Golfblogger

I occasionally wonder who follows the Rules of Golf in everyday play.  When I play a tournament, I carefully adhere to the rules.  However, in everyday play, things get a bit loose.  Mulligans?  No, I tend to not give myself a free reload.  I do occasionally hit a second practice shot after a particularly bad approach.  While I play the first effort, the Rules of Golf deem my second shot to be practice and it should result in a penalty (darned if I know whether it is 1 or 2 strokes).  Do I record the score as a bogey 5 or add the penalty?  Bogey 5.

Frankly, I don’t really care how someone keeps score.  Unless we are in a competition or playing for money, what someone else does is their own business.  I play a lot of golf with people I do not know (walk on single - join a group) and it is interesting to watch how the Rules get bent.

So does anyone out there strictly adhere to the Rules?

The rule I routinely ignore is stroke and distance for balls out of bounds or lost balls. It frankly doesn’t make any sense in a public golf setting. I just drop in a likely position, take two strokes and play on. The effect is the same.

Golf Digest recently had a small blurb about golfers and bending/breaking rules (“Unruly Golfers” - Septemeber, 2010).  An GD editor joined a group of 3 golfers for a round and secretly monitored his fellow players for rules infractions. The result?  The editor counted 56 rules infractions over the 18 holes.  Typical of the average golfer?  Probably not but I do not doubt there are groups out there as I write this who are trashing the Rules in a multitude of ways.

When I am in a tournament situation, I adhere to the Rules of Golf exactly as written.  In casual play I know I would be guilty of a few of the violations cited.  I will typically not hole-out when a putt is 12 inches or less.  In a casual round I think insisting on holing-out every putt approaches on being inconsiderate.  Dancing around the hole to avoid others line, all while negotiating a 6 inch tap-in is tedious. A foot or less?  Juat pick the darn thing up and go to the next hole.

Ball unexpectedly lost?  Drop, take 2 strokes and move on.  If I know a ball is likely lost or OB, I will play a provisional.  However, every once in a while I get a nasty surprise when I believe my shot is in play but a cart path or hard turf intervened and sent my ball to parts unknown. I am not going to ask the group behind me to wait while I trek back to the tee or the point I last played the errant shot.

I don’t take mulligans or a “breakfast ball” on the first tee. No preferred lies - everything gets played where it lays except obvious abnormal conditions.  I like the approach someone recently related to me.  He said, “I am result oriented as opposed to rule oriented.  If a different approach creates the same result (e.g. dropping and a 2-stroke penalty) then why worry about the exact rule.”

I don’t play stroke-and-distance on OB or lost balls, but also take the drop and penalty. That USED to be the rule (albeit before my time). It’s also a rule that I think the USGA needs to change back to the way it was before. NOBODY goes back and rehits. The way courses are crowded these days, you can’t. Nor does hitting a provisional on every possibly lost shot make any sense. That just adds time.

The other rule I’m completely guilty of is not removing the flag when putting. I’m too lazy.