Associate Professor, PhD, head coach of junior national team A.N. Korol'kov¹
Applicant O.I. Frizen^2
1Moscow City Pedagogical University, Moscow
²Pedagogical Institute of Physical Culture and Sport of Moscow City Pedagogical University, Moscow

The article considers a variety of sex-, age- and nationality-specific differences in the rule violation statistics of the international mini-golf competitions; and spells out the didactic, humanistic and sporting principles for the mini-golf rules of competitions. Based on the formal reports of 27 international mini-golf competitions, the study found statistical differences in the rule violation numbers; and gave a classification of the rule violations by a variety of types, with an emphasis on the sex-, age- and nationality-specific differences in the rule violations.
Furthermore, it was found by the refereeing service quality survey that the strictness rates of the refereeing service (manifested, among other things, by the relative numbers of warnings and other signals to the players) are broadly varied from one tournament to the other and largely depend on the individual preferences and styles of the referees. The situation is further complicated by the Rules making no provisions for a unified violation registration standard, and this free format gives no way to objectively rate the refereeing service quality in different competitions.
It was further found by the study that men and junior players tend to violate the rules roughly twice as much as women and adult players, respectively. The study found a few nationality-specific differences in the rule violation statistics irrespective of the geographical locations of the players’ countries, and the effects may be due rather to the mastery levels, local theoretical and practical training specifics and the national training traditions in this sport discipline.
The study data and analyses gave the grounds for practical recommendations to prevent violations and thereby improve the success rates in the competitions. The study results may be beneficial in practical coaching activity for the training system designs with a special emphasis on the latest pre-competitive training micro-cycles.

Keywords: rules of competitions, rule violations, mini-golf, refereeing service.

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