Andrew Brown:
Your #79 is a very good one, particularly the first paragraph.
I get the feeling that there will be some changes made in the procedures for how these kinds of things (such as the situations with Harrington and Villegas and numerous other ones before it) will be handled in the future. It seems they are already under consideration with the essential "Rules Makers" in golf.
But I think what will be most instructive to see is how these considerations and issues (Rules and Local Rules changes) will play out through the official world-wide structure of the accepted Rules of Golf.
To date and perhaps over the last fifty to sixty years, and particularly after the so-called Rules Unification conferences of the early 1950s between the R&A and USGA, it seems most all golf has operated in a fairly unified structure, certainly including the world wide professional tours.
There is language throughout the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf (Rule Book and Decisions Book and to some extent the R&A/USGA manual known as "How to Conduct a Competition") that addresses all these issues and situational possibilities.
The whole structure of R&A/USGA Local Rules are addressed in Appendix I of the Rules Book. They include Parts A (Local Rules), Part B (Specimen Local Rules) and Part C (Conditions of Competition).
They also reference Rule 33-8a as to what can and cannot be used under the Rules of Golf as far as the "Committee's latitude in applying the various Local Rules in Appendix I. At this time essentially or theoretically any Local Rule can be used provided it does not waive a Rule of Golf (Rule 33-1).
The concept and reality of the "Committee" within the structure and language of the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf is actually only a bit more than a century old and it is constantly evolving.
I think this is an issue that the will be taken up by the R&A/USGA Joint Rules Committee. That is an actual official committee made up of R&A and USGA Rules of Golf Committee members and they are the only people who actually consider and make (vote) the decisions to change the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf. I suspect all the other tournament entities around the world will ultimately look to them to resolve these kinds of issue within the official structure and language of the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf for essentially the fundamental reason that all these situations can operate in the same unified way.
Nevertheless, who really does control and have latitude within the framework of the "Committee" concept in golf (Rule 33, 34 and Appendix I within the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf) and particularly with the writing and application of various "Local Rules" I think is still very much an evolving issue and question with the R&A, USGA and other entities of golf.
There are a number of issues, ideas, problems etc, etc that come up and have come up in this basic context (who is the ultimate authority for golf's Rules?) that include ones like the subject of this thread but include others on the horizon like what to do within the "Local Rules" and "Commttee" with something like a "Competition Ball."