Regarding Rules, How do You Play Golf?`

[Erky]

Speaking of local rules, about a year ago I was playing a local muni (Babe Zaharias). The 7th hole is a short par 4, dogleg right. To drive the green you have to hit the ball over some trees and flirt with a local street (and potentially houses) if you take the angle to the green. Otherwise your tee shot is a 200 yard layup, setting you up for a second shot over a pond. The tees were up, so I said "Bombs away!". Crushed a drive and put it on the front of the green. A few days later I was bragging to my friend about my accomplishment and he said "Uh yeah, driving that green is considered out of bounds by local rule". Sure enough, it was posted on a placard in the cart. Sort of took the wind out of my sails.

Anyway, I am not actually sure the rules of golf allow them to say that a particular landing area of the course is in bounds on approach shots and out of bounds on tee shots. Oh well.

 

[oiler3535]

Right. Things like declaring stones in bunkers as movable obstructions are things committee's can do. There is a list of some local rules that can be applied here:

http://www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Rules-of-Golf/Appendix-I/

The biggest problem with local rules is that no one takes the time to read them. Since I began rules education I do read them and usually they offer relief from flower beds etc. There are occasionally some that are a bit different. One place allowed you to replay a stroke if it stuck any wildlife.

Never heard of hitting wildlife mulligans lol. My home muni where I learned the game was built on an old dump so had a local rules allowing rehits if you struck a breather pipe.

 

[wadesworld]

Anyway, I am not actually sure the rules of golf allow them to say that a particular landing area of the course is in bounds on approach shots and out of bounds on tee shots. Oh well.

I would think they could apply to the USGA and ask for a waiver, which would allow them to make such a rule. Imagine if there were a golf course directly adjacent to the White House for example. While they couldn't stop you from hitting your ball accidentally into the White House property, they darn should could make one that prevented you from intentionally trying to hit across it. It wouldn't stop you from doing it of course, but you'd be breaking a rule by doing so (and potentially attracting the ire of the Secret Service).

 

[Erky]

Never heard of hitting wildlife mulligans lol. My home muni where I learned the game was built on an old dump so had a local rules allowing rehits if you struck a breather pipe.

When I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, you had to carry an astroturf mat with you. When you reached your ball, you would pick it up, put your mat down, and then place the ball on top of the mat. Otherwise you would destroy your clubs.

 

[wadesworld]

When I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, you had to carry an astroturf mat with you. When you reached your ball, you would pick it up, put your mat down, and then place the ball on top of the mat. Otherwise you would destroy your clubs.

Often clubs which are hosting PGA tour events will require their members to do the same for several weeks before the event.

 

[Erky]

Often clubs which are hosting PGA tour events will require their members to do the same for several weeks before the event.

But for the opposite reason!

 

[Fourputt]

Speaking of local rules, about a year ago I was playing a local muni (Babe Zaharias). The 7th hole is a short par 4, dogleg right. To drive the green you have to hit the ball over some trees and flirt with a local street (and potentially houses) if you take the angle to the green. Otherwise your tee shot is a 200 yard layup, setting you up for a second shot over a pond. The tees were up, so I said "Bombs away!". Crushed a drive and put it on the front of the green. A few days later I was bragging to my friend about my accomplishment and he said "Uh yeah, driving that green is considered out of bounds by local rule". Sure enough, it was posted on a placard in the cart. Sort of took the wind out of my sails.

Anyway, I am not actually sure the rules of golf allow them to say that a particular landing area of the course is in bounds on approach shots and out of bounds on tee shots. Oh well.

That is a player safety issue. My brother-in-law's club used to have a hole like that because the green was not visible from the tee, but it was easily drivable, (although with the trouble around the green it was hardly worth the effort). They had a row of white stakes across the fairway at the dogleg and if you hit your tee shot beyond the stakes, you were OB, but only on the tee ball. It's playing a bit fast and loose with the rules, but I don't question such a policy when it's done for player safety. Bending the rules to compensate for a poor design is not quite right (and probably not considered as acceptable by the USGA), and the course rerouted 3 holes a couple of years later to eliminate that hole.

 

[Mckeon]

When I was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, you had to carry an astroturf mat with you. When you reached your ball, you would pick it up, put your mat down, and then place the ball on top of the mat. Otherwise you would destroy your clubs.

Ha! I was in Gitmo for 9 months and played many a round... I still remember looking down at all the bullets lying on the ground... The one good thing was if you hit your drive right it would roll forever...

 

[Mckeon]

Often clubs which are hosting PGA tour events will require their members to do the same for several weeks before the event.

Then the PGA shows up and destroys the course....

 

[barspin89]

I know a lot of leagues play modified rules. My brother's league allows the players to place the ball within a club length on every shot as long as it's in the same cut of grass. If everyone is playing the same rules I see no problem with it. I play by the rules in every round. As I saw in another post, I want my score to accurately reflect my game. If I fluffed my lies I could knock off 5 strokes a round. I enjoy the challenge of hitting recovery shots. Whether buried in the rough or sitting on a tree root, I always play it as it lies. If I can pull off a shot from a tough lie and make a par, it feels that much better.

 

[moosejaa]

I'm a relative beginner to the game and, like most people here, I try to play by the rules as much as I can. I tend to treat lost balls in the "I swear it was right here" sense as just a 1 stroke penalty though, but because everyone else I'm playing with does the same thing and none of us are tournament players, we're okay with that. I don't like improving my lie in the rough or anything like that, although I will move the ball if taking a swing would injure me or damage my clubs (keeping the lie the same as best I can). I'm not rich enough to afford new clubs.

I'm with you on this. If it's not a tournament and you're all playing by the same rules, who cares. And why take a chance at hurting yourself and/or breaking a club when moving the ball a foot off a root will hardly alter the shot anyways.

 

[Mckeon]

I'm with you on this. If it's not a tournament and you're all playing by the same rules, who cares. And why take a chance at hurting yourself and/or breaking a club when moving the ball a foot off a root will hardly alter the shot anyways.

Agree 1000%... Some of these holier than thou golfers who get uppidy crack me up... Why does it matter what others do? Its a game (i.e. suppose to be fun).

For me its simple, tournament play is by the rules... The other 90% of the rounds I play, I'll move my ball if the swing can damage a club (or myself)...

 

[wadesworld]

Agree 1000%... Some of these holier than thou golfers who get uppidy crack me up... Why does it matter what others do? Its a game (i.e. suppose to be fun).

For me its simple, tournament play is by the rules... The other 90% of the rounds I play, I'll move my ball if the swing can damage a club (or myself)...

It's not holier than thou. For all I care, you can decide that you think the rule about having to hit from tee markers is unfair, and you can drop you ball at the 150 marker and hit #1 from there. But if you do, you can't run around telling people you shot an 82 and carry a 10 handicap. Obviously I'm being somewhat ridiculous in my example. I'm not saying you play modified rules and then run around telling folks what a great golfer you are, but some people do and that's where people get annoyed.

In truth, it doesn't actually matter though, since if those people play in an actual tournament, they'll learn just what kind of golfer they really are, all the while saying "I don't know what's wrong with me today. I shot 82 last week."

 

[Kobey]

I think you were on to something earlier in regards to handicaps Wade. If I'm having a bad day, I'm in trouble constantly. If I'm having a good day, I'm in trouble frequently. So rules are the least of my worries as a high handicapper. Once someone becomes a better golfer and trouble becomes the exception rather than the rule, it's a lot easier to start learning and following all the rules.

If I'm playing with my friends, a little cheating isn't going to make much difference in our final scores. We could pull our ball out of the woods, put it on a perfect lie and still hit it back into the woods as often as not. If we're all shooting over 100 anyway, it doesn't much matter whether we bend a few rules. Bragging rights don't mean a lot when we all stink anyway.

 

[moosejaa]

It's not holier than thou. For all I care, you can decide that you think the rule about having to hit from tee markers is unfair, and you can drop you ball at the 150 marker and hit #1 from there. But if you do, you can't run around telling people you shot an 82 and carry a 10 handicap. Obviously I'm being somewhat ridiculous in my example. I'm not saying you play modified rules and then run around telling folks what a great golfer you are, but some people do and that's where people get annoyed.

In truth, it doesn't actually matter though, since if those people play in an actual tournament, they'll learn just what kind of golfer they really are, all the while saying "I don't know what's wrong with me today. I shot 82 last week."

In an actual tournament I'd hit the ball. Point is, in casual play, moving a ball a foot away from a root is not really going to change the shot, so it's not going to effect your handicap, and it's not going to make you suck in an actual tournament.

 

[Fourputt]

In an actual tournament I'd hit the ball. Point is, in casual play, moving a ball a foot away from a root is not really going to change the shot, so it's not going to effect your handicap, and it's not going to make you suck in an actual tournament.

Beg to differ. In the tournament you'll have to count the penalty stroke. Or if you play the shot, it's less likely to be hit well because you A) haven't been doing it all a long, and B) are probably going to be scared that you might be hurt if you do try the shot, or C) you will take an extra stroke pitching the ball back into play.

Learning to play difficult shots can only be accomplished by playing them, and the best time for that is when you are not in a competition.

 

[MSB256]

I like your style Fourputt.

 

[barspin89]

Beg to differ. In the tournament you'll have to count the penalty stroke. Or if you play the shot, it's less likely to be hit well because you A) haven't been doing it all a long, and B) are probably going to be scared that you might be hurt if you do try the shot, or C) you will take an extra stroke pitching the ball back into play.

Learning to play difficult shots can only be accomplished by playing them, and the best time for that is when you are not in a competition.

100% agreed. Personally, it doesn't matter to me how people play. The guys I play with fluff there lies all the time... and we have money on the line. But I never understood the point of playing a game if you're not going to play by the rules. But that's just me. If a group of guys wants to have a couple beers and fluff their lies on the course, it doesn't bother me. But you won't see me doing it... well, maybe the beers.

 

[dietDrThunder]

Preface: not talking about tournaments, leagues, etc. ...just casual play in this post.

There are lots of posts about the old lost-ball-drop-and-go argument, and I wanted to bring something up for conversation. I played about 20 years ago for two seasons, and then I just came back last fall. In both cases though, I play(ed) a lot. Clearly I don't have as good a representative sample as many of the vets on this board, but I've played a few hundred rounds in my life, and I have never one time, ever, witnessed a player return to the tee after not finding a presumed-findable ball that ended up not found. Ever.

I'm sure somebody will post up and say "I do it every time" or "I see it twice per round and three times on Sundays" or whatever, but I think the majority here would agree that, in general, people playing non-competitive rounds simply don't do this. Does this mean that it's time for a new rule to allow people to have an equitable way to play by the rules but not have to trudge back 260 yards to the already-annoyed group waiting on the tee box, tee up, hit another shot, etc? I know that what I started doing this year is if I lose a ball in this way (was sure it was easily findable so didn't hit a provisional) I drop where in good faith I believe the ball ended up or where it must have entered the tall stuff/woods/whatever now that it's apparent that it's lost, I take 2 strokes, and I play on. I don't believe that going back and hitting another tee shot is a tenable solution for courtesy nor pace of play reasons, and if people were honest, the vast majority would agree with me. I know this because if it wasn't the case, we'd see people going back for the rules-required second tee shot more often (ever?), but we don't see that.

I equate this to an unrealistic and unenforced speed limit. If there is a 4 lane divided road with nothing but open land for miles around, no hills, perfectly straight with to-the-horizon visibility, and no enforcement, a 25 mph speed limit, while the letter of the law, would not be meaningful in any way, because nobody would ever obey it. In non-tourney/league play, is the rule meaningful if nobody ever follows it? Would a 2-strokes-drop rule be more meaningful because people would be much more likely to follow it? I think so.

I'm not really trying to draw a line in the sand as it were...just wanting to learn what people think about this. I think that most people are polite and considerate, and the rest are impatient and uncaring. In either case, almost all of us have reasons that we loath the second tee shot Walk of Shame. Either we don't want to hold up the folks we're playing with or the group(s) behind, or alternately we don't care a whit about the darn rules, so screw it. Either way, we're not doing the 'right' thing.

Or...maybe we're closer to the 'right' thing than we think, and it's time for the rules to catch up? What about a compromise...leave the current rule the same, but add the option of taking 2 strokes instead of going back to the tee box?

Oh, and please have an open mind and consider it for a minute or three...don't just knee-jerk with "it's the rules, and that's it" argument. In the land of the open mind, consider this: what if the rule always was that you had to drop and take 2 strokes, and the USGA was proposing to kill that rule in favor of making you go back to the tee box and hit another one. If that were the case, I think people would be _very_ vocal about how it would murder the pace of play, and how it was annoying enough to lose the ball, how silly this was, etc.

One last point: I think if my suggestion were the rule, it would engender a more conservative opinion regarding the findability of an errant tee shot, and encourage people to hit a provisional more often when they really should. I mean, who is going to stand there and say 'well, I _think_ I can find it...I'll just go see, and if I'm wrong I'll be hitting 4...no biggie.'

What do you think?

 

[moosejaa]

Beginning to think some of you guys would try to insist their buddy take a penalty stroke in a friendly round if they innocently ask what club you hit.

 

[tdinbr]

Preface: not talking about tournaments, leagues, etc. ...just casual play in this post.

There are lots of posts about the old lost-ball-drop-and-go argument, and I wanted to bring something up for conversation. I played about 20 years ago for two seasons, and then I just came back last fall. In both cases though, I play(ed) a lot. Clearly I don't have as good a representative sample as many of the vets on this board, but I've played a few hundred rounds in my life, and I have never one time, ever, witnessed a player return to the tee after not finding a presumed-findable ball that ended up not found. Ever.

I'm sure somebody will post up and say "I do it every time" or "I see it twice per round and three times on Sundays" or whatever, but I think the majority here would agree that, in general, people playing non-competitive rounds simply don't do this. Does this mean that it's time for a new rule to allow people to have an equitable way to play by the rules but not have to trudge back 260 yards to the already-annoyed group waiting on the tee box, tee up, hit another shot, etc? I know that what I started doing this year is if I lose a ball in this way (was sure it was easily findable so didn't hit a provisional) I drop where in good faith I believe the ball ended up or where it must have entered the tall stuff/woods/whatever now that it's apparent that it's lost, I take 2 strokes, and I play on. I don't believe that going back and hitting another tee shot is a tenable solution for courtesy nor pace of play reasons, and if people were honest, the vast majority would agree with me. I know this because if it wasn't the case, we'd see people going back for the rules-required second tee shot more often (ever?), but we don't see that.

I equate this to an unrealistic and unenforced speed limit. If there is a 4 lane divided road with nothing but open land for miles around, no hills, perfectly straight with to-the-horizon visibility, and no enforcement, a 25 mph speed limit, while the letter of the law, would not be meaningful in any way, because nobody would ever obey it. In non-tourney/league play, is the rule meaningful if nobody ever follows it? Would a 2-strokes-drop rule be more meaningful because people would be much more likely to follow it? I think so.

I'm not really trying to draw a line in the sand as it were...just wanting to learn what people think about this. I think that most people are polite and considerate, and the rest are impatient and uncaring. In either case, almost all of us have reasons that we loath the second tee shot Walk of Shame. Either we don't want to hold up the folks we're playing with or the group(s) behind, or alternately we don't care a whit about the darn rules, so screw it. Either way, we're not doing the 'right' thing.

Or...maybe we're closer to the 'right' thing than we think, and it's time for the rules to catch up? What about a compromise...leave the current rule the same, but add the option of taking 2 strokes instead of going back to the tee box?

Oh, and please have an open mind and consider it for a minute or three...don't just knee-jerk with "it's the rules, and that's it" argument. In the land of the open mind, consider this: what if the rule always was that you had to drop and take 2 strokes, and the USGA was proposing to kill that rule in favor of making you go back to the tee box and hit another one. If that were the case, I think people would be _very_ vocal about how it would murder the pace of play, and how it was annoying enough to lose the ball, how silly this was, etc.

One last point: I think if my suggestion were the rule, it would engender a more conservative opinion regarding the findability of an errant tee shot, and encourage people to hit a provisional more often when they really should. I mean, who is going to stand there and say 'well, I _think_ I can find it...I'll just go see, and if I'm wrong I'll be hitting 4...no biggie.'

What do you think?

Totally agree, esp. the parts I have bolded.

 

[Fourputt]

Beginning to think some of you guys would try to insist their buddy take a penalty stroke in a friendly round if they innocently ask what club you hit.

My buddies know better than to ask before they play their shot. After you play, ask away. Personally, I don't even want to know what anyone else hit. I'm playing my game, not theirs.

 

[TheWoo]

My buddies know better than to ask before they play their shot. After you play, ask away. Personally, I don't even want to know what anyone else hit. I'm playing my game, not theirs.

My buddies are always playing after me, so I only get to ask after I play.

Seriously, though, I never hesitate to tell a buddy what I hit. I want them to enjoy playing with me, not hate that I'm a stickler on a rule that doesn't matter. You know what else we do? Share the yardage someone shoots from the tee box with the foursome. It's okay.

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

[moosejaa]

My buddies are always playing after me, so I only get to ask after I play.

Seriously, though, I never hesitate to tell a buddy what I hit. I want them to enjoy playing with me, not hate that I'm a stickler on a rule that doesn't matter. You know what else we do? Share the yardage someone shoots from the tee box with the foursome. It's okay.

Sent from my HTCONE using Tapatalk 4 Beta

You sound like a lot of fun to play with there Fourputt. Think I'd rather play a round with TheWoo even though I'd be hitting last every hole

 

[Fourputt]

You sound like a lot of fun to play with there Fourputt. Think I'd rather play a round with TheWoo even though I'd be hitting last every hole

I don't really care whether you'd like to play with me as it's unlikely to ever happen. I also don't care if you follow the rules when you play with me if there's nothing on the line.

I'm actually quite easygoing on the course. I played with several THP'ers a couple of years ago in Denver and we had a great time.

However, when it comes to discussing the rules and someone asks a question, I assume that they are looking for a correct answer. Also when someone makes a statement which is clearly incorrect, that also should be corrected. But how anyone chooses to play is his own business, as long as he shows good etiquette (including a reasonable pace of play) and respect for the course and for his fellow players.