Friday
Oct282011
"Change 267 Years in Making: A Tweak in the Rules of Golf"
Why so many rules for a game whose basic principle is to play the course as you find it and not touch the ball until you lift it from the hole?
“We could issue a more simple rule book, but I’m afraid it would fail the fairness test, and what good would that do?” Mr. Rickman said.
Friday, October 28, 2011 at 08:38 AM
Reader Comments (37)
Uh, it's Schupak. If you are going to be critical, at least get the right guy you schmuck.
"shipnuck" part of the dig. details are everything ... especially in the rules of golf.
Maybe this kind of tone and incorrect spelling is associated with the Oregon Golf Association where you are logging in from, but you aren't doing much a service for Oregon golf or the rules of golf crowd.
i think it is wonderful that you choose to cover the Rules on you blog. As a loyal reader, I love seeing Rules related articles pop-up from time to time and am glad to see you posting so much about them recently.
We spend considerable time and energy re-educating golfers to dispel the myths that most golfers believe are the Rules. Your post - linking Adam's article containing incorrect information to be read by hundreds of thousands of people is certainly worth calling out.
with regard to my tone, my apologies to Adam and yourself for this - however, know that it is bred from the frustration of knowing how much time we (and every other organization trying to teach the Rules) waste because of opinion leaders spreading misinformation.
So far, you are not dispelling misinformation, you're merely calling it out. What are the mistakes?
Doesn't matter where that happens on the course.
I've got to agree with Learn them on the fact that printing inaccuracies on the Rules like this helps nobody.People tend to believe what they read and therefore take things as fact.
'learn them' did not say that his comments here were dispelling the myths only that he and other rules-educators devote a lot of time to the 'un-learning' that is necessitated by poorly written rules articles.
"In May, at the Zurich Classic in New Orleans, Mr. Simpson prepared to tap in a par putt of less than a foot on the 15th green — until the wind caused his ball to oscillate after he had grounded his putter behind it. He called a penalty on himself. Mr. Simpson, who was in pursuit of his first tour title, ultimately lost in a playoff."
Either the ball moved and the reporter wrote the wrong thing, in which case Webb deserved the penalty. Or the ball merely rocked back and forth, but did not move, and Webb called a very expensive penalty on himself for no good reason. Where were Slugger and the world famous Canadian Amateur (sic) Champion when this happened?
*People tend to believe what they read and therefore take things as fact.*
Damn man! You KNOW that if it is on the web, it MUST be true :)
Another mind-boggler was told to me last month by USGA rules official and rules teacher - Bernie Loehr. Bernie was part of the officiating crew at the Pebble Beach Open Tiger won by 12 shots (2001??). Some no-name in the Open hit his tee shot on 15 into the crowd. Unrelated a guy standing next to this guy's errant shot had a heart attack and died falling down next to the ball. The poor player reaches his ball in the midst of all the commotion getting medical folks to attend to this poor sap. Loehr had to declare that the body was a temporary immoveable obstacle and allow the player to drop his ball 2 clublengths and continue to play. Can you imagine hitting your shot next to a guy who just died?
Geez
and
“We could issue a more simple rule book, but I’m afraid it would fail the fairness test, and what good would that do?”
Fairness? Who the hell ever said golf is fair? The ROG provide for equity - ensuring that every player can be treated equally but not necessarily fairly. A more simple rule book would, I believe, easily provide the same and for me would do a LOT of good.
Golf is inherently unfair and that's a major part of its appeal. It's not fair that my perfect drive comes to rest in a divot hole. Nor is it fair that my bladed approach hits the flag stick at 30mph and drops to within six feet. Both are worth smiling over.
these days...it doesn't matter if it is fact or fiction...as long as it is spread.. .that's the way they roll.
hmmm...
with all due respect you guys are missing the point. Iam just happy that the rules got a generally positive article in a general interest newspaper. the ruling bodies have taken a lot of sniping this year over the moving ball issue, the brromstick and a bunch of other stuff. the people who make the rules work really hard to make them work and deserve some credit.
And thos who think the rules can be simplified need to understand that most exceptions in the rules HELP the player. if they were eliminated, the book would be shorter but a lot of "stupid" penalties, like the one for raking a bunker when a players ball is in another bunker, would reappear.
The current decisions book kills the same amount of tree as a medium sized novel. I'm not advocating going back 250 years but could it not be said that every decision has a decent chance of begetting yet another decision? Where does it end?
With today's protestations of "that's unfair!" and our fascination with stroke play we're moving away from Leith at the speed of light. The rules will become more and more complicated, less and less understood, increasingly ignored by the golfing masses.
What do you think about this:
http://www.golfchannel.com/news/golftalkcentral/he-said-she-said-rule-changes/
Specifically,
"So your ball finds its way into a water hazard surrounded by colored stakes of the red or yellow variety. Do you have any clue what your options are for each? Do you drop within two club lengths, no nearer the hole? Do you take the line it crossed and go to the complete opposite side of the lake, no nearer to the hole and drop? Do you go backward on the line your ball entered the hazard, no nearer the hole and drop there? In all those scenarios, the only constant and only thing I’m certain, is that under no circumstances must I ever drop nearer to the hole."
Is it a "rules complexity" or a "lazy player (blog author)" problem when the person fails to understand the options for relief from a (lateral) water hazard? IMO, it's the latter.
I think too many people are willing to throw up their hands and declare the rules to be "too hard" without bothering to try to learn them.
I would also be interested hearing about some of the incidences that occur to you 'every other match' - that's seems like an awfully high frequency.
What do I think about that blog post? I think that a guy who is deemed worthy to have a little tête à tête with someone named Golf GUy on the TGC website knows, or should know, the options for relief from a water hazard. He's either having us on or he needs to buy a rule book. No matter which, I agree with you that he's lazy - either a lazy writer picking low hanging fruit or a lazy golfer who can't be bothered to learn the very fundamentals of the game he plays.
I too agree many people give up on the rules without even bothering to try to learn them. That doesn't mean they are easy to learn. I've fallen asleep at night with the decisions in my hands (no, really) and I do think it's difficult to become fluent in the language of the ROG. I am not and I've given it a pretty decent effort. I'm way better than almost everyone I play with but that's not saying much.
"Every other match" is me taking a bit of literary license but it happens often enough. Examples follow. I did get most of these right but given that I'm never going to carry the decisions around with me there was a degree of luck involved. Maybe my passion for studying the rules led me to a better understanding of what would be the likely remedy but still a bit fortunate to get some of the right.
1. Ball enters fox hole within bunker. Ball lies vertically outside the margin of the hazard.
2. Player searches for lost ball greenside. Nearing five minutes he goes back to the fairway and drops. Before he takes a stroke at the ball and before five minutes is up one of his fellow competitors finds his ball.
3. Ball lies on de facto maintenance path. Not asphalt, not gravel, not really even hardpan either. More like mud compressed for 20 years until it feels like concrete.
4. Nearest point of relief under rule 28 is two club lengths straight up a cliff. I mean 90% straight up.
These all within the last couple of years and I could think of more if I tried. I'm not suggesting proceeding correctly by rule is impossible but I do think it is unlikely even 5% of players would flat out KNOW how to proceed and far less than that even care.
I love conversations like this. Thanks!
We'll establish five rules
Play only one ball at a time
Play your ball as it lies and the course as you find it
Tee your ball and play it, and dont touch it again until you pick it from the hole
If you cant do this, then
If your ball is in a water hazard, you may drop behind the water, taking a penalty stroke
If your ball is not in a water hazard, you must use stroke and distance
1-under the rules, the margin of the bunker goes down and not up. your ball is in a burrowing animal hole, so you get a free drop.
all of this is in the rule book, not the decisions. the decision just explains it as an aid to learning the rules.
But if we simplify, then you have two options---play it or stroke and distance, or play it.
2-rule book says one you drop a ball it is in play and the other is lost--again the decision merely explains what is already in the smaller book.. Cant allow a player to have more than one ball in play at a time. we tried it the other way for a few years and it didnt work.
under the simple rules-same ruling
3-rules say artifically surfaced, so you play it or declare it unplayable.
under the simple rules, however, you play it or you go back to the tee--a lot tougher than the "complicated" rules
4-under 28 there is no nearest point--you get two club lengths in any direction. you get to decide whether its unplayable, so you can decide whether you like one option over another. and the rule gives you two other options to choose from.
under the simple rules, however, you play it or go back to the tee.
This is a LOT harder than golf--but the simple rules fit on an index card and anybody understands them. You can make it as easy as you want by adding more rules, but the index card get filled up pretty fact with cart paths, burrowing animal holes, dropping along a line from your ball to the flagstick, etc.
Most people prefer the rules we have. they just dont understand them
If we "simplify" and play
That said...to 95% or more of the world's golfing population...the rules don't really concern them too much...they just want to go out and hit/chase the ball and shoot bs/trash with their friends. Or just simply go out for a walk on some nicely manicured turf...whatever floats your boat.
Golf is many things to many different people...it does no good to argue about such a great pastime we all love (and hate?) with all our hearts.
Thanks for the response.
In my officiating I have come across players on at least 4 occasions who tried to apply Rule 26-1c (the "2 club-length" option) to a 'yellow' water hazard. These occasions were at the NCAA and state amateur level. I also had a player in U.S. Open Sectional qualifying create his own relief option (applying the Rule 26-1b "line from the flagstick" through a point on the opposite margin of a lateral water hazard).
In my opinion any player who has progressed to the point where he can consistently get the ball airborne or to the point where he is keeping score (even if merely for his own records) should be able to handle Rule 26-1.
Is there complexity in the Rules of Golf? Absolutely. Are there many decisions? Sure (but I would argue that quite a few them can be ignored e.g., players do not need to read most of the Rule 33-8 Decisions - the ones that tell the Committee whether or not a certain Local Rule falls within the ROG)
Along with failure to read the rules book there is also the bizarre manner in which many golfers will cling to what they have been told by other golfers even when shown a simple and clear sentence in the rules. On several occasions I have seen a golfer cling to the old, "if ball is on the fringe then the flagstick may not be attended" notion EVEN when shown the very clear first sentence of Rule 17-1.
Why can't they cut it down to, say, 2 pages?
Next, pro football. Does anyone know ......
Having all stakes painted red and applying the lateral water hazard rule to yellow and white stakes seems to me fair and easy to remember.
Why not?
PS I have played with a brain surgeon who didn't know the rules!
It would be slightly easier to remember but I don't think that negates my point. Would it be a positive change to a hole like #12 at Augusts National if players did not have to successfully play a ball over the hazard?
Regarding the brain surgeon, he wasn't born knowing how to do brain surgery and he wasn't born knowing the rules of golf. I'll also wager that he only made an effort to learn about one of those subjects.
Would it be a positive change to a hole like #12 at Augusts National if players did not have to successfully play a ball over the hazard?
Speaking as a low teens handicapper my answer is yes! One in the water, drop at the edge, chip up to eight feet, two putts five- enough.
Smails
Really like your short rules but very tough, how about in place of
If you cant do this, then
If your ball is in a water hazard, you may drop behind the water, taking a penalty stroke
If your ball is not in a water hazard, you must use stroke and distance
Replace with
If you can't do this, then
drop a ball 2 club lengths from where the ball became impossible to hit and add a penalty shot.
This is what newcomers to the game do- it's intuitive. It's what we might do if we were starting writing the rules from scratch.
I will play by your five rules and be happy doing it. Most won't. Shouts of "unfair!!!!" would pollute the course.
I did get most of the rulings right. The exception was the cliff face relief thing. I wasn't sure what to do although I obviously knew I could hit from the previous spot with S&D penalty. Given that we're always having a match I just conceded the hole.
I like your simplified explanations and they serve to illustrate my point about the (American) obsession with stroke play. Everything is easy if you can concede a hole. Everyone could get by at least with a single hour long rules class or even a serious discussion over drinks with someone in the know.
Like I said, I'm a rules junkie although far from expert. I love the challenge of trying to work out my situations or those of guys I'm playing with. I screw up every now and again but I don't screw the same thing up twice. I think I'm in the minority though. Maybe not with guys who post/read here but definitely with the overall player population.
The rules/decisions are complex and beyond most people. I just don't think it can be reasonably argued the other way.
@Kevin, I agree laziness and bizarre interpretations of simple statements are a big part of the problem. The rules themselves cannot be blamed for either of those.
To my point, however, is it really the added complexity of two club-length options that is keeping golf-guy (the blogger) and those like him from learning the rules?
If so, then we should allow just one relief option: stroke & distance as that is easier to learn. So, in any situation (lost, OOB, water hazard, immovable obstruction interference, GUR, ball unplayable etc.) either play the ball as it lies or proceed under stroke & distance. Simple.
Player hits his tee shot into a palm tree with its trunk exactly on the edge of a lateral water hazard. The leaves spread both sides of the line.
If the player is certain the ball is "lost" in the tree inside the hazard he drops a ball 2 club lengths from the point of entry and adds a penalty stroke.
However if the player is not certain he walks back and plays 3 off the tee, with the possibility of repeating the shot into the hazard.
The first procedure is quicker and reasonable. The second is less so.
I have had this discussion with many contributors on various sites and haven't convinced many.
(And this morning I lost 4 balls in hazards and still shot 86!)
My goal wasn't to go through a list of possible changes to the rules.
My point was contained here:
"Is it a "rules complexity" or a "lazy player (blog author)" problem when the person fails to understand the options for relief from a (lateral) water hazard?"
Many golfers are too lazy to learn even the easier and more common rules (those dealing with common situations) and that problem is within them not within the rules. Until the golfers decide that they have an interest in playing by the rules they are not going to bother to learn them (regardless of what the rules say).