Patrick_Mucci writes:
That's not true, the rules have evolved over centuries and the decisions were created because the rules didn't provide sufficient clarification regarding unique situations.Give me a couple weeks and I'll make the rules easy enough even for the most brain-dead PGA pro to understand. The key is to use common sense.
Inherently, they can't be simplified.Of course they can. I was once very involved in understanding the rules. I took a couple of rules seminars from the USGA. You get to close to the rules you start seeing them as the only way. It takes stepping away to see how ridiculous they can be.
Couple quick thoughts:
Any failure to proceed correctly (the current two-shot penalties) are now DQ's in stroke play, loss of hole in match play. The message is don't touch the ball unless you really have to, and if you have to, do it right.
All this touching the ball goes away. Match play, just play the ball until you hole out, the hole is conceded, or you can't play and must concede. Stroke play you have to deal with O.B. unplayables and lost balls, but they don't need to have such drastically different procedures. Take two club lengths from where your ball is unplayable, your ball went O.B. or into a hazard where it can't be found or where it was last seen prior to being lost at the cost of a stroke. If you need two more club lengths, then add another penalty shot. Take as many two club lengths as you want, each at the cost of a shot. Actually maybe it should just be a shot per club length.
Get your playing companion/marker to ensure you did the process correctly. Their job is to protect the field, so let them do their job. No need to wait around for a rules official, you already have someone on the same hole as you whose job is to protect the field. Use 'em. If you both disagree, then it will be time to call in the cavalry.
I'd also change the statute of limitations from the end of the competition to the end of the round.
Of course these are all given about as much thought as the speed of my two-finger typing skills. Give me a couple weeks and I can pretty much fix the whole damn thing.
AND, if you play golf for a living, and don't carry the rule book and the decisions book in your bag, you're ill equipped to face the vicissitudes of competition.Why. Why not anytime you have something the slightest bit out of the ordinary, call a rules official. It is their job to know the rules, why does the player need to know anything beyond the basics? Besides if you screwup, you are on your own. Get a rules official to bless your actions and you are protected.
In the ultimate, the golfer is responsible for abiding by the rules, and if a golfer is inept or ill prepared for that task, they tee off at their own peril. And it is the governing bodies job to keep a simple game simple. It is also their job to make it a game that can be played at a decent pace. They've failed. They make rules with no thought to the speed of the game.
As an added benefit, perhaps courses will stop being designed with no regard to speed, or unplayability. Courses should be designed so most people can play the ball down from tee to green. Bighorn was mostly one big unplayable if you drove it off the fairway.
These opinions are not binding on the public. Many of these opinions might have been modified, superseded, or obsolete, but they are all mine.
Dan King
"Toss for honour?" Goldfinger flicked a coin.
"Tails."
It was heads. Goldfinger took out his driver and unpeeled a new ball. He said, "Dunlop 65. Number One. Always use the same ball.
What's yours?"
"Penfold. Hearts."
Goldfinger looked keenly at Bond. "Strict Rules of Golf?"
"Naturally."
"Right." Goldfinger walked on to the tee and teed up.
--Ian Fleming, Goldfinger, 1959