Targetted Disc Golf

This is a variation on standard Disc Golf, invented by Matthew Jackson, Anthony Oteri, and Kevin D'Aquila on 7/28/2004 while chuckin around on the WPI campus at night. It has since been slightly modified, to improve scoring balance between players.

Targetted Disc Golf: General Idea

Disc Golf is a wicked fun game..but it has its downfalls like anything else. This is an impromptu introduction to a variation of Disc Golf. To understand it, you should have an understanding of how standard Disc Golf works.

Targetted Disc Golf, or TDG, is designed to be precision-oriented. In normal Disc Golf, an End Goal is chosen, and each player can advance to it any way they choose (such as throwing nothing but Hammers the whole way). The key is to get it to the hole as quickly as possible (being a long thrower helps) then do some careful putting.

Put simply, TDG just adds some extra Targets along the way as you're headed to the End Goal. To make things interesting, everybody involved gets to pick the Target at one point or another. Don't worry - you don't have to hit every Target. You just need to get close.

Say we're standing at a goal post on one side of a football field. The End Goal is the goal post at the opposite end. Now picture three trash cans sitting at various points on the field. Someone (not you) designates that first Target is the trash-can closest to you. Don't worry about actually hitting the trash can (we get to that later). All you have to do is land your frisbee near it. Specifically, within 10 feet from an edge of the trash can to an edge of your disc. If you do that, you will not be penalized.

Oh yeah, TDG doesn't involve counting the number of throws you make. Scoring is done via a penalty system. You win a hole if you have the least number of penalties. During any one hole, you can both acquire and drop penalty points. Depending on how you play your cards (er, discs), you may be able to penalize other players as well.

Targetted Disc Golf: Formal Rules

Rules Version 0.02b

This game has all the same rules as disc golf except for several differences

The Object

To break each hole down into a series of targeted smaller holes, where inconsistancies in throws result in penalties being awarded.

Game Entities

• The Mark: Responsible for calling the target for the current throw.
• The Target: can be anything easily quantifiable, including the end goal.
• The End Goal: Chosen at the begining of each hole by the Mark.
• The Threshold: An circular area of predetermined radius from the target. If a disc lands within this area, then it is considered to have hit the target.+

Throwing Order

• The Mark always throws first
• The remainder of the players shall throw in the order from the farthest to the end goal to the closest to the end goal.*

Determining the Mark

The first person to be the Mark is picked at random.

On each subsequent throw the Mark is chosen by the following rules

• If at least one person is within the threshold of the target for the current throw, then whoever is furthest from the end goal will become the next Mark.*
• If no person was within the threshold of the target for the current throw, then whoever is furthest from the end goal will become the next Mark.*
• If only one person has not yet hit the goal no person shall be the Mark.

Penalties

Penalties shall be determined in the following order.

• If you miss the target of the current throw, you will be penalized 1 point.
• If every thrower including the Mark, misses the target by a distance of more than the threshold, than the Mark is penalized by 1 point and penalties for every other player are removed for that throw.
• If every thrower, including the Mark, lands their disc within the threshold of the target, than the Mark is penalized by 1 point.
• Once any person hits the end goal, than every other person will recieve 1 point additional penalty for each additional throw until they hit the end goal.

Handicaping

Since the threshold determines the accuracy of each throw, the threshold for each player can be adjusted to form a handicap. A recomended default threshold is around 10 feet

Winning the Game

The person with the lowest number of penalties is deemed the winner.

Spirit of the Game

The point of the game is to reach the end goal with the fewest number of points. Choosing whether or not to actually aim for each target is part of the strategy of the game. The person who is the Mark can choose a target in any location they desire, but the since the point of each hole is to eventually reach the end goal, Targets should typically close the distance between the Mark and the end goal. It could be to the Marks advantage to throw away from the end goal, but since this could draw out the length of the game it should not be done too often.

*If determining who is the furthest from the end goal is too difficult, than the first player who threw in the previous throw will become the farther player.

+A disc is determined to have landed within the threshold if any part of the disk is within the threshold