Remember the little yellow CliffsNotes books? You didn’t read Moby-Dick, but you had a book report due Monday, so you read the 60-page version and hoped nobody asked about the whale. This is that, for the PDGA rulebook.
The full rulebook plus Competition Manual is long, and most of it covers situations you’ll never see. What follows is the short list: the rules that come up at a weekly, that come up at a C-tier, that will cost you strokes if you don’t know them. Then the harder part, which is when to actually call them on someone.
That second part matters more this year than usual, because of what happened at Worlds.
What happened on hole 17
Quick version. Final round of the 2026 Pro Worlds in Michigan. Rainers Balodis, a 21-year-old from Latvia on his first trip to the United States, is leading the World Championship by two with two holes to play. He throws his approach on 17. Aaron Gossage, on the same card, calls a stance violation: Balodis’s left foot, at release, wasn’t where the rule says it has to be (debatable). The PDGA Marshal walking with the group seconds the call on the spot. The other two players say they weren’t looking.
One penalty throw. The two-stroke lead becomes a tie. Balodis had the option to appeal to the Tournament Director, who was standing right there, and didn’t. The group confirmed scores on the 18th tee, played on, ended tied, and Silas Schultz won the playoff after Balodis went OB.
The PDGA put out a statement a few days later saying the call was made by the book, seconded by the book, and confirmed by the book, so it stands and can’t be reviewed. The broadcast crew, looking at the replay, weren’t sure it was a fault at all.
That’s the whole debate in one hole: a rule that exists, a call that was procedurally airtight, and a large chunk of the sport asking whether it should have been made. Hold that thought. Rules first.
The cheat sheet
Rule numbers link to the real thing in the Official Rules and the Competition Manual. When in doubt, the rulebook wins, not this post.
- The lie is a 20 cm wide, 30 cm deep rectangle directly behind your marker, or behind the thrown disc if you’re playing off it. The front edge of the disc is the front edge of the lie.
- At release you need at least one supporting point touching the lie, and no supporting point closer to the basket than the back edge of your marker. Hands, knees, and the other foot all count.
- No warning. The throw counts as thrown; you don’t get a rethrow. This changed in 2018 and people still expect a warning. There isn’t one.
- Inside 10 metres you have to show balance before moving toward the basket after a putt. Falling forward past your marker is the same violation, same penalty.
- A disc is OB only when it’s completely surrounded by OB. Any part touching in-bounds is in bounds.
- OB is a vertical plane, not a surface. A disc on a dry rock in the middle of an OB creek is OB. The 2026 book added a Q&A that says exactly this.
- Your options: mark up to 1 metre in-bounds from where the disc last crossed the line, go back to the previous lie, or use the drop zone if there is one.
- Free metre. In bounds but within a metre of the line? Take up to 1 metre of relief perpendicular to it, no penalty. Your foot can’t be in OB when you throw.
The other marked areas
The 2026 book added a chart for these because everyone mixes them up.
| Area | Rule | Costs you | Play from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Out of bounds | 806.02 | 1 throw | Last in-bounds point, previous lie, or drop zone |
| Hazard | 806.05 | 1 throw | Where it lies |
| Casual (water, mud) | 806.03 | none | Nearest spot behind, on the line of play, outside the area |
| Required relief | 806.04 | none | Last in-bounds point or drop zone |
If Majors-style course marking reaches your local events: white is OB, yellow is hazard, red is casual, pink is required relief, orange is drop zones and mandos.
- Wrong side of the mando: play from the drop zone, or the previous lie if there’s no drop zone.
- You can’t throw a provisional to test a mando. The group decides, or you appeal to the TD.
- Three minutes to search, from when you arrive at the area and it’s not obvious where the disc is. Someone says “clock’s started” out loud.
- The whole group helps look. Refusing is a courtesy violation.
- Not found: play from the previous lie, or the drop zone.
- The disc has to enter above the tray and come to rest supported by the chains or the tray. On top of the cage, wedged in the outside, or stuck underneath doesn’t count.
- Nobody argues this one until the disc is on top of the cage on a par-5 island hole. It’s not in.
- 30 seconds from the tee, a drop zone, or inside 20 metres of the basket.
- 45 seconds from anywhere else.
- The clock starts when you’ve addressed your lie: marking, taking a stance, rangefinder, checking wind, anything that looks like getting ready.
Changed for 2026
The fairway clock was 30 seconds. It’s 45 now, and “addressing the lie” is the defined start.
- Tee order is by score on the previous hole, lowest first. After that, the player farthest from the basket throws next.
- Throwing out of turn is a courtesy violation. Do it in the wrong moment and you’ve also just distracted someone mid-routine.
- Any throw that isn’t a competitive throw. That includes flicking a disc back to a friend at full speed and the “just seeing how it flies” putt after you’ve holed out.
- Handing a disc over or tossing it a couple of metres is fine. Launching it is not.
- Everyone keeps score for the whole group, every hole, on paper or in the app.
- Scores get confirmed at the next tee. Once the round’s over and the card is in, the card is what happened.
- A wrong total, or a card handed in late, is two throws. Check the math before you sign.
- Refusing to keep score at all is a DQ as of 2026.
- Covers noise while someone throws, throwing out of turn, not helping search, littering, throwing when the fairway isn’t clear, and the catch-all for being a jerk.
- At Majors and Elite Series events courtesy warnings now carry into a playoff. At your local event they still reset.
- PDGA-approved discs only. A cracked disc, or one with a hole in it, is illegal. Sanding, painting, or otherwise modifying the flight of a disc is illegal.
- Doing it on purpose is a DQ.
- Not sure a disc is approved? Every disc in the archive carries its PDGA approval date.
Not on the list, but you’ll hear about them
- Two-metre rule 805.02 is off by default and only applies when the TD turns it on. One throw, play from under the disc.
- Abandoned throw 809.01: rethrow any throw from the same lie for one penalty. Useful when you’ve hit a tree three feet in front of you.
- Alcohol: at a sanctioned event, none between the two-minute warning and turning in your card. Leagues may loosen this. Ask the TD, don’t assume.
Calling it: the part nobody writes down
Here’s the rule the whole Worlds argument sits on, word for word:
Players are expected to call a violation when one has clearly occurred.
PDGA Official Rules of Disc Golf, 801.02.E
The word doing all the work in that sentence is clearly. The rulebook doesn’t say “call anything you think you might have seen.” It says clearly occurred. That’s not a loophole. That’s the standard.
And the second half of the system is 801.02.H: a call that carries a penalty throw has to be confirmed by another player in the group or an official. One person’s opinion isn’t enough. On 17 at Worlds the second came from the Marshal, which is why the call stuck even though two of the three other players were watching the disc, not the foot.
Which is the unwritten rule, right there. Nobody watches feet. Go stand on a card at any C-tier and count how many people are looking at the thrower’s plant foot at the moment of release. It’s zero. Everyone’s watching the disc, because that’s the interesting part. So a foot fault only ever gets called when someone happens to be looking, and that’s already a lottery.
I play tournaments. I very rarely see a call made. Not because everyone’s perfect, but because the sport runs on self-governance and most people have quietly agreed on a line. My read on where that line is:
Blatant gets called. Foot a full step in front of the marker. Playing from the wrong lie. A disc obviously OB with the player marking it in. Falling putts that are really just walk-throughs. Nobody complains about these calls, including the player who got called.
If you want to calibrate what blatant looks like, there’s a compilation on YouTube of the biggest foot faults ever called on coverage. Watch it once and the pattern is obvious: in most of them you don’t need a replay. You can see it from the tee, from the gallery, from your couch. That’s the bar.
Now put the Worlds call next to those. It’s not in the same category, and that’s the point.
Marginal doesn’t. A heel that might have been an inch over the back edge of the mini on a jump putt. A disc that was “probably” over the line for part of its flight. A putt where the balance was arguable. The rulebook’s own standard is “clearly,” and marginal isn’t clearly.
The middle is where it gets ugly, and that’s where Worlds landed. A foot in a spot that a Marshal called correct on sight and a broadcast crew couldn’t confirm on replay. By the letter it was a legitimate call. By the culture of the sport, it was a call almost nobody makes, on the biggest stage the sport has, against a kid two holes from a world title.
I don’t think Gossage did anything wrong. The rule exists; he saw something; he called it; it got seconded. That’s the system working exactly as written. The uncomfortable part is that the system, as written, is only rarely used, and a rule that’s enforced once a year at random is a strange kind of rule.
From my own card
I’ve been on the other side of this. A while back, a B-tier up in Napa, MP40, final round, and I was trading the lead with one other guy. On a tough uphill hole he ran a putt and fell forward past his marker. One of the other players on the card looked straight at me, because I was the one it mattered to.
I didn’t call it. My reasoning at the time was that he’d missed the putt anyway, so what was the point, and I didn’t want to be the guy who turned a missed putt into a stroke and a grudge with ten holes still to play. By the book that reasoning is wrong: a falling putt is a stance violation whether it goes in or not, and there was a second on the card ready to confirm it.
We finished tied. He beat me in the playoff. So, one throw. Make of that what you will. I’d probably do it the same way again, and I’d probably lose the same way again.
Two things I’d take from it:
- If you get called, appeal on the spot if you disagree. Balodis could have taken it to the TD, who was standing there, and didn’t. Once the group confirms scores on the next tee, it’s locked. The PDGA’s statement is explicit that after that point there’s no review. Your window is short.
- We’re throwing frisbees. Discretion is built into the rulebook on purpose. Use it. Call what’s clear. Let the rest go, and expect the same in return. If you find yourself wanting to make a call you wouldn’t want made on you, that’s your answer.
What changed for 2026
If you knew the rules well in 2025, here’s the delta.
In effect since January 1
- No more “benefit of the doubt.” When the group votes on whether a disc is OB, lost, whatever, the thrower doesn’t vote. The others vote first; the thrower only breaks a tie. Abstaining when you were there is a courtesy violation. So is lobbying your group.
- 45 seconds from the fairway instead of 30. The clock starts when you address the lie.
- Provisionals need three things announced before you throw: that you’re doing it, why, and which set of throws applies to which outcome. Miss any of those and it’s a practice throw. Not available for missed mandos or abandoned throws.
- Litter can be picked up without penalty. Big rocks and embedded branches are officially not casual obstacles.
- Groups of fewer than three wait for the group behind and merge. Playing on as a twosome without telling anyone is a misplay on every hole.
- Flex starts can play through with the other group’s permission.
- At Majors and Elite Series only: two 30-second time extensions per player per round, a 950 rating floor for MPO, and a “Monday finish” so Worlds can’t end in a tie. None of that applies at your local event.
One more from August 14: a TD’s ruling is final even if it’s later found to be wrong. Which is, again, the Worlds statement in one sentence.
What they’re considering for 2027
The PDGA published its 2027 proposals in July and closed public comment on July 23, about five weeks before hole 17. None of this is in effect. Final versions usually land around December and take effect January 1. But the direction is clear, and a couple of these read like they were written for the Worlds debate before the Worlds debate happened.
Proposal · stance
The jump putt problem, three ways
The PDGA is openly saying that jump and step putts where the foot leaves the lie before release are a problem they can’t police. Three fixes are on the table:
- Add “clearly” to the stance rule. A violation would only exist if it’s clearly observable by the group or an official, with the naked eye. That’s the same standard already used for OB. A foot fault you’d need a replay to confirm wouldn’t be a foot fault.
- Expand the circle to 20 metres. Jump putts stay legal outside it, but the balance requirement covers everything inside 20 metres, where the PDGA says over 95% of hole-outs happen. The circle-2 jump putt would effectively be gone.
- A middle zone. Keep the no-step rule at 10 metres, but from 10 to 20 require one supporting point on the lie until balance is shown. You could still follow through; you couldn’t leave the ground.
They’ve said the first can go in alone, or with either of the other two. My guess is option 1 happens regardless. It’s the cheapest fix and it codifies what the culture already does.
Proposal · courtesy
Watching feet becomes a rule
The courtesy section currently says you have to watch the other players throw. The proposal changes that to observe the group “in order to ensure rules compliance,” and adds calling and seconding violations to the list of required actions. Read next to Worlds, where two players on the card said they weren’t looking, that’s a pointed edit.
Proposal · misconduct
Not calling becomes a DQ offence
“Overt failure or refusal to enforce the rules” would move to the immediate-disqualification list, filed under cheating. It’s aimed at the player who sees a blatant violation and shrugs, not at someone who missed a marginal one. But the sport is telling you which direction it wants the culture to go.
Proposal · the rest
Smaller ones worth knowing
- A disc wedged between the outside of the tray and a tree, or held up by the ground under the cage, would not be holed out.
- Abandoned throw could take you back to any previous lie on the hole, including the tee, for one penalty.
- Hitting your own mini would no longer be a penalty. Right now it technically is.
- Officials could use photo or video to decide whether a disc holed out. Not for foot faults. Not for OB. Just the basket.
- Practice throw gets a cleaner definition: anything under five metres, setting a disc aside, or tossing one back isn’t a throw.
- TDs would be barred from honouring card requests. No “put me with my buddy.”
- The five-minute check-in would only apply at B-tiers and below if the TD announces it at least 12 hours ahead.
If option 1 passes, this post’s argument about calling becomes the rule rather than the etiquette. If option 2 or 3 passes, the jump putt from 45 feet is a different shot next year. Either way, re-read this section in January.
Sources: PDGA Official Rules of Disc Golf and Competition Manual, rev. Jan 1, 2026 · 2026 rules update, Dec 28, 2025 · PDGA statement on the MPO final round, Aug 31, 2026 · 2027 proposed changes, Jul 13, 2026. This post is a summary, not the rulebook. Check the rule number before you argue with your card.
