Elaine King’s Justification of her Interference at Champions Cup
In the ongoing saga that is the selective enforcement of the PDGA rules Elaine King made the rounds on the podcasts including Shamsboxx TV hosted by Terry Miller and Jon Van Deurzan. What I found interesting was the amount of cover Smashboxx TV gave to Elaine King. The interview basically turned into a PR event of the marketing arm of the PDGA and Disc Golf Network.n
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nThe interview starts with Terry Miller asking what are all the hats she wears. Elaine King says that she is on the board of directors and helps to create policies and helps grow the sport. She is also a guest broadcaster on the Disc Golf Network. She goes on to say that the PDGA takes conflicts of interest very seriously. She states that every year all board members have to fill out a form that lists all the potential conflicts of interest. Those who have conflicts on a particular topic have to let the board know when talking about that topic. The board then decides if this conflict is acceptable or not. If its not then the person does not get to vote on that topic. She belabored the point to exasperation; to the point where, “methinks thou dost protest too much.”nnDuring the final round Elain King noticed Kristin Tattar’s daughter trying to carry Kristin Tattar’s bag before Kristin took the bag from her daughter. It occurred to her that she wasn’t aware of the rule about the age of the caddies. This is a new rule implemented for the 2022 season.nnTerry Miller then asks Elaine King to walk us through her though process given that she knows Kristin Tattar’s daughter is under the 13-year-old age restriction. She starts by stating that she didn’t know if Kristin Tattar knew the rule or not. She wanted to let Tattar know the rule but states that she did have her contact information. She states that she has a friend that “happened to be caddying for another player [in the group].” This friend “happened to be” Paige Pierce’s caddy. She hoped that she could discreetly go over and talk to Kristin Tattar and let her the rule.nnWhat Paige Pierce said in a separate interview is that she was not very happy that her caddy went over to talk to Kristin Tattar during the round. She said that she only like to be talked to by her caddy in certain situations and seeing her talk to another player on the card irked her.nnWhen asked if she overstepped a line, she said that she, “was acting as Elaine King, me. I was not acting in any official capacity …obviously nobody at Disc Golf Network … they don’t get involved in the play.” She goes on to conflate what she did with situations that have happened to her while playing. She gave an example of an illegal stance or unintentionally incorrectly marking a disc. Stopping someone from breaking a rule when you are playing on the card with them and texting a competitor’s caddy are not even in the same ballpark. While she says that she acted on her own, doing this while in the middle of commentating is not a good look. As I said with the previous PDGA President, being a member of the Board of Directors, you don’t have the luxury of “taking off that hat.” Whether you like it or not you are always representing the organization no matter how unfair that may seem. We are in a transitionary period for disc golf and this is a new phenomenon for our sport. There are growing pains and hard lessons to learn. Especially for those who have been in the sport for as long as Elaine King, they will need to monitor their action closer.nnIn the span of a hole or two Elaine King managed to mess with the psyche of not only Kristin Tattar but also Paige Pierce. During this time Elaine King says that her intention was to inform the players of the rules. She said several times during the interview that she wants to fix things and that’s in her nature. From the interview and the facts that I could find on this whole situation, I believe Elaine King’s intentions were good however, misguided. Its one thing to say as a commentator that a player looks to have violated a rule. It’s a completely different situation to have the commentator text a caddy during the live event about a possible rules violation. Fortunately, everything appeared to work out in the end. While Tattar lost it doesn’t appear to be related to this whole incident. Elaine King reiterated that she only had the best of intentions. While I do believe her, there is a phrase that comes to mind: the road to hell is paved in good intentions. Taking this to the next step, what to stop the next commentator from texting someone on the card about the wind conditions on a blind shot. I’m not saying that Elaine King or Philo would do something like that, but this needs to stop before a precedent is set to the detriment of the sport.nnOverall, the whole situation needs to be used as a training example. All parties involved need to learn from it. I don’t think Elaine King needs to step down from the PDGA or commentating for the Disc Golf Network. The latter should be contingent on a formal apology posted on the Disc Golf Network site. What should happen going forward is at the very least elimination of phones from the both when people are commentating. It’s a simple solution to a problem that shouldn’t happen again.nn
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Links
nEline King Instagram PostnnSmashBoxxTV Interview
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