Out of Bounds revisited

[mike_beene]

I have lost this argument before. Does anyone think that stroke and distance for OB is overly severe? Was it Merion that caused the experiment with distance only years ago? I understand the desire to encourage the ball to stay on the property. However, when the OB is as severe as this week does it not argue that the better result would be to greet it as a lateral? With the real estate boom over the last 20 years, there are a number of perhaps poorly designed courses that bring so much OB into play that it gets goofy.The average group seldom follow the OB rules.Provisional balls and stroke and distance contribute mightily to the need for a "while we are young " campaign. If I were rules czar,out of bounds becomes a lateral. Why not?

[Matthew Rose]

I would prefer it as a lateral too.... I think it would speed up play and might even create more aggressive players off the tee.

You're better off whiffing. The penalty for missing the ball completely on a swing is only one stroke but a very well struck ball ends up being two.

[Pete_Pittock]

IFar a ball hit it -out-of-bounds, you are advocating a one stroke penalty and a drop within two-club lengths of where it went out of bounds.

What are you suggesting be done for a ball that is lost in bounds?

Cinch up your belt, hit a provisional and get on with it.

[David_Elvins]

Simplest solution would be to combine all the rules that relate to lost balls, unplayable lies, OOB, water hazards etc.

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

Reduces half the rules book down to 2 sentences and keeps play moving. 

[Colin Macqueen]

David,
"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

Forthwith this rule "The Elvin Rule", although a bit impish, will become our standard rule in all non-competition games. Champion!

Cheers Colin

[mike_beene]

I agree the lost ball is a problem. However,if OB treated as a hazard then reasonable evidence it crossed would be sufficient.The lost ball suggestion has merit.If we would cut our rough it wouldn't be an issue. Under current rules,you often don't know your ball is lost until you walk to where you hit it and it is not there.Hitting a provisional every time you miss a fairway would slow play down.The reality is I lose a ball or two around just off the fairway this time of year and take my equitable stroke adjustment double bogey and hope my partners carry me.We hit provisionals on potential out of bounds or if we absolutely don't see ball,but not because we are just into the trees.And we don't spend 5 minutes looking.What a time waste.If I can't find it by the time others have hit that is tough. We would never modify any other rule.We never even play lift clean and place.When I had younger eyes this was not such a problem.

[Adam Lawrence]

I would quite like to see an experiment with a distance only penalty for OB, so if you hit your tee shot out of bounds on a hole, you're playing two from the tee, not three. I guess this wouldn't achieve the pace of play goals discussed above, but I think it might allow the return of the strategic use of OB in design - as per some of the great old holes like the Dowie at Hoylake. Though I guess also in this litigious age deliberately encouraging people to flirt with boundary lines would be fraught with legal difficulties...

[Mike Sweeney]

Simplest solution would be to combine all the rules that relate to lost balls, unplayable lies, OOB, water hazards etc.

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

Reduces half the rules book down to 2 sentences and keeps play moving. 

David,

That is genius. Seriously, if the USGA is serious about pace of play, here you go......

[Mark Bourgeois]

Simplest solution would be to combine all the rules that relate to lost balls, unplayable lies, OOB, water hazards etc.

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

Reduces half the rules book down to 2 sentences and keeps play moving. 

David,

That is genius. Seriously, if the USGA is serious about pace of play, here you go......

+1

[Thomas Dai]

Davids "Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green." wording has merit and deserves to be looked into further - perhaps a trial or pilot scheme over a few competitions/touraments. The outcome would be interesting. Certainly worth trying out.

All the best.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Simplest solution would be to combine all the rules that relate to lost balls, unplayable lies, OOB, water hazards etc.

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

The "underneath any position of the observed flight path" is too indeterminable, too open to debate and too prone to abuse, and it gives the golfer a clear advantage over the golfer whose ball has entered a hazard.

I'm with Pete Pittock on this.

By the way, the out of bounds at Merion hasn't moved in 100+ years


Reduces half the rules book down to 2 sentences and keeps play moving. 

[Anthony Butler]

By the way, the out of bounds at Merion hasn't moved in 100+ years

Are you referring only to the 15th hole? Somewhere during the coverage it was mentioned that until the 20's they used to play holes across Ardmore Avenue until it became a hazard to the increasing number of cars using that road.

On 15, it appeared very strange to see a ball finish 2 yards inside the gallery ropes and then find out that it was out of bounds.

[Josh Tarble]

I thought I read, in an article about Hogan's victory at Merion, that OOB used to be only a distance penalty, no stoke.  That seems like enough penalty to me.

I do like the idea of making all hazards play with the same penalty...seems far easier to understand.

[john_stiles]

The USGA and R&A have visited and revisited the rule for OB.

I can not find a good summary  of  why we are at the present rule, versus the others used by USGA/R&A.

A drop at the point of OB with penalty has been used.

A distance only penalty has been used (1960)  or allowed through local rule.

[Lou_Duran]

The "underneath any position of the observed flight path" is too indeterminable, too open to debate and too prone to abuse, and it gives the golfer a clear advantage over the golfer whose ball has entered a hazard.

Here I thought that integrity, honor, sportsmanship, and self-policing are important attributes of our game.  And if these are not enough, our playing partners and fellow competitors should help in keeping things on the up and up.  I don't get the "clear advantage" gained by virtue of the color of the boundary stakes.  I vote with Beene on this one.

[astavrides]

Why not mark it as a lateral?  It seems arbitrary that there has to be water (according to the rule book) or environmental sensitivity to make it as a lateral.  If boundaries are sometimes stroke only, why not all the time?  Doesn't have anything to do with lost ball.  You can mark native grasses as laterals at times too.

[Matthew Petersen]

I like the Elvins suggestion.

A local rule present at most every desert course in Arizona is the desert rule, in which any ball in the desert is treated as a lateral hazard. It's good for pace of play, and still allows you the opportunity to play from the desert should you actually find your ball in a playable position. The desert is so pervasive of many of the courses here that you would just spend all day with provisionals if there were no such rule.

Even the Tour is wise to play their primary desert event at TPC Scottsdale where the "desert areas" are well maintained and cleaned out. The match play visits a much more wild and wooly desert landscape at Dove Mountain and you don't have to watch long to know that only a match play event would really work there.

[Ricardo Ramirez Calvo]

The advantage mentioned by Mr. Mucci comes from the fact that in the case of a hazard, you are not entitled to drop a ball "underneath any position of the observed flight path". Instead, one of the options is to draw a line between the hole and the point where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. The flight path line certainly would give you an array of possibilities that are not available in case of hazards.

[Lou_Duran]

Seņor Ramirez,

Thanks for the clarification.  I hadn't read the Elvins proposal closely enough.    For the sake of simplicity and equity, the lateral hazard rule would suffice.

[mike_beene]

I like the line of flight the more I think about it. I guess you could go 2 strokes if you used the option and the advantage disappears? I was aware of the distance only for a while but did not know OB had ever been played as a lateral. I have no problem with a rule change from watercourse or whatever it says now to allowing hazards to be marked in nonaccessible areas or the like. When the underbrush is too thick to walk in then it makes sense to mark it lateral but only if the rules of golf are altered to allow it.

[Ricardo Ramirez Calvo]

Mike,

The problem I see with your suggestion is that it adds another complication to the rules, by imposing a different penalty depending on the relief option you select. The rules are already very complicated. There is no rational for when the penalty is 1 stroke and when the penalty is 2 strokes. It would add further confusion to the players. I think that the object of treating out of bounds as lateral hazards is to simplify the operation of the rules. Just applying the same rules as for lateral hazards would do it. You always have the option of stroke-and-distance.

[Eric_Terhorst]

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."


If I understand this correctly, under this rule while playing the 17th at Sawgrass with the pin at the back of the green, I could deliberately air mail the green then drop a ball on the back fringe and have an easy chip for par.  Similarly if the pin was up front, except I choose to drop on the front fringe. 

If that is what is meant, clearly this is not a good solution. 

Am I missing something? 

[Chris Kurzner]

I agree the lost ball is a problem. However,if OB treated as a hazard then reasonable evidence it crossed would be sufficient.The lost ball suggestion has merit.If we would cut our rough it wouldn't be an issue. Under current rules,you often don't know your ball is lost until you walk to where you hit it and it is not there.Hitting a provisional every time you miss a fairway would slow play down.The reality is I lose a ball or two around just off the fairway this time of year and take my equitable stroke adjustment double bogey and hope my partners carry me.We hit provisionals on potential out of bounds or if we absolutely don't see ball,but not because we are just into the trees.And we don't spend 5 minutes looking.What a time waste.If I can't find it by the time others have hit that is tough. We would never modify any other rule.We never even play lift clean and place.When I had younger eyes this was not such a problem.

First post in forever, but Mike makes a good point about thick rough (and in particular in light of our super high roughs coming out of the sectional qualifier earlier this month).  Our average rounds have gone from about 3:50 to over 4:10 on the weekends since they stopped cutting the rough and in the two weeks after (when they finally did cut the rough but it's thick as heck).

[mike_beene]

Ricardo,my only suggestion for two strokes was on this lime of flight relief idea if the ball is not reasonably out of bounds or lost in a hazard.The original proposition I make with this thread is to make OB a lateral hazard (minus the option of playing from Ardmore Ave). The lost ball I have no answer for but I think the idea proffered is a good one.A second stroke of penalty is my reaction to the guy who doesn't want to find his ball because it will be so bad.. Pat, the flight of the ball is already an issue when the point of hazard crossing is to be determined. Chris knows of what I speak as our club rivals Merion and Hoylake for OB chances.Plus I am frustrated because I lost 3 balls the other day and one of them was found by the group behind a step off the green. The other two were both seen taking a fairway bounce into the Bermuda. That plus an OB which was admittedly my fault is 8 strokes so 75 became 83.

[noonan]

Simplest solution would be to combine all the rules that relate to lost balls, unplayable lies, OOB, water hazards etc.

"Any ball that cannot be played from its current position may be replaced by a ball dropped underneath any position of the observed flight path of the previous stroke under penalty of one stroke. The ball may not be dropped on the putting green."

Reduces half the rules book down to 2 sentences and keeps play moving. 

Agree!