Q: My friends and I are planning a tournament for this summer, and can't decide whether to apply for PDGA sanctioning. We especially don't like the $10 non-member fee. And, frankly, we're not looking forward to enforcing the no-beer rule.

Since it's our very first event, we're thinking C-Tier, but charging our non-PDGA member friends $10 for apparently nothing, THEN telling them they can't drink beer during their rounds makes us wonder if we'd be better off running things our way and waiting till the PDGA learns to relax a little.

A: Your timing is perfect, because the PDGA has relaxed a tiny little bit. Its new Competition Endowment Program waives the $10 non-member fee for PDGA C-Tiers that donate to a charity.

You also have to donate the $2 per player fee directly to your charity of choice and match it. Finally, the $50 sanctioning fee you pay just to get put on the schedule is chopped down to $25.

So instead of writing a big fat check to PDGA Headquarters, you can send it to people (or animals) who really need it. And unlike the PDGA, most charities - at least the ones we raise money for -- tell you where the money is going.

Regarding the PDGA's crackdown on beer, the wording of the rule makes it harmless, at least with C Tiers:

"The use of alcohol is forbidden from the 2-minute warning until the player's scorecard is submitted. At a C Tier event, the TD shall either disqualify the offending player or issue them a warning."

Maybe the TD would like to issue warnings along with Marshall Street Koozies, thus making it a no-warm-beer rule. At any rate it doesn't sound like it's worth worrying about, especially for the TD, who already has better things on his mind than enforcing the PDGA's Church Lady rules.

So I'd say go for it. Run a PDGA event. Donate to a worthy cause. Let your non-member friends play without making them fork over $10. Give the more serious players their beloved PDGA Ratings. And leave it in the TD's capable hands to enforce, ignore, circumvent, or make a mockery of the PDGA's no-beer rule.

Sure, the PDGA has a lot of problems. An out-of-date mission statement that looks like it was written by a six-year-old, secret salaries and expense accounts, no constitution to speak of anymore, no accountability at all, a website that's a labyrinth of poorly written albeit well-hidden documents, and a name that does not accurately describe itself.

But sanctioning charity events and letting the money go to real charities? Promoting our sport while giving to the non-frisbee world? Makes us wonder if the PDGA is finally turning around, because this new Competition Endowment Program makes a while lot of sense.

Sincerely,

Torque Novitski, Marshall Street

Our mission is simple: Grow the sport, grow the sport, keep growing the sport.