As I understand it, in her return to tournament golf Anika's ball was up against the gate of a boundary fence and she got an incorrect ruling from an official when he told her she could not open the unlocked gate before hitting her shot. I know the rules guys will give some type of explanation for this ruling and at the same time justify that you cannot remove a boundary stake and then replace it but that was not my original point/question which dealt with certain situations at the professional level which seem to be inconsistent or unfair.
A chap who seems to have everything figured out profers that those who call for simplicity in the rules really mean that they want to make the game easier. Nonsense. John Morrissett didn't spend years of his life trying to condense and simplify the rules motivated by wanting to make golf easier. When a well-educated and experienced lawyer with decades of golf experience has a hard time understanding and applying the rules, maybe the problem lies in the rules? (BTW, Jerry, you can remove an OB/boundary stake just as long as you replace it in its original position before you make the stroke).
Laws that are too numerous and extremely hard to understand create confusion, disrespect, and violators. I think that the 2019 changes were a good start, but much remains to be done if the goal is to get golfers to play by the rules. The vast majority do not, probably more due to ignorance than convenience.
Not surprisingly, lawyers seem to do very well in the exhausting PGA/USGA rules exam. One of the top USGA officials from north Texas, an average golfer with little competitive experience, but a +4 as a litigator, got a perfect score of 100 the second time he took the test. He would say that the rules are well-written and not in need of more than a nip and tuck.
For kicks, reference rules 8.1d (I) and 14.2d. For the more aggressive, take a stab at rules 9 and 11. I've talked to members of the USGA Rules Committee who sweat having to take the test every other year or so and score a minimum of 92 to keep their position. I am talking about experienced, well-educated folks, some who have been to rules school 10 or more times.
The goal (s) of the rules should not be to equalize luck or to make hitting the ball and scoring easier. Officials, IMO, should focus less on throwing flags and more on facilitating fair play. In order to do this, I think that the rules should be much fewer in number, written more succinctly by non-lawyers in a way that they are readily and widely understood. A side benefit might be that fewer rulings are necessary.
Jeff,
Your Larry Nelson story would be different today. A bleacher would likely be a Temporary Immovable Obstruction (TIO) and line of play relief is granted. Tom Weiskopf lost an important tournament, maybe the Western at Butler, because a permanent structure (a restroom possibly) in the trees between him and the green forced him to take less club than he needed to clear it. He came up short as I recall and made bogie or worse. In his mind, a structure in the way of play is a structure; why the different treatment? The TIO rule is also controversial as players will use them to their advantage (if the ball would have hit an spectator and stayed in the bleachers at Carnoustie as opposed to hitting metal and bouncing back into the burn, one of golf's great tragedies would not have taken place).