[John Mayhugh]

I just noticed that John V has a new blog page called Rules Thoughts.  He's going to go through the rules book rule by rule and comment on each.  I'm really looking forward to this approach.

http://freedrop.wordpress.com/rules-thoughts/

Rule 1-3 is rather entertaining.  Who knew?

[Phil_the_Author]

John, this looks terrific and well presented. It is most definitely needed and a great idea!

Congratulations...

[Doug Ralston]

Rules?!!

When watching the US Open I a commentator said if a player accidently dropped his ball marker and it hit his ball, he would be penalized a stroke, I could hardly stop laughing. I mean, I know the purpose of the 'Rules of Golf' is not REALLY to find new and absurd reasons why penalties should be administered, but ......................... no, wait! That clearly IS the purpose!

Let me see if I can grok why such a rule would be contemplated. Perhaps otherwise a golfer whose ball is stopped on a steep grade leading toward the hole would stand and drop ball markers till one hit it so well as to make it trundle down the hill? Aw, come on! 

I swear I will never play competitive golf, if for no other reason, because it leads to these kind of absurdities.

Doug

[RJ_Daley]

I'll look forward to dropping in on JVB to hear and learn about rules.  I am not a rules maven. 

Did I read this right in Golfweek?  Snedeker did the other way around from what Doug is saying above.  He put his marker down, and as he stood up he dropped the ball on the marker, causing it to move slightly, and was penalized after first being told it was OK, then a few holes later being informed it was a penalty?  I tried to do some cursory examination of the rules, and found 18-something saying it is no penalty if you accidently move the ball or a ball marker when measuring for whose away. Is that right.  Yet, an accidental dropped ball on the marker is no-no?  If that is so, it would exacerbate me to no end. 

[Doug Ralston]

I'll look forward to dropping in on JVB to hear and learn about rules.  I am not a rules maven. 

Did I read this right in Golfweek?  Snedeker did the other way around from what Doug is saying above.  He put his marker down, and as he stood up he dropped the ball on the marker, causing it to move slightly, and was penalized after first being told it was OK, then a few holes later being informed it was a penalty?  I tried to do some cursory examination of the rules, and found 18-something saying it is no penalty if you accidently move the ball or a ball marker when measuring for whose away. Is that right.  Yet, an accidental dropped ball on the marker is no-no?  If that is so, it would exacerbate me to no end. 

Are you saying that I misunderstood what the commentator said? I may have. It was my understanding that dropping the marker as you were about to mark the ball, and hitting the ball, was the issue. I truly HOPE I misunderstood. 

Doug

[JohnV]

John,

Thanks for the promo.  I'm going to try to keep that section growing and I hope it can be the most useful part of the blog over time.

Doug,

Rule 0.5 in the Rules of Golf is don't believe everything that a commentator on TV says about the rules.  It isn't if it hits the ball, only if it moves it.

The Rules of Golf draw black and white lines on a lot of things.  One of them is that if you cause your ball to move, with the exception of some very specific cases, you are penalized.  In the case of marking your ball, if your hand is right next to the ball and you bump it, there is no penalty, but if you drop something from any height, be it a ball marker, putter, hat or anything else and cause the ball to move you are penalized.

Rule 20-1 and 20-3 cover lifting and replacing a ball.  They both state that there is no penalty for accidentally moving your ball in the act as long as the movement is directly attributable to the process.  Dropping your coin or ball is not the proper way to do this and so it is considered to not be directly attributable.

The rules are not designed to protect us from being clumsy.

Dick,

I don't know why Snedeker wasn't told immediately that he was penalized.  It sounds like a pretty clear case of this and there are decisions that directly say so.  All I can guess is that the official on the spot made a mistake and it was corrected later.

[JohnV]

This one is much better:  you can lift leaves and other junk from your line of putt.  But if you put any of it back, it's a penalty, because you're only allowed to touch your line of putt to removing stuff.

So it's fall and you're getting a bunch of big maple leaves out of your line...

you're almost done, and you start to pick up a teeny tiny leaf of some sort and then you say to yourself "aw, hell, I've done enough, this is plenty, this one won't matter", so you drop it back because it's so small, after all the work you've done, you don't care about it.

2 strokes.  Ouch.

Dave,

Thinking before acting is a good idea.

[TEPaul]

I love this kind of thing, particularly some questions and answers.

JVB:

There's this dude out there somewhere called Shivas who is probably about to become your worst nightmare! 

[Doug Ralston]

This one is much better:  you can lift leaves and other junk from your line of putt.  But if you put any of it back, it's a penalty, because you're only allowed to touch your line of putt to removing stuff.

So it's fall and you're getting a bunch of big maple leaves out of your line...

you're almost done, and you start to pick up a teeny tiny leaf of some sort and then you say to yourself "aw, hell, I've done enough, this is plenty, this one won't matter", so you drop it back because it's so small, after all the work you've done, you don't care about it.

2 strokes.  Ouch.

Dave,

Thinking before acting is a good idea.

Yes, think indeed. What if you pick up leaves on a windy day, pitch them aside, and some blow back into what MIGHT be your line of play? I think we have all done that. Leaves do not fall straight in wind, afterall.

Hmm

Doug

[JohnV]

I love this kind of thing, particularly some questions and answers.

JVB:

There's this dude out there somewhere called Shivas who is probably about to become your worst nightmare! 

become?  

[JohnV]

This one is much better:  you can lift leaves and other junk from your line of putt.  But if you put any of it back, it's a penalty, because you're only allowed to touch your line of putt to removing stuff.

So it's fall and you're getting a bunch of big maple leaves out of your line...

you're almost done, and you start to pick up a teeny tiny leaf of some sort and then you say to yourself "aw, hell, I've done enough, this is plenty, this one won't matter", so you drop it back because it's so small, after all the work you've done, you don't care about it.

2 strokes.  Ouch.

Dave,

Thinking before acting is a good idea.

Yes, think indeed. What if you pick up leaves on a windy day, pitch them aside, and some blow back into what MIGHT be your line of play? I think we have all done that. Leaves do not fall straight in wind, afterall.

Hmm

Doug

Doug, that would not be a penalty.  Only specifically placing or replacing something would be.  The idea being you can't put something down that could help you in your play of the hole.  Wind moving the leaves back after you lifted them is not a penalty.

[TEPaul]

Yeah, but JVB, don't you see, Shivas feels there pretty much needs to be some grand jury mechanism in the Rules of Golf that can determine in every situation if somebody put a piece of a leaf back down to benefically affect his line and stroke or if he didn't.

Maybe this could be the most effective wording in something like Rule 13-2:
"If your opponent or fellow competitors suspect your real intentions they get to question what they are on the spot and if they don't agree with your reponse they get to kick your ass on the spot and you are not permitted to defend yourself without being disqualified."

I'd even lobby for an option provided to the player in question that he can choose between either loss of hole or two shots, or a good ass-kicking!

JVB, come to think of it this could be really cool in that it could take the prinicple of "peer review" that is the basis of handicapping right into the Rules of Golf and onto the golf course. We Rules geniuses like you and me might even be able to refer to it as another form of the principle of "Like situations shall be treated alike."

How cool is that? Call Morrissett and see if he'll take this alteration to the Joint R&A/USGA Rules Committee immediately. Golf has always suffered from a reputatin as something of a sissy game with not enough physical contact, and this could solve that. However, we may need to consider some kind of Exception to this 13-2 Rule change to do with mixed events and such---eg Laura Davies may not like the option of having Corey Pavin trying to kick her ass over something like this. She might kick his ass instead even if he wasn't the one whose leaf intentions were being questioned.

[Doug Ralston]

This one is much better:  you can lift leaves and other junk from your line of putt.  But if you put any of it back, it's a penalty, because you're only allowed to touch your line of putt to removing stuff.

So it's fall and you're getting a bunch of big maple leaves out of your line...

you're almost done, and you start to pick up a teeny tiny leaf of some sort and then you say to yourself "aw, hell, I've done enough, this is plenty, this one won't matter", so you drop it back because it's so small, after all the work you've done, you don't care about it.

2 strokes.  Ouch.

Dave,

Thinking before acting is a good idea.

Yes, think indeed. What if you pick up leaves on a windy day, pitch them aside, and some blow back into what MIGHT be your line of play? I think we have all done that. Leaves do not fall straight in wind, afterall.

Hmm

Doug

Doug, that would not be a penalty.  Only specifically placing or replacing something would be.  The idea being you can't put something down that could help you in your play of the hole.  Wind moving the leaves back after you lifted them is not a penalty.

Help them? Yes. I suppose one should never be able to put down a curved railing, like in putt-putt, to funnel the ball. OTOH, if my match play opponent wants to drop leaves, sticks, rocks or whatever along his putt path to the hole, I will encourage him! Help? LOL.

Actually, I do not think USGA and R&A make rules just to find penalties, I think they try to think of every contingency. In doing so, they are likely to make rules that go WAY beyond the specific need they imagine.

Most great games [chess, wei-chi, bridge, shogi etc] have very limited 'rules', and surprisingly limited controversy. Simple is better.

I suspect golf has far too many rules.

Doug

[TEPaul]

"Most great games [chess, wei-chi, bridge, shogi etc] have very limited 'rules',"


Douglas Ralston:

I don't care what you say, wei-chi and shogi just cannot be considered "GREAT" games! No way, no how.

[JohnV]

Doug,

There is a lot of difference between the 64 squares on a chess board the 100+ acres on a golf course.

Dave,

Yes, you are entitled to the lie and line of play you started with, but if you choose to modify it, you have to live with the results, be they good or bad.  See Decision 13-2/29

[JohnV]

Doug,

You talk about the rules being too complicated, then you want to get them to the place where we have to determine if something that was done helps or hurts the players.

Somehow it just seems simipler to say, you can't put something there, regardless of whether it helps or hurts.  And remember, it might not just be there to guide the ball into the hole, it could be there as something to aim at.  As Rule 8-2b says, "A mark must not be placed anywhere to indicate the line for putting".  Don't say it Shivas.

[Bart Bradley]

Wow, I was really expecting to like this thread and topic but I can see now where we are headed and OHHH the brutality... .

Bart

[JohnV]

Bart,

The good thing about my blog is that I can remove any comments I don't like.  Power can be a wonderful thing.

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