not pro bbal, football or baseball this is relatively a new sport and has very little room for error to even get to the status of pro bowling or bass fishing much less it's cousin ball golf.

nitegolfer said:

Yes, the PDGA should investigate. The PDGA has a duty to not allow a subset of its members to be blamed by another subset of its members for something that possibly had nothing to do with the final outcome (new owner not DG friendly, looking for an excuse, seen it before).

Looks like this year's Player's Cup may have knocked off the Octadecadence...I mean...the Octadecadisc tournament from the halls of DG history.

[Mike]

Sounds like it is not a new owner. But either way it looks like they management/club members, just don't want it there period, not a Players Cup, not a course. If ball golfers were to get high and drunk in their rooms, and trash them they wouldn't pull the ball golf course. They would just say they are a few bad apples. By adding a disc golf course they were trying somthing new. People don't like change. Think about (insert name) "old man rivers", that has been a member there for 10-20 years. He sees these jackass people driving carts like dumbasses and being loud (ball golfers like it very quiet). He is going to complain and possibly threaten to go down the road to another club, then they loose his $5-10 thousand (more or less) dollar a year membership. They are going to do somthing! In the future, yes people need to be smarter, but also I don't believe that putting disc golf courses on the same property as ball golf courses helps us, and we have to tip toe around them and work twice as hard to try and mesh with the ball golfers as well. Disc golf and ball golf are two different sets of people, these groups do not see eye to eye. Ask anyone who loves ball golf what they think about disc golf. They will probably say "why don't you just play real golf" or "a bunch of hippies".

nitegolfer said:

Yes, the PDGA should investigate. The PDGA has a duty to not allow a subset of its members to be blamed by another subset of its members for something that possibly had nothing to do with the final outcome (new owner not DG friendly, looking for an excuse, seen it before).

Looks like this year's Player's Cup may have knocked off the Octadecadence...I mean...the Octadecadisc tournament from the halls of DG history.

[Flyboy]

Mike said:

Sounds like it is not a new owner. But either way it looks like they management/club members, just don't want it there period, not a Players Cup, not a course. If ball golfers were to get high and drunk in their rooms, and trash them they wouldn't pull the ball golf course. They would just say they are a few bad apples. By adding a disc golf course they were trying somthing new. People don't like change. Think about (insert name) "old man rivers", that has been a member there for 10-20 years. He sees these jackass people driving carts like dumbasses and being loud (ball golfers like it very quiet). He is going to complain and possibly threaten to go down the road to another club, then they loose his $5-10 thousand (more or less) dollar a year membership. They are going to do somthing! In the future, yes people need to be smarter, but also I don't believe that putting disc golf courses on the same property as ball golf courses helps us, and we have to tip toe around them and work twice as hard to try and mesh with the ball golfers as well. Disc golf and ball golf are two different sets of people, these groups do not see eye to eye. Ask anyone who loves ball golf what they think about disc golf. They will probably say "why don't you just play real golf" or "a bunch of hippies".

nitegolfer said:

Yes, the PDGA should investigate. The PDGA has a duty to not allow a subset of its members to be blamed by another subset of its members for something that possibly had nothing to do with the final outcome (new owner not DG friendly, looking for an excuse, seen it before).

Looks like this year's Player's Cup may have knocked off the Octadecadence...I mean...the Octadecadisc tournament from the halls of DG history.

[Curtis Minton]

This is my take on the subject. We're all disc golfers here and we know the image associated with the sport. The sport has rules but the rules are self governing. If you see a violation and you let it slide then the system fails. This goes for all rules. The problem lies in the big picture. Our image and sponsors. I have tried and know of people who have tried to get sponsorships and be told no because of this very topic. So it's up to us,the disc golfer, to change the image of the sport.