Shivas:
I've done some research and I may have some interesting information for you on marks on putting greens within the Rules that goes way, way back.
You said:
"Unfortunately, the reasoned pro-cheater line arguments have been a little lax and slow in forthcoming...I mean, what the hell, we're 16 pages into this and there has not been a single, logical, well-reasoned explanation as to why the cheater line is legal or what overriding principles of the game require it to be legal."
Shivas:
In my opinion, you are not looking at this situation and this practice logically as to whether it’s a violation of the Rules of Golf or should be. You certainly are failing to understand the way the USGA/R&A's Rules evolve, are written and interpreted and what they're basically based on.
Your first mistake is your almost comical treatment of Tuft’s “Principles Behind the Rules of Golf” as if it’s some kind of Rosetta Stone code from which nothing can be done in the Rules of Golf without some reference to a “principle” of golf within that very small book.
There are all kinds of realities and practices that crop up in the play of the game in a Rules context that are not necessarily addressed in that book or in one of the ten “principles” in that book.
Richard Tufts was the President of the USGA, a respected Rules expert of his time, he was one of those who served on that remarkable USGA/R&A Rules Unification committee that managed to basically unify the Rules of Golf between the USGA’s Rules and the R&A’s Rules in 1951.
I will never forget my father thought their task was virtually impossible to do and that they would never be able to pull it off but they did. Tufts wrote that little book on the principles behind the Rules of Golf in 1960 apparently as something of an after-thought as his career in the USGA was basically over then. It just happens to be a lucid book on the principles behind the Rules as he saw them. After while I might even list his ten Principles for you as they appear in his appendix. they're listed as the "Two Great Principles" followed by "The Working Principles".
Since you seem to look at Tuft’s book as some Rosetta Stone-like legal code in which a reference to anything and everything that may go on in a Rules context on a golf course can be found, I suppose that’s why you would assume that something like the practice of using an identification line on a golf ball to align the ball for the purpose of indicating the line of putt must be illegal until it can be proven legal by some Principle in that book.
That’s not the way it works in the Rules of Golf, Dave. Many things that crop in golf and the play of the game may be legal until for various reasons the Rules writers decide (almost always through a vote on the R&A/USGA Joint Rules Committee) that for whatever reason something does violate some existing Rule of Golf. Sometimes they may even take some issue, piece of equipment or practice and write something into one of the existing Rules to make it illegal. Occasionally they may be simply interpretations and opinions of the Rules writers about things they may not like and they find a way to fit them into some existing Rule to make them violations.
The Andy Martinez case was apparently one of those. He didn’t exactly violate an existing Rule, it was basically that the Rules authorities just didn’t like the look of him crouching behind Miller in the act of a stroke on the putting green. So they decided that he couldn’t be behind Miller during the stroke even though the point and principle of the Rule they put the violation into was based on a prohibition against actual assistance during a stroke or that he may be shielding Miller from something, neither of which had apparently ever even occurred to Miller.
So when I tell you the Rules bodies have not made the practice of aligning an identification mark (line) on a golf ball to indicate the line for putting illegal because they don’t believe it violates a current Rule of Golf (or Principle of Golf) I’m not joking and I’m not avoiding anything either. That is the truth and that’s their rationale and reasoning for condoning it, and for not deeming it a violation of a Rule---- eg they do not think it DOES violate a Rule of Golf.
And if you can’t even understand that, well, then, I really do feel for you man, because frankly I just can’t imagine where you’re coming from other than a basic misunderstanding of the way the Rules of Golf work and evolve.
But I may have some interesting research for you on wording. And I may even hazard an educated guess (as odd as it may seem to you when I tell you) that may help explain why the wording in the last sentence of Rule 8-2b is not as clear or specific as it should be and as they may want it to be to explain that they really do not feel that this “cheater line” practice, as you call it, is a violation of the Rules of Golf or should be a violation. And to confirm the accuracy or not of my guess I think I know who to turn to, and if he doesn’t know or have a good idea I doubt anyone would.
Again, they just don’t feel the practice violates any of the Rules or Decisions on the Rules. Obviously you do, but you’ve given no good reason why that should be other than some over-arching moral opinion on your part that somehow it must be or should be. I have not seen you’ve found a thing within the Rules or Decisions to indicate it should be.