The putting line.... be careful

slave1

Picked this up on twitter, does Adam Scott not do this from time to time??

Russman

Very interesting indeed.

I'm probably going to sound like an oul fuddy duddy here, but hopefully that puts an end to that ridiculous looking practice that Scott, Mahan etc are using to read greens. F--king well use your eyes, and if you can't, give it up ! :D

Dealerz

"What length piece of string do you want buddy?"

Ah sure gives the one that's a "reasonable distance" thanks!!!

Either ban the practice or not, such a fudge again.

Russman

Very true, its a bit of a fudge. But its probably hard to come up with a wording to ban the practice outright, how would you define it ? A slight alteration to the method would probably get around a rule banning it.

But, golfers historically tend (though not always) to shy away from anything that would have even a hint on impropriety about it. Even the suspicion of something not being within the rules would have been enough to deter them.
It'll be interesting to see how the, arguably more hard nosed, professionals of today react. Scotty must think its a witch hunt at this stage !

slave1

Well, I know a lad who paces all his longish putts, looks like no can do anymore given that clarification

slave1

Actually, the same lad does have a habit of hovering his putter at break points along the putting line and kinda take a practice stroke, come to think about it I've seen this quite a bit

dball

p-lease explain this - is this a new rule or what. am i missing something?
This has always been in place and I regularly walk along the putting line of a long putt and stop a mid point, set up as if I'm about to take a putt (being careful not to ground the putter) and rehearse my put to view my estimated line of approach to the hole.

It looks to be a reminder as opposed to a new rule - nothing really new here at all -

Rikand

No wonder rounds of golf are taking 5+ hours.

Just stand up and hit the damn thing

Russman

dball wrote: »

p-lease explain this - is this a new rule or what. am i missing something?
This has always been in place and I regularly walk along the putting line of a long putt and stop a mid point, set up as if I'm about to take a putt (being careful not to ground the putter) and rehearse my put to view my estimated line of approach to the hole.

It looks to be a reminder as opposed to a new rule - nothing really new here at all -

I think its just a reminder of a rule that may have been slightly overlooked. Especially the "including a reasonable distance either side of the intended line" part.

SevesThreeIron

Hovering the putter over the ball at a certain point along the intended path of the putt goes on fairly wholesale. People are going to have to literally watch their step from now on.

slave1

SevesThreeIron wrote: »

Hovering the putter over the ball at a certain point along the intended path of the putt goes on fairly wholesale. People are going to have to literally watch their step from now on.

People are gonna have to stop it outright, I honestly did not know this. I rarely do this myself, maybe on a long putt where there's a split level on the latter end of the putt e.g. par 3 15th in Esker Hills

slave1

dball wrote: »

p-lease explain this - is this a new rule or what. am i missing something?
This has always been in place and I regularly walk along the putting line of a long putt and stop a mid point, set up as if I'm about to take a putt (being careful not to ground the putter) and rehearse my put to view my estimated line of approach to the hole.

It looks to be a reminder as opposed to a new rule - nothing really new here at all -

If I read this post correctly then it's say's that what you are doing is breaking the rule...."hovering the putter over the line of putt"...two stroke penalty

dball

slave1 wrote: »

If I read this post correctly then it's say's that what you are doing is breaking the rule...."hovering the putter over the line of putt"...two stroke penalty

Its not clear - it does not say you cant hover the putter over the line of planned putt

slave1

dball wrote: »

Its not clear - it does not say you cant hover the putter over the line of planned putt

That's just the way I read it, perhaps some graphical or video examples would clarify on behalf of rule makers

SevesThreeIron

I think you could still hover over the putt and take a practice swing if you stood, say, two or three feet back from the intended line. In that case you would surely be outside the reasonable distance from the putting line. I think. All a bit cadbury's fudgey.

Russman

SevesThreeIron wrote: »

I think you could still hover over the putt and take a practice swing if you stood, say, two or three feet back from the intended line. In that case you would surely be outside the reasonable distance from the putting line. I think. All a bit cadbury's fudgey.

That's exactly the problem, one man's reasonable distance away could be another man's "on the line". Two or three feet to the side on a ten foot putt would IMO be definitely not on the line, but on a fifty footer could well be.

Hopefully it doesn't lead to claiming of holes in the likes of interclub or penalties being imposed by "enthusiastic" playing partners in strokeplay comps.

slave1

Rikand wrote: »

No wonder rounds of golf are taking 5+ hours.

Just stand up and hit the damn thing

Ah now, if you do your routine while others are putting and you're waiting, then all okay

slave1

Russman wrote: »

... Two or three feet to the side on a ten foot putt would IMO be definitely not on the line, but on a fifty footer could well be...

very true