LICC
Well-known member
You are right, I misspoke. OB is a double penalty. Stroke AND distance. A lateral hazard is one penalty- stroke, but not distance.OB has never been a "two stroke penalty". It's a one stroke penalty plus the distance. Lateral hazard is the same (if the player's ball last crosses the hazard near from where he/she struck the original shot ).
What is "illogical" about this ? Some hazards and, or, areas of the golf shots are more penal than others and a player uses this criteria to make risk/reward decisions.
For example at Waste Management (Phoenix Open) guys routinely risk playing their tee balls at the short par 4, 17th green (because entering the water hazard to the front left of the green leaves a relatively easy penalty drop-up-and-down-for-par). If that hole had OB area front left of the green players would choose to lay up off the tee and play it as a true two shot par 4. So, there is nothing "illogical" about the different types of penalty areas, it's just part of the game which creates different risk/reward shot opportunities.
It is entirely illogical for the rules to have different penalties for shots that are equally bad with effectively equally bad results- the inability to play the ball where it last ended up.
Beyond that, you can argue whether the harshness of the penalty makes sense. IMO, one bad swing should be subject to one penalty, not two.