Kalen:

The penalty for out of bounds is more severe because there is a chance you could hurt somebody if you hit one o.b., so they want to scare you into playing more conservatively and not taking that chance.

Kalen - why not drop like a lateral water hazard?

a) because OB lines are often harder to define - vagueness would result;

but more importantly:

b) because one needs to keep the penalty the same for lost ball and OB, given it's often very hard to tell if a ball went OB or was otherwise lost... and there's no way you can in complete fairness do lost ball penalty like hazard penalty, given there's no way to tell for sure exactly the point at which the ball was lost.

BTW, I understand completely this is the way 95% of casual golfers play the game - just drop one and take a stroke or two, depending on their interpretations - you just simply can't make the official rules this way - way too much vagueness would result.

TH

Out of Bounds
The term out of bounds was first defined in 1899 as being outside the recognised boundaries of the course. Penalty distance only.

1908 Redefined as all ground on which play is prohibited. Penalty distance only still, but may be changed to stroke and distance by local rule for both forms of play. Also, a ball out of bounds may be treated as lost by local rule, (i.e. lost hole in match play). This change was not adopted by the USGA until 1915, although the local rule adjustment was not incorporated.

1920 Stroke and distance, but now the penalty stroke may be remitted by local rule.

1947 USGA and 1950 R&A. Distance only, and no provision for change by a local rule.

1952 Stroke and distance.

1960 USGA experimentally changed to distance only.

1961 USGA back to stroke and distance. in addition, the USGA allowed an alternative procedure of stroke only - dropping a ball within two club lengths of where the ball went out of bounds on courses where the penalty of stroke and distance would be "unduly severe".

1964 USGA allowed a local rule to be adopted which allowed a stroke-only option if it was felt that stroke and distance would be "'unduly severe."
The player could drop a ball within two club-lengths of where the original ball crossed the out of bounds line. Reasonable evidence was required both that the ball had gone out of bounds and as to the point of crossing. In the absence of either, stroke and distance was the only option.
Rescinded in 1968.

From the introduction of out of bounds, a ball was out of bounds when the greater part of it lay out of bounds. From 1950, all the ball has to be out.

When out of bounds is defined by a line, the line was in bounds until 1954.

Kalen:

The way things are at most courses I play, even provisional balls are pretty much frowned upon.  Of course that's the rule and the right way to play... but man I play with some guys that well, let's just say a "mercy rule" would be the best way to handle things.  That is, they might be there all day hitting provisionals if they actually have to find one sometimes.  I really do think there's a time and a place for strict enforcement of / adherence to the written rules, and a time where such should be treated casually.

Pete - concur with OB having zero effect on the big boys - hell even at Hoylake with OB everywhere they didn't exactly fear it, did they?  But for the rest of us it plays into things, oh yes it does...

TH

Kalen:  trust me, you'd understand if you played with some of the players I did.  For reasons of sanity, moving on is the best idea.  Now of course in general it is heresy to encourage rule-breaking, but the rules weren't written with 40+ handicap hacks on very crowded courses in mind.  I firmly believe the rules were written for competition first and foremost.

Pete does bring up a good point; only problem is, how could you make rules to put this in practice?  Declare something not a boundary of the course when the hole has risk/reward elements?  Of course that can't be done... thus the preference surely ought to be designing holes in which OB is not an integral part of things, or if it is, make the punishment fit the crime.  That is, obviously boundaries of the course must exist most places; when they do, design accordingly, knowing the penalty for failure.  Seems pretty easy to do...

TH

Kalen:  while my swing looks like that of a 40+ handicapper and I think like one all too often, I can safely say I am not one.  

Now as for how this should go, I've already laid out why you can't make it just the stroke - that means dropping at the point the ball went OB.  Now as for making it distance only and no stroke, that is intriguing.  That would at least work in terms of no vagueness.  But as JV said already:


The experiments with a less severe penalty have always been felt to be insufficient because the price that should be paid for hitting one off the property should be the most severe of all possibly penalties in the minds of the rules bodies.


And that makes sense to me.  Make it distance only and you could have too many situations where OB is a PREFERRED outcome... and that just doesn't seem right.

TH