Starting New Years eve, The Golf Channel will periodically broadcast a half hour program highlighting rules changes for 2012.

By USGA
December 21, 2011

“New Year, New Rules,”a 30-minute special debuting on the Golf Channel Dec. 31 at 11:30 p.m. EST, is every golfer’s guide to the 2012 Rules of Golf changes that will take effect on Jan. 1. The show also will be re-broadcast every half hour from 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. EST on Jan. 1, and shown later that day at 8 p.m.

This program showcases all the Rules you need to know in an entertaining format with video examples and situational analysis from the experts, including USGA Executive Director Mike Davis and Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s senior director of Rules and Amateur Status. The Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner and Frank Nobilo also are providing analysis and dialogue.

There’s been quite a bit in the golf news about John Solheim’s proposal for three different golf ball standards: thirty yards shorter, regular, and thirty yards longer. I think he’s on to something in that equipment standards (and perhaps rules) for the pros and elite amateur tournaments don’t need to be—and in my mind probably shouldn’t be—the same as for the weekend hacker. If your intention is to work your way up to top competition, then by all means play as the big boys do. But for the rest (the 99% if you will), the game would be a lot more enjoyable with a little leniency.

Longstanding rumors say that the USGA is working toward rolling back ball flight. I can see the application in elite competition. But I think it would be a disaster for the sport of golf in general, making an already difficult game even moreso for the vast majority of hackers who don’t play for trophies. Imagine the disgust of the occasional weekender who hits a 200 yard drive (200 yards is actually the average drive length) with the current technology, finding that he’s now hitting it 180 thanks to USGA rules changes.

I don’t think that would end on a positive note. Mr. Occasional might very well give up golf for other pursuits.

At one level I’m actually sort of surprised that public course owners haven’t banded together to promote a separate standard. Tougher equipment and playing rules make it tougher to fill up tee times.

The rules would be easy enough to fix. A change to the stroke-and-distance-on-lost-balls rule would be a great starting point. Play would speed up; everyone would be happier. And how about a rule allowing the flagstick to be left in the hole? That’d speed up play on the greens, as it both eliminates elaborate flag pulling rituals and makes putting easier (there’s statistical evidence to back the notion that leaving the flag in makes chipping and putting easier). And incidentally, both of these have been part of the game in the past.

Aside from equipment enforcement, the average golfer has no personal contact with the USGA or its competitions. Most don’t even maintain an “official” handicap. They do, however, come into regular contact with their local PGA Professional through the shop, lessons, outings and so forth. Following this line of logic, I’ve long wondered why the PGA hasn’t taken the lead in protecting its clients and livelihood (courses full of happy hackers equals jobs for PGA Pros).

Here’s my proposal: USGA rules and standards for competitors and would-be competitors; PGA rules and standards for everyone else.

Golf’s ruling bodies have completed their quadrennial rules review and righted an ongoing wrong: no longer will players suffer a one-stoke penalty due to the vagaries of the wind.

Under the old rules, if a ball moved after a player’s address, he was hit with a one stroke penalty—even if he did nothing to cause that movement. In recent years, the rule has caught such players as Webb Simpson (perhaps ultimately costing him this year’s money title and Player of the Year honors), Rory McIlroy and Padraig Harrington.

The revision says that there is no penalty when it is “known or virtually certain” that the player did not cause the ball to move. In other words, if you set up to make a putt and the wind shifts the ball, you are no longer liable.

Another revision says that a player who misses his tee time is not automatically disqualified. Instead, if he arrives within five minutes, the player is hit with a two stroke penalty or loss of hole in match play. I wonder if that’ll apply to missing a pro am tee time, as Jim Furyk did at the 2010 Barclays (which also caused him to be disqualified from that tournament).

Finally, the USGA and R&A also now permit a player to smooth sand or soil in a hazard at any time, provided it’s not done to improve a lie. I’m not aware of any notable incidents here, but at courses where people pay attention to such things, it may speed things up a bit. 

The ruling bodies did not, however, fix my two least favorite rules. A lost or out of bounds ball is still stoke-and-distance. Few people in my experience ever return to hit again from the original spot; they just drop in a likely spot and play on. Indeed, returning the original scene of the crime on a crowded public course is to put your self in physical peril from the players waiting on the tee behind you. There was a time when the penalty was distance only, but my suggestion is a penalty (I’m not sure about one or two strokes), with a drop where the ball was last seen.

The other rules I want corrected is the one that penalizes a player for signing an incorrect scorecard or for forgetting to sign a scorecard altogether. There should be a fairness and equity clause. A player who signs for a higher score should be given the opportunity to fix the math error (eg. Roberto De Vicenzo in the 1968 Masters). A player who forgets (this happened to, among others, Harrington and Doug Sanders) should simply be called back to fix the oversight. And where there’s no intent to deceive (such as when Mark Roe and Jesper Parnevik were disqualified for forgetting to exchange cards at the Open Championship), I don’t think there’s any need for a death sentence. There’s simply too much of a “gotcha” factor in the rules as they are.

Jack Nicklaus has been seduced by the Dark Side. This past weekend, the Golden Bear hosted a 12 hole tournament in which the cups were twice as large as regulation. He says the goal is to make golf more fun.

The twelve holes I can deal with. In fact, I’ve often thought that was the perfect number. But Super Sized holes? Heresy.

The size of the holes isn’t the problem with golf. It’s the length of the courses.

This past weekend, Web Simpson may very well have missed out on his first PGA Tour victory when a gust of wind moved the ball on the green as he was addressing it. Simpson correctly called a penalty on himself, finished tied with Bubba Watson in regulation and finished second in a playoff.

As it turns out, the rule regarding ball movement is one that has been under consideration for some time, and Simpson’s misfortune may accelerate the issue. A proposed revision would exempt the player from a penalty if it was obvious that the player did not cause the ball to move.

I suppose that seems fair enough, but I wonder if it’s necessary. The penalty applies only if the club has been grounded. I recall reading a bit with Jack Nicklaus some time ago where he said that on windy days he was careful to never ground his club before putting.  Grounding is required for “addressing.” Thus, if it moved, he was not assessed a penalty. Seems pretty simple to me.

he WGC Accenture Match Play Championship is this week, and with it the usual annual confusion of American golf fans over what terms like Halve, All Square,  Dormie, 1-Up and scores like 3 and 2 or 5 and 4 mean.

American golf fans are used to what is known as “stroke play.” In stroke play, golfers play a set number of holes—and the number of holes is known from the beginning—and the player with the lowest combined total score wins.

Not so in Match Play. In that format, the golfers are pitted against each other in a mano-a-mano format. In match play, players are concerned—not with the field—but with beating the player they are playing with.

The most confusing part of Match Play is in the scoring. Each hole in a Match is a separate event, and is taken in isolation. The player who finishes the hole in the fewest strokes wins the hole. The player who wins the most holes out of eighteen wins the match.

The hole-by-hole format means that it’s possible (and probable) that one player will get far enough ahead that the other has no chance of winning. For example, if Tiger and Phil finish the 16th hole, and Woods has won three more than Phil, there is no need to continue. At best, Phil could win more holes, and still would be one hole down to Woods. So the match is called at 16. The final result would be Woods 3 and 2. That means that Woods won because he was up by three holes, with two holes left.

In the wake of Bunkergate, there has been a lot of discussion about whether the Lords of the USGA need to take another look at the Rules of Golf, which seem to many to be unduly obscure and penal.

I find it strange that the debate was caused by Johnson’s misfortune, however. I don’t know of anyone who thinks you should be able to ground a club in a hazard. In my mind, that error was one of course setup, not of the rules.

That said, I think I would change four rules for the benefit of the average player on the average course:

The first is to change the penalty for a lost or out of bounds ball from stoke and distance to penalty and drop at the point of exit. That’s the way most golfers I know play anyway—even the ones who religiously keep a handicap. Further, it’s the only realistic thing to do on crowded public courses. You could get pummeled by the group behind you for returning to the previous spot ... and hitting provisionals isn’t going to endear you, either. It’s just practical.

The second is to allow players a free drop from damaged areas through the green. Most of us don’t play on the grass carpets that the Lords of the USGA enjoy. At the end of the season, many public fairways look like the surface of the moon. Between sunburned, unseeded area and deep unrepaired divots, playing it as it lies is a ridiculous notion.

Third: This is a longtime peeve that I’ve written about before—you should get a free drop from poison ivy, or other suspicious-looking woodland areas. Players get relief from alligators and fire ants. Why not from poison ivy and suspected rattlesnake dens? The Lords of the USGA obviously have never played a woodland area in Up North Michigan, or this would already be in the rules.

And finally a “change” which isn’t so much of a change as a re-emphasis. More attention should be paid to the spirit of rule 1-4: If any point in dispute is not covered by the Rules, the decision should be made in accordance with equity.

More decisions should be made with an eye to the notion of equity—“the state, quality, or ideal of being just, impartial, and fair.” Emphasis on “fair.”

What rules would you change?