Ruling yesterday @ The PGA Hole #1

[Bruce Katona]

William_Grieve got what I was heading towards with my comment where the most of the remaining contributors hung up on the Rule and if it was violated or not.

Shot Tracer, putt tracer and anything else to interest the TV audience helps to grow casual play thus grow the game.  To grow the game is what most avis golfers want to see.

The Yahoo story which caught my eye (thus many other peoples) wasn't Rory ran away with it, the beauty of Kiawah, or "how good are these guys" - it was about brushing a stupid leaf inside a red line resulting in a 2 shot penaly potentiall costing Carl petterson $500K.  $500 K penalites  will get most casual sports observers attention quickly.

The casual fan shakes their head and says "golf; difficult game, really stupid rules; why would I want to bother."  That won't help to grow the game.

[Dan King]

Bruce Katona writes:
To grow the game is what most avis golfers want to see.

I can't see why.

The casual fan shakes their head and says "golf; difficult game, really stupid rules; why would I want to bother."  That won't help to grow the game.

The more we make golf like other popular sports the more popular it will be.  We either need to keep watering down the product to make it popular, or we go with a hybrid idea.  We could take one of the popular existing sports: football, baseball, basketball or hockey and combine what is best with those games and what is best with golf. The big thing is when you are playing golf, there is no direct conflict with your opponent. We need to include a defensive component with golf, (see Happy Gillmore) only then will golf be up there with the big four.

Cheers,
Dan King

Golf lacks something for me. It would be better if once in a while someone came up from behind and tackled you just as you were hitting the ball.
 --Red Grange