The Decider: Which Golf Rules Would You Change?
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 18, 2010 10:45 AM EDT
in Playing Golf
Email
PrintGolf has very few recognizable memes, but like Icing, it seems that it is open season on the USGA's Rules of Golf.
In an ironic sense, it is the existence of local rules - not the standard rules - that cost Dustin Johnson a shot at the PGA Championship. Still, seems like a debate has begun about what the USGA should amend in its rules to eliminate archaic practices.
- Adam Schupak threw out some his ideas this morning, several I enjoyed.
- The folks at the A Position - real journalists - made their suggestions, but in a broader sense about the game. They had quite a few!
- Geoff Shackelford had a reader wonder if we should just eliminate the concept of bunkers as hazards and make them through the green.
Since I aspire to be the Rick Sanchez of golf, let's have a conversation. What rules would you change and why? Could be as profound as "I think it's stupid" to an in-depth examination.
32 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Some of he A Position’s commentators are really quite silly. For example:
“Come the revolution, there won’t be any private golf clubs!”
Nice. Fidel Castro and his gang all but banned golf in Cuba when their revolution came, but alas, they are having to rely on — you may have guessed it — private golf courses to shore up their economy. Yes, technically the Cuban courses are “public” in that they are resort courses, but the average Cuban citizen is banned from the grounds. That and they are owned by private companies. In effect, they are private.
“Mandatory carts should be put out of their—and our—misery.”
Perhaps, but that would render a great number of courses in this and other countries obsolete because they were laid out with the usage of carts in mind. While I am no fan of carts, and wish that every course were set up where the next tee box was beside the green I am putting, it isn’t how it is and unfortunately, it’s not how it will be.
Besides, a great number of golfers WANT carts, and last time I checked, the vast majority of golf courses are businesses that will respond to what their customers desire.
“If I were allowed to change one thing in golf, it would be the stuck-in-the-19th-century-mud attitude of the leadership cabal of the USGA. Let’s be clear about this. Within the first 15 words of the opening mission statement of every incoming USGA president going back decades you will find the word "Rules." Yet you will not find the word "fun.”
Having read the rules of NCAA men’s basketball and football, as well as those of the NFL, oddly, I never encountered the word “fun.”
Moreover, the USGA is deeply concerned about preserving tradition in golf, and that’s not at all a bad thing. Golf;s rich history attests to that. While they could certainly do somewhat of a better job of keeping up with the times in some areas, it is ridiculous to call an organization that does as much 20th century science on equipment and agronomy as the the USGA does as “stuck-in-the-19th-century-mud.”
How about we get rid of the pretension, the puffery, the pampering? Does a golfer really have to have an "elite experience" or "V. I. P. experience" to enjoy the game?
You know, the French, the Russians and the Chinese all tried to do that across the board at various points in their history and I don’t think any of us need to go to the books to see how that turned out. While it would be nice if Cypress Point would take tee times from the public, let’s face the truth: it is private property and just because it has a great golf course on it that caters to its owners, that doesn’t mean that any of us non-members have any right to it. They pay for what the experience they want there and what they do is by definition private.
While there are some good suggestions — more par 3 courses, speeding up play, keeping old classic courses relevant, etc., those I highlighted above say more about the person offering their suggestion than they do about golf.
Having so called "lived by the rules"
for more than 60 years, here’s my take….I think the rules as they are, are just fine…We as practitioners of the game, need their structure…..It’s what makes us who we are….Why do we call penalties on ourselves? it’s what sets us apart from all the other sports…and shows a persons integrity and yes, the rules ask for it…..I said this on a post yesterday….The first thing I do when I go to a course I haven’t played before, I do 2 things…I go into the Pro shop to introduce myself, purchase a yardage book and get a score card…The score card will have all the local rules…As they change from course to course, this is a top priority…read them,, and abide by them as you play the course….My only issues, if you will, is that sometimes, in Profession events, the local rules get circumvented….But, It’s still the players responsibility to know….They get a sheet every day, showing pin placements, the score cards have the local rules, and the Tour provides a sheet at the beginning of the week giving rules for that event….I don’t know of any players or caddies, who don’t have access to this information and have it in their yardage books….or, at least should….Change the rules ? I think not…..STUB
wait – I thought the first thing you did was go to the grill and make sure there was plenty of beer ! :-)
I agree with you on the rules – most of the things I would change have to do with tournament play, not so much the actual rules of the game. Some of the tournament regulations seem archaic with modern technology…and even those things would only work on most professional tours.
It seems that most of the complainers are people who don’t understand or respect the “character” aspects of the game.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Agreed - the rules don't so much need changing
as the occasional stupid interpretation – I don’t count DJ’s mishap in that, but things like Stadler kneeling on a towel.
Scenario: You’re playing with your regular foursome on Saturday morning. The course is a little crowded, but most people are doing their best to keep a good pace. On the par-4 5th your 210 yard tee shot fades toward the line of woods on the right (OK, that’s my tee shot. The rest of you are probably pushing 320, right?). Having been there before you know about where the ball should be so off you go, looking forward to putting that cut shot you’ve been working on to the test. You get to where you expect the ball to be and find… Nothing! You expand your search area and your buddies join in. Still nothing. Finally you realize you’ve been looking for five fruitless minutes. You declare your ball lost then grab the driver from your bag and walk back to the tee where you find the foursome following you waiting their turn. Not only have you lost your ball and are hitting 3, you’ve delayed the entire golf course for the rest of the day.
Since this is a stipulated, non-competitive round that honesty requires you to post on whichever handicap service you use, Rule 27-1 requires you to return to teeing ground.
My suggested change would be that in a non-competitive round, a player in those circumstances should be allowed to drop a ball as near as possible to the area the ball was expected to be with a two-stroke penalty. Changing the rules of golf to accommodate these types of situations would improve pace of play.
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
Just play the provisional in the first place, surely?
BTW if any of my playing partners wants to drop a ball under these circumstances (no problem) I insist upon aTWO-stroke penalty – they get really miffed about it, though.
Love your reply...but
Isn’t it nice to know, that if you hit this shot…(or one like it) you wouldn’t lose the ball, cause yours are GREENIE YELLOWISH and maybe beep also ? jist askin mind ya…STUB
Wouldn’t that make OB essentially a lateral hazard? If so, there are five options in rule 27-1.
And Stub, yellow balls are always better than blue balls. Just sayin in all.
by Charles Boyer on Aug 18, 2010 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions
No – lateral hazard is just a one shot penalty with the two club drop. D’s saying make it a two shot penalty to make up for stroke and distance. It would help in areas where you don’t know there is OB. If you know it’s there and think your shot might be OB it’s pretty easy to just hit the second ball even though it’s not strictly by the book.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
The intent is to cover situations where there is no OB and the player has every confidence the ball will be found. Think about the times you’ve gone into the rough to hit your next shot (we’ll maybe not you, Charles. I’m guessing this only applies to me.) and come across high-end golf balls that were not yours. Someone hit that ball with the expectation of finding it, but didn’t.
Last night we had a perfect example of this situation. My playing partner’s tee shot on the last hole drew into the trees on the left. All four of us saw it hit the rough. None of us heard it hit wood. When the player couldn’t immediately find her ball, the rest of us joined the search. Sadly, her ball was not found. Darkness was closing in with two groups still behind, each hoping to finish their round. The question was, should she hoof it back to the tee box to hit another, or should she drop as near as possible to the last known location of the ball with an appropriate penalty. We chose the latter so our friends wouldn’t be lost on the course in the middle of the night.
Had there been an OB situation she would have hit a provisional, but we expected her ball to be found. The intent of the suggested amendment to the rules is to acknowledge what happens in the real world in NON-competitive rounds where the ball is lost as defined by 27-1c and neither of the exceptions apply.
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
I’m all for groups agreeing to make an allowance like that to keep a course from getting backed up, or like you said, to beat the setting sun. You aren’t cheating the rules because you’re adding two strokes. And how often are you really putting yourself in an extra hole by haing to hit your next shot from a tough position or lie instead of possibly being in the fairway with the stroke and distance rule ?
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
I keep forgetting that you submit cards, D
We are all familiar with the situation you are talking about – heck, we’ve even seen them hit the middle of the fairway and still not found them (some vicious slopes). So we would automatically add a two-stroke penalty to keep things moving in your friend’s case, but as we don’t hand in cards for non-compeitive rounds, there’s no issue.
You know, D, if you’d hit more than that 7-iron off the tee, you’d be further out than 210. :-)
Here’s what you get from the USGA on that subject – they would tell you that they have to write the rules to cover non-competitive rounds all the way to professional majors. A situation like you’re talking about should be covered by a local rule to keep play going.
I have gotten that response on that subject in the past. Got the same thing when I asked about pros having their caddies lining them up for a shot. The USGA says they are looking out for the weekend player getting help from someone on their scramble team to the pros. They said to call the LPGA and PGA Tours and ask them why they don’t make that a Tour rule.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
I have every scorecard from this year sitting next to me. I’ve looked through each, representing 20 different courses in five states. Not one has a local rule covering how to address a lost ball situation, except to mention that all play is governed by USGA rules.
CG, you transposed the numbers. I plan a 7-iron for 120. 8-(
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
(SSSHHHHHH – you don’t have to tell everything you know) :-D
I’m thinking a letter writing campaign is in order for all of those courses, suggesting (strongly) that they put it on their next scrorecard printing. :-)
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Ryan Ballengee, of the GWAA, argues for bifurcation. Maybe he’ll take up the cause of creating an appendix to the Rules to cover non-competitive hacker rounds.
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
If anyone at our course went back to the tee to
hit second ball, they would immediately be strung up in the nearest tree. If you think it’s OB, hit a provisional, if it’s lost, we play it as lateral hazard. If it were the club championship, we would go back to the tee. In the tournaments I play in we are NOT allowed to go back to the tee (rounds are already 5+ hours). If you go OB, you hit again or drop hitting 4 at the nearest point where the ball crossed the OB line, and lost balls are played as lateral hazards.
I’ve been a member at my club for 9 years, and I don’t ever remember seeing anyone going back to the tee to re-hit, unless it was a tournament.
The Saints ARE the SUPER BOWL CHAMPS....WHO DAT!
good on your club, em
Dropping and hitting 4 seems to be the most equitable way of handling it. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be published anywhere.
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
Does your club have this in writing?
If so, would you post, please? Thanks.
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
Nothing in writing......heck
it took me 8 years to get them to designate a couple of drop areas on portions of the course that are always bottlenecks…..it worked and now everyone is playing the drop areas……go figure.
The Saints ARE the SUPER BOWL CHAMPS....WHO DAT!
you're the visionary 8-)
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
That's my big one too
I’ve lost balls that should have been easily findable, in bounds. But even in a situation where OB is a possibility I’d still allow a drop. I’d play the drop like for a lateral hazard but apply 2 strokes instead of one. In the case where it’s not a matter of OB, I’d just have the players in the group agree approximately where they think it should be and drop somewhere in that area.
Stroke and distance penalties are just not feasible in the realities of crowded courses. Most of the people playing don’t care much about the rules to begin with and the rest of us that do actually care about the rules don’t exactly like the idea of backing up the course so we can keep everything in line with the rules.
I’m sure the USGA would argue that it leaves too much interpretation because if you’re dropping where you think a ball should approximately be then you’d likely find it in the first place. Or, if there are trees in play, and you’re picking an arbitrary spot with some amount of leeway, does a person get enough leeway to take trees out of play?
Of course, if they try and argue that it’s possible to determine the point where a ball crossed the margin of a hazard 200+ yards away, without the use of forecaddies or TV footage, I’d accuse them of smoking crack, so there’s already some room for error built in to some of the rules.
by Double Eagle on Aug 19, 2010 12:44 PM EDT up reply actions
Not really a rule change, per se, but a lot of the folks I play with have a “we don’t hit off of rocks until they pay us to play with their clubs” rule. Depending on the lie, we either pick up the ball and clear the loose gravel from the area, or if the area can’t be cleared, just drop in the rough close by. Clubs are too expensive to intentionally gouge them up.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
agreed
That 7-iron mentioned above has ding from three years ago where I hit a buried rock in a fairway bunker. It was the only rock in that bunker!
"(I)f you think you've got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated." Saul Alinsky
the 210 yard 7-iron, right ? (wink wink)
HATE it when that happens. And then you have to look at that mark every time you go to the bag.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
At our local course...
most of our holes are lined with woods that are mostly unplayable, so we have a local rule that all “unmowed areas” on the course are considered lateral hazards even though they are not marked that way. It really does help speed up play, but the one slightly annoying thing I see happen a lot is instead of dropping at the point of entry, some people like to go where they think ended up in the woods and take a parallel line to relief…in some cases that can be 75-100 yards closer!! You get someone with a dead push and they’ve hit the hazard line 50 yards off the tee, but they drive right past it. I will, on occassion mention it, but for the most part, I know these guys know the rules but choose to “bend them”.
And speaking of hazards…if someone does go into the woods (now deemed a hazard) and tries to hit out, I can almost guarantee you they have either, grounded their club, moved a branch or rock, or taken a practice swing and hit the ground. What we won’t do to save a stroke, or two, or three… :-)
I write about golf at www.tees2greens.com, too.
good for your club, red ! does the rule spell out that the drop is supposed to be where it crossed the line, not where the ball finished ?
not trying to be a trouble maker, but what happens if some wisenheimer hits his ball in a bunker, then pulls out the local rule and points out that bunkers are not “mowed areas” and wants to take a drop outside the bunker…mostly because he/she knows they can’t get out in one shot ?
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Have a golf story tip? Contact editor Charles Boyer and he will follow the story! Thanks!
Related FanPosts on Waggle Room
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Certain photos copyright © 2012 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
