Another step closer to 8 hour rounds

[TEPaul]

"We agree."

Dan:

Yes, we do. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

"But what about the original concept? Why not change Rule 34 to end this stuff at the end of the round rather than the end of the competition. Either Bamberger would have had to be quicker with his observation or it would have meant nothing. Either way, the golf world would be better off."

I don't know why not. I already said I think that's an interesting concept, an interesting point. JVB said something about that, I recall some reason why he thought it wasn't a particularly good idea.

[TEPaul]

"When the player has the burden, and has not summoned an offical, there is a risk, since officials can see things different than you (ask the Angels about the call of Doug Eddings)."

Dennis:

Some say if a player has not consulted with a rules official and he has his golf ball in his hand "through the green" he's already taking a risk and if a rules official shows up he inherently has a burden!  

You know what that old rule's official said:

"If a player has his golf ball in his hand I pretty much have his balls in my hand." (or did he just say "I have him by the balls?")  

Frankly, Dennis, I've seen far too many rules officials over the years who try to act too much like homos!  

[Patrick_Mucci]

John Vander Borght writes:
That 85 page rule book must look pretty thick all right if all you know how to do is write a 500 word column.  Ignorance of the law is now an excuse?

It is not an 85 page rule book. It is a 600 page Decision Book. The rules are screaming out for simplification, but the ruling bodies rather make then more complicated (and slower.)

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.

Inherently, they can't be simplified.

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.

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.[/color]



Dan King

I don't know the traffic regulations of every city I get to either,
but I manage to drive through without being arrested.
 --Lloyd Mangrum (on being assessed many violations as a result of not knowing the rules)

I guess Lloyd and others are disciples of Peter Sellers when he stated, "Since when is incompetence grounds for dismissal ?"[/color]

[Dan King]

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

[George Pazin]

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.

Dan-O, I for one would love to see you try this. I think it'd be a really interesting experiement. I mean this seriously, not sarcastically. My gut tells me that it'd be tougher than you think, but my gut is often wrong.

[TEPaul]

Goldfinger looked keenly at Bond. "Strict Rules of Golf?"

Bond: "No, let's play by these cocked-up rules of this California gent, Dan King, which he gave as much thought to as the speed of his two-finger typing skills. That way we can just race around here, and you can go home and count your gold and I can go see Pussy Galore a bit earlier than I'd planned to."

[PThomas]

boy, Bond was really dedicated to take that match seriously and all the way to 18....if it was me I think I would have lost the first 10 and went to pursue Ms. Galore

[Patrick_Mucci]

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.

Take more than a couple of weeks, take a month, and then come back with a set of rules that are fair, equitable, prudent and easy to understand and administer.[/color]

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.

What if an outside agency, say a dog, strays onto the golf course, picks up your ball and proceeds to leave the property ?[/color]

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.

So, you would do away with the option of playing from the previous spot on an unplayable lie ?[/color]

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.

What happens when the two collude to circumvent the rules ?
[/color]

Give me a couple weeks and I can pretty much fix the whole damn thing.

Go ahead, take four weeks.
Today's 10-19-05, get back to us with your set of rules on
11-19-05.[/color]

[TEPaul]

Pat:

Don't even bother asking the questions. Dan King is a good guy, a purist, and he has every good intention for the game and it's future. But for him to say or for anyone to say give him two weeks, or two months or ten years to come up with a better and simpler way to play the game of golf for tournament players down to the general golfing public of this world is not ony arrogant on his part it is incredibly naive.

Why have the Rules of Golf gotten so immense and complex---certainly including the Rule's growing supplement, the Decision of Golf? It's obvious, although few have the understanding or the objective clarity to admit it? It's simple----eg because golfers keep asking the administrative ruling organizations of golf for one clarification after the other, ad infinitum.

The USGA & R&A don't generate Decisions on their own---every single one of them is some question and request for clarification of some Rule or some rules situation and on top of that the USGA and R&A don't even consider a Decison request unless it can be proven that it's an actual situation. Many to most don't evet know that the USGA or R&A do not get into producing Decisions on hypothetical situations.

The USGA and R&A aren't solely responsible for making golf's Rules more voluminous and complex---golfer's constant and continous requests to them for clarifications are.

The USGA and R&A would have no problem, even in official tournaments, with golfers like Dan King playing some stripped down rules version of golf. All golfers like Dan King would be  doing is not taking advantage of the options that golfer's have been demanding and getting clarification on in the form of Rules alterations and particularly increased numbers of Decisions on for decades which have become part of the Rules and particularly the Decision on the Rules of Golf.

[Dan King]

Patrick_Mucci writes:
Take more than a couple of weeks, take a month, and then come back with a set of rules that are fair, equitable, prudent and easy to understand and administer.

And what would be the point? Do you think the USGA would pay the slightest attention to what I came up with? Heck, right now they have a book that explains how to handle the rules by their own Richard Tufts and they ignore it. Why would they pay attention to me?

They have already proven the don't care about speed of play or simplification so giving them something that is simpler and promotes a faster game isn't going to excite them.

What if an outside agency, say a dog, strays onto the golf course, picks up your ball and proceeds to leave the property ?

I was just throwing out some ideas. Obviously what I posted isn't suppose to be all inclusive. Yes, there are issues to be dealt with, and they can easily be dealt with using common sense. I'd probably even end up copying entire sections of the current rule book. Some of it makes sense, some of it doesn't.

So, you would do away with the option of playing from the previous spot on an unplayable lie ?

I'd be tempted to say no. It probably needs a bit more thought.

What happens when the two collude to circumvent the rules ?

What happens when they do that now?

Go ahead, take four weeks.
Today's 10-19-05, get back to us with your set of rules on
11-19-05.

Just as mental masturbation? I need better incentive than that.

TEPaul writes:
But for him to say or for anyone to say give him two weeks, or two months or ten years to come up with a better and simpler way to play the game of golf for tournament players down to the general golfing public of this world is not ony arrogant on his part it is incredibly naive.

Try stepping away from your holy rule and decision book for a while. Start with Tufts' book and think about the rules as a clean slate. You should be able to see how far the governing bodies have come from Tufts' ideals.

Like I said, I was in the same position as you. I studied the rules, took classes, kept a copy of the decisions close by me at almost all times. But once you start seeing cracks in the USGA holy books you will also realize how far they have strayed.

Me, in my arrogance and naïete would start with my copy of Tuft's book, something the powers-that-be at Far Hills and St. Andrews have misplaced.

The USGA and R&A would have no problem, even in official tournaments, with golfers like Dan King playing some stripped down rules version of golf.

My problem isn't with the way I play golf. I think I play golf much more in the spirit of the game than most golfers. My problem is all these people playing their USGA game of five hour golf on the course ahead of me.

Dan King

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
 --George Bernard Shaw

[TEPaul]

Try stepping away from your holy rule and decision book for a while. Start with Tufts' book and think about the rules as a clean slate. You should be able to see how far the governing bodies have come from Tufts' ideals.
Like I said, I was in the same position as you. I studied the rules, took classes, kept a copy of the decisions close by me at almost all times. But once you start seeing cracks in the USGA holy books you will also realize how far they have strayed."

Don't give me any of your horseshit about my holy rule, Dan King. The Decisions book is useful to me in officiating but Tufts book is my bible and I'm fairly certain I know the intent, gist and "principle" in it a whole lot better than you do otherwise you wouldn't say the things about the Rules of Golf you do.

"Me, in my arrogance and naïete would start with my copy of Tuft's book, something the powers-that-be at Far Hills and St. Andrews have misplaced."

On that, you definitely don't know what you're talking about.

'The USGA and R&A would have no problem, even in official tournaments, with golfers like Dan King playing some stripped down rules version of golf.'

"My problem isn't with the way I play golf. I think I play golf much more in the spirit of the game than most golfers. My problem is all these people playing their USGA game of five hour golf on the course ahead of me."

Uh huh. Like Tom MacWood would you like to blame the escalting cost of the game on the USGA/R&A too?  

[Dennis_Harwood]

Dan-- Your postion calls to mind the famous quote by P.J. Boatwright--

When P..J. joined a group of friends for a small wager game, one asked P.J.:

"Do we need to play by the strict Rules of Golf today?"

P,J. replied--" Of course not, but before we play I want to know what Rules we are playing under--and I want to know ALL of them--and I want to know how they are interpeted."