rules of golf are rubbish

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In light of Padraig Harrington’s disqualification from the HSBC Abu Dhabi Championship for moving his ball three dimples on the green, John Wrenbury, author of ‘If only I could remember the rules’ argues the laws of the game need a radical 21st century overhaul.

Seen any gophers on your course lately? If not, it may be because you don’t know what they look like (see under ‘burrowing rodents, nocturnal land-tortoises and large burrowing snakes). They all entitle you to a free drop; which is more than can be said for your dog. Foxes and badgers don’t even qualify for an honourable mention. The Rules have to be read with a sense of humour, otherwise they are no fun at all.The Rules of Golf leave much to be desired, and are in urgent need of revision.

The only reason there has not been an outcry long before now, is that almost nobody reads them because in their present form they are hugely indigestible. Moreover, the situation is not helped by the fact that more than half of the Rule Book is concerned with competition play which has no relevance to the friendly game.

In an effort to throw light on a thoroughly murky landscape, I decided to write my own version of the Rules using the tools which a lawyer understands best: clarity of expression and brevity. It was only then that I discovered that much of the subject matter needs discarding altogether.

I get most worked up about Stroke and distance Rule 27-1a. If your ball is lost, or out of bounds, you must proceed under this rule and there is no alternative. So let us assume that you are a long hitter and have lost your ball and that the course is full. Do you wave through the match following yours, while you march 300 yards back to where you started, or do you keep them and everyone else waiting while you retrace your steps? I have a friend who is a past Captain of the Royal & Ancient, and to him Rule 27-1a is an article of faith which (coupled with the maxim that the ball must be played as it lies) cannot possibly be altered.

There are one or two occasions where, having made an error, you are allowed to correct your mistake in order to avoid being  disqualified (see playing wrong ball, or from the wrong place, or from outside the teeing ground). To achieve this dispensation you must correct your mistake before driving from the next tee, and this again will involve going back to where the mistake occurred and playing the hole again.

The same rigid (and thoroughly unsociable) approach applies to balls deemed unplayable. The rules provide three remedies: (a) to play   ball from the same spot as your original ball was last played (b) to drop the ball as far back as you like in line with the hole and (c) to  rop your ball within two club lengths of where it lay, but not nearer the hole.

We have dealt with (a) above, but (b) is equally objectionable because if as the result of a slice you have found the rough on the right side of the course, following this line will simply put your ball further into trouble. There is no merit in following a line your ball has never travelled. The “in line with the hole” formula runs right through the Rules of Golf and it is high time it was re-thought. If the ball were to be brought back along its flight path, it would (assuming it started off from the fairway) sooner or later get back to the fairway, a far more sensible result.

Another matter which strikes one as misconceived concerns Abnormal Ground Conditions, which include a hole cast or runway made by a burrowing animal, reptile r bird. If your ball is interfered with by this type of AGC, you can claim a free drop, but in order to be able to do this you must be able to claim that it was a burrowing animal that made the hole and not some other agency. Instead of requiring all golfers to become naturalists, it would surely be far more sensible to grant relief by reference to the abnormal condition itself. Why should a rabbit scrape qualify for relief and a hoof mark not? Surely golf is a game of skill, not a game of chance?

Then there are instances of complete aberration on the part of the draftsman. Casual Water is “any temporary accumulation of water that is visible before or after the player takes his stance”. If a player checks his downswing voluntarily before the clubhead reaches the ball, he has not made a stroke “unless the player has begun the stroke or the backward movement of the club for the stroke and the stroke is made”.

Nowhere in the Rules can one find more muddle and confusion than on the subject of penalties. Having stated the General Penalties concisely in Rules 2-6 and 3-5, they are then restated all over again in each Rule, leaving you in doubt as to which subparagraphs the penalty applies to or whether it applies to all of them. Moreover there is a serious disproportion between the standard penalty in Match Play and that in Stroke Play. Loss of hole in Match Play is equivalent to a penalty of 5.56% (1/18), whereas loss of two strokes in Stroke Play is equivalent to 2.78% where par for the course is 72. As a refinement on this, there are various rules where the penalty only becomes payable when you “become aware” of your breach. At that stage you must immediately take steps to remedy, and the penalty in Match Play is one hole for each hole at which a breach has occurred (maximum two holes) and in

Stroke Play two strokes for each hole at which a breach has occurred (maximum four strokes). Or if you resolutely refuse to remedy, disqualification. The moral seems to be to feign unawareness, because then no penalty can accrue at all unless your opponent is cad enough to give the game away.

Water Hazards are a law unto themselves. For one thing they don’t have to contain any water and for another they don’t have to be marked by stakes. Any old ditch is a water hazard, even if covered in grass. It follows from all this that you may not ground your club (even though the grass in the ditch is

indistinguishable from any other grass) and you may not move loose impediments. Let us suppose that your ball has ended up in a lateral water hazard; then if your wits are about you and you have committed the rules to memory, you may under penalty of one stroke, drop a ball outside the hazard within two club-lengths of, but not nearer the hole than (i) the point where your original ball last crossed the margin of the lateral water hazard or (ii) a point on the opposite side of the lateral water hazard equidistant from the hole.

The Rules give me a very bad headache, and I am not alone. Just ask Padraig Harrington.

 

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