Proposed changes

Russman

Some very interesting proposals here, most seem to be pretty sensible at first glance..........not sure about the new form of strokeplay though !!

The big ones
http://www.usga.org/rules-hub/rules-modernization/text/major-proposed-changes.html

Full list
http://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/2017/rules-modernization/full-list-changes-chart.pdf

Tom.D.BJJ

Very sensible in alot of cases, particularly putting with the flag in.

The change to the method of taking a drop is very interesting, and should stop alot of faffing about.

When will they come into play?

ChippingSodbury

Ball accidentally moved on the putting green is already "live" since 01-Jan. Need to be implemented via local rule in each club though (because rulebook is only revised every 2 years)

Russman

Tom.D.BJJ wrote: »

When will they come into play?

AFAIK, January 2019, if they're make it through the consultation period.

Tom.D.BJJ

PS: If Shane bashes his putter off a fencepost like at last years IO and damages the club, he can still use it.

CalamariFritti

Sounds good to me. My personal highlights are.
No more dropping on the 'better side' in red hazard.
No more drops from shoulder height necessary.
I can repair the entire green now.
I can attempt that 90 foot putt without someone attending.

valoren

A lot of common sense.

Maximum score for stroke play very interesting. Would definitely speed up competitions.

alxmorgan

valoren wrote: »

A lot of common sense.

Maximum score for stroke play very interesting. Would definitely speed up competitions.

Agreed re speed. Not sure I fully agree with it on grounds of competition though. One of the great pressures of stroke e.g. scratch cups is preventing bad holes from becoming complete blow-outs, Might take away from that a bit

slave1

All good, bit more pressure looking for a ball now, down from 5 to 3 minutes is proposed...speed things up

Russman

alxmorgan wrote: »

Agreed re speed. Not sure I fully agree with it on grounds of competition though. One of the great pressures of stroke e.g. scratch cups is preventing bad holes from becoming complete blow-outs, Might take away from that a bit

I'd say there'd probably be two forms of stroke play, Real and, I dunno, Semi-real ? Classic and New maybe ?

Jawgap

The proposed modification to the drop and the idea of a max score in strokeplay are 'interesting' - not sure I'd favour either.

if you are going to drop from an inch, why not just eliminate the drop altogether and make it placing?

....and the idea of a max score in strokeplay just seems a bit bonkers.

The fixed distances instead of club lengths seems like a good idea, as long as someone brings a tape

I'd wonder about the time limit for shots - (40 seconds from when?) but agree something has to be done.

Likewise the reduction in the time allowed to search for a ball......that might be problematic.

A lot of the remainder looks like common sense.

HighLine

Mostly good changes, some bad:

> Relief from an embedded ball through the green - finally!
> Doing away with club lengths - so we all need to bring measuring tapes?
> 40 seconds to make a stroke? Seriously? That is a stupidly long time when the focus of the rule changes is to speed up play.
> Repairing spike marks - can you imagine watching Harrington and Keegan Bradley walking around getting every spike mark that could possibly interfere with their line. All you would need is Attenborough to narrate and you could have a feature length documentary.
> No penalty for hitting flag left in - good.
> Stopping caddies lining up the women - good.
> No requirement to announce your intentions to identify a ball - just asking for trouble. Paddy's ball that was sitting down is now sitting up.

twounderpar

The idea that a player can lift his/her ball to identify it without getting permission from playing partners is wrong. I have played with a guy who was doing this every time he ended up in the rough. All he was doing was improving his lie. He stopped doing it when I reminded him of the rule. Also allowing the caddy to mark your ball is dodgy. What happens if he does it incorrectly. Are you penalised. I wondered about dropping the ball changes but having watched the video I think they make a lot of sense.

billy3sheets

Capping the score on a hole is a great idea. It's covered by Clause 19 Adjustment already for handicapping purposes anyway. I once played in a Medal strokes with a guy who had a 17 on the 3rd hole! I came close to giving up the game entirely after it.

Jawgap

billy3sheets wrote: »

Capping the score on a hole is a great idea. It's covered by Clause 19 Adjustment already for handicapping purposes anyway. I once played in a Medal strokes with a guy who had a 17 on the 3rd hole! I came close to giving up the game entirely after it.

But it won't really be strokeplay if you don't count all the strokes?

Or to put it another way, if someone loses out by 2 or 3 strokes because someone else's score on a hole is capped, is that really a proper outcome?

It won't be strokeplay, maybe we can call it modified or capped strokeplay?

Dtoffee

twounderpar wrote: »

The idea that a player can lift his/her ball to identify it without getting permission from playing partners is wrong. I have played with a guy who was doing this every time he ended up in the rough. All he was doing was improving his lie. He stopped doing it when I reminded him of the rule. Also allowing the caddy to mark your ball is dodgy. What happens if he does it incorrectly. Are you penalised. I wondered about dropping the ball changes but having watched the video I think they make a lot of sense.

Its amazing how many players are like the guy you describe, I know one who claimed he had a bad back and required a buggy .... he would speed off and indetify his own ball and always put the buggy between him and us. We caught him at a par three and his game fell apart after that.

I think the strokeplay rule is a good one, it will speed up the game.

LuckyGent88

Like most people here I'm happy to see some of these new rules implemented and it's nice to see that the rules bodies are actively trying to speed up the game.

Still wouldn't agree with a lot of these new proposed rules and it's nearly the case there needs to be a small bit of seperation between ameteurs and pros.

From seeing some reaction on twitter, Ian poulter came up with the easiest and best way to speed up play on tour. Ban those ridiculous green reading books. They are a joke.

HighLine

LuckyGent88 wrote: »

From seeing some reaction on twitter, Ian poulter came up with the easiest and best way to speed up play on tour. Ban those ridiculous green reading books. They are a joke.

+1000 It was good to see that he was getting a lot of support from other Pros on the issue too!

blackwhite

Dtoffee wrote: »

Its amazing how many players are like the guy you describe, I know one who claimed he had a bad back and required a buggy .... he would speed off and indetify his own ball and always put the buggy between him and us. We caught him at a par three and his game fell apart after that.

I think the strokeplay rule is a good one, it will speed up the game.

Was that in Mullingar by any chance?

Played with a guy there once who kept pulling the buggy trick, and was told afterwards he was notorious for it.

People generally only played with him once, and he used have trouble finding playing partners. Used appear on a Sunday and wait for a group to be short someone before imposing himself

red ears

Are those rules for USGA and R&A.

I like the stroke capping but it should be 4 or 5 over par per hole. No point having it capped at triple.

red ears

blackwhite wrote: »

Was that in Mullingar by any chance?

Played with a guy there once who kept pulling the buggy trick, and was told afterwards he was notorious for it.

People generally only played with him once, and he used have trouble finding playing partners. Used appear on a Sunday and wait for a group to be short someone before imposing himself

Imagine getting that sort of reputation and for what at the end of the day. A slightly better lie. If you get the name of a cheat in golf you might as well give it up.

blackwhite

red ears wrote: »

Are those rules for USGA and R&A.

I like the stroke capping but it should be 4 or 5 over par per hole. No point having it capped at triple.

They moved to unified rules a while ago for all playing rules

mikepajero182

All these proposed changes and still no sign of relief from a divot in fairway.
Surely that is needed more than changing the drop from shoulder height.

fred funk }{

mikepajero182 wrote: »

All these proposed changes and still no sign of relief from a divot in fairway.
Surely that is needed more than changing the drop from shoulder height.

Everyone would claim their ball was in a divot, be it new or an old one to improve their lie.

bustercherry

Surely capping strokes is just stableford only you are award a net double opposed to zero points for example?

Seems a bit pointless.

Senna

mikepajero182 wrote: »

All these proposed changes and still no sign of relief from a divot in fairway.
Surely that is needed more than changing the drop from shoulder height.

I think they won't do anything about divots as it's the only incentive some people have to repair their divots, if players can drop out of them, maybe nobody will repair their own divot.

Love the flag rule, would never have thought of it, but a good rule to change.

Does it also mean we will be able to ground our club in a bunker or hazard?

Guessing the stroke score will be something like a 12, so no one's going to benefit from it.

The 40 seconds is a bizarre one, say a pro arrives at his ball, he's first to hit and no one on green, should he have 40 seconds from then??

Dtoffee

blackwhite wrote: »

Was that in Mullingar by any chance?

Played with a guy there once who kept pulling the buggy trick, and was told afterwards he was notorious for it.

People generally only played with him once, and he used have trouble finding playing partners. Used appear on a Sunday and wait for a group to be short someone before imposing himself

No .... but this bandito eventually got done, seems he was very successful in the twos competition at his club. That was until the day one of his partners dropped out and a new guy stood in. The new guy decided to look up howdidido.com later that evening as he was very keen to track his scores. In doing so, he checked his playing partners as well and discovered our man's total was correct..... but he had a two on his card that never happened. An investigation followed and it turns out it was a regular event, the totals were always right so nobody suspected. I heard he was suspended for two years and never played after that.

Montgolfier

I hope they don't change strokeplay format it's the only real form of golf left. The whole point of it is to consider risks and play smarter. As for guys ending up with high scores in the early holes it's a learning curve due to the fact we don't play enough of this format. Stapleford had ruined the attitude towards golf you have guys taken on glory shots to get a point, no wonder stroke is so hard for them. Ban stableford.

Red hazard rule changes are dodgy if your playing on a strange course you may not be aware of the local rule. They may write it on the back of the card they may not.

Jawgap

Montgolfier wrote: »

I hope they don't change strokeplay format it's the only real form of golf left. The whole point of it is to consider risks and play smarter. As for guys ending up with high scores in the early holes it's a learning curve due to the fact we don't play enough of this format. Stapleford had ruined the attitude towards golf you have guys taken on glory shots to get a point, no wonder stroke is so hard for them. Ban stableford.

Red hazard rule changes are dodgy if your playing on a strange course you may not be aware of the local rule. They may write it on the back of the card they may not.

+1.....it's the purest form of the game. Don't get me wrong, I like stableford, v par etc (and match play golf is absolutely brilliant) but strokeplay is, to my mind, the game at its most testing.......

.....allowing people to putt with the flag in and reducing the time to look for a lost ball will probably have a much greater impact on speeding things up than capping scores.

red ears

Rather than cap the scores they could allow you the option to drop a ball where it went out of bounds with a 2 shot penalty. This would save the player walking back to the tee to reload after they couldn't find the ball. That really slows the game down when you see some eejit walking back to the tee after spending 5 mins looking for his ball.

Roger_007

fred funk }{ wrote: »

Everyone would claim their ball was in a divot, be it new or an old one to improve their lie.

So what. If you are good enough to put your ball on the fairway, you should be entitled to a 'fairway' lie!

Hoof Hearted2

If there's one thing clear from these proposed new changes, it's that nothing is clear, judging by the confusion highlighted in this thread.

Ronney

Re: Strokeplay Max

As said already we have this over here for the majority of our comps its called stableford!

As far as the rules of golf are concerned there are two types of rounds, Strokeplay and Match play.

Vpar, stableford and strokes are all forms of Stroke play just with different scoring systems.

Match play has different penalties for breaches of rules (loss of hole etc) and things like gimmies and order of play matter

Over in the US (where these changes are coming from) most golf that is played is Strokes thus adding time for people to finish out every hole.

martinkop

Senna wrote: »

Does it also mean we will be able to ground our club in a bunker or hazard?

No, you still cannot ground the club in front of or behind the ball, or touch the sand with a practice swing:
"limited prohibition continues so that the player must not:

• Deliberately touch the sand in a bunker with a hand, club, rake or other object to test the condition of the sand to learn information for the stroke, or
• Touch the sand in a bunker with a club in making a practice swing, in grounding the club right in front of or behind the ball, or in making the backswing for a stroke."

Russman

Roger_007 wrote: »

So what. If you are good enough to put your ball on the fairway, you should be entitled to a 'fairway' lie!

Why ?

bustercherry

red ears wrote: »

Rather than cap the scores they could allow you the option to drop a ball where it went out of bounds with a 2 shot penalty. This would save the player walking back to the tee to reload after they couldn't find the ball. That really slows the game down when you see some eejit walking back to the tee after spending 5 mins looking for his ball.

If it's gone out of bounds of the tee you should be reloading. If you are unsure whether you went out of bounds and it's outside a water hazard, then you should be playing a provisional. There should be very little cases where you need to walk back; it can happen but it's a very rare exception.

Further in your case above, if you cant find the ball then either you can't be sure it's OOB, therefore you can't drop as you can't identify where it went OOB. Additionally where the OOB boundary is hidden, you can't identify where to drop.

Lastly if you are sure it went OOB and can't find the ball, then ask yourself why the fcuk are you holding everyone else up while you look for a ball not in play. Get a grip it's only a ball.

Russman

red ears wrote: »

That really slows the game down when you see some eejit walking back to the tee after spending 5 mins looking for his ball.

Yeah, but how often does that really happen ? I'd argue anyway that that scenario is an essential part of the game. Numerous much easier ways to speed up play than getting rid of stroke and distance.

If people want faster rounds of golf, its really quite simple, play a bit quicker.

bustercherry

Russman wrote: »

Yeah, but how often does that really happen ? I'd argue anyway that that scenario is an essential part of the game. Numerous much easier ways to speed up play than getting rid of stroke and distance.

If people want faster rounds of golf, its really quite simple, play a bit quicker.

99% of the time you should never have to walk back. It's either OOB, so you play the 2nd; or you are not sure and play a provisional, just in case it's lost or OOB.

You could play 3 provisionals potentially in the time spent arguing over where or if it went OOB.

Jawgap

OOB played as a lateral hazard, as per the suggestion in this article.....

Rules of Golf: 5 more rules that need changing, stat!

......wouldn't be the worst change the powers-that-be could make and it would, imo, help speed up play.

There's also a reasonable case made, in the article, for getting relief from divots.

Russman

Jawgap wrote: »

OOB played as a lateral hazard, as per the suggestion in this article.....

......wouldn't be the worst change the powers-that-be could make and it would, imo, help speed up play.

There's also a reasonable case made, in the article, for getting relief from divots.

But isn't the argument that it speeds up play a bit weak ? Realistically its not that often that a given player is OB and hasn't hit a provisional. I can see the point alright but it seems to be a bit along the lines of wanting less punishment for a bad shot. If someone has hit it off the property then I'm not sure it makes sense to just drop one beside the boundary......

One of the problems with the divots thing is "what constitutes a divot ?" I reckon any kind of a bad lie would have fellas claiming they're in an old divot. Plus, how often has it happened ? I'm playing golf 30+ years and I reckon I've been in a divot maybe 3 or 4 times tops. For me, divots are rub of the green. I wouldn't want to put my ball back in the trees if it bounced out.

Plus I think guys wouldn't bother repairing their divots if they knew there was relief from them.

billy3sheets

Jawgap wrote: »

But it won't really be strokeplay if you don't count all the strokes?

Maybe not purely...but so what?

Jawgap wrote: »

Or to put it another way, if someone loses out by 2 or 3 strokes because someone else's score on a hole is capped, is that really a proper outcome?

This is interesting ok. I think it should be capped a +4 or +5 over. I know someone playing off 19 who shot +23 in a Medal and still got cut. He had an 11 on 1 par 4 hole but Clause 19 cut his to a 6 effectively making it a +18 round and he was cut 0.3. With capping he would have come in under his handicap and won a prize!

Jawgap wrote: »

It won't be strokeplay, maybe we can call it modified or capped strokeplay?

Perhaps...but as long as everyone is aware of the rules it should be fine

Jawgap

Russman wrote: »

But isn't the argument that it speeds up play a bit weak ? Realistically its not that often that a given player is OB and hasn't hit a provisional. I can see the point alright but it seems to be a bit along the lines of wanting less punishment for a bad shot. If someone has hit it off the property then I'm not sure it makes sense to just drop one beside the boundary......

One of the problems with the divots thing is "what constitutes a divot ?" I reckon any kind of a bad lie would have fellas claiming they're in an old divot. Plus, how often has it happened ? I'm playing golf 30+ years and I reckon I've been in a divot maybe 3 or 4 times tops. For me, divots are rub of the green. I wouldn't want to put my ball back in the trees if it bounced out.

Plus I think guys wouldn't bother repairing their divots if they knew there was relief from them.

I think there's 2 issues with the idea of treating OOB as a lateral hazard......there's the slow play issue, which I think it will help a small bit with, but it certainly won't make a significant contribution. Then there's the proportionality issue.....stroke and distance.....is it a proportional penalty? I think there's an argument for saying it's disproportionate, ymmv.

On the divot suggestion, I'd tend to agree that it's rub of the green, but equity might suggest that allowing some relief might be appropriate?

Jawgap

billy3sheets wrote: »

Maybe not purely...but so what?


This is interesting ok. I think it should be capped a +4 or +5 over. I know someone playing off 19 who shot +23 in a Medal and still got cut. He had an 11 on 1 par 4 hole but Clause 19 cut his to a 6 effectively making it a +18 round and he was cut 0.3. With capping he would have come in under his handicap and won a prize!


Perhaps...but as long as everyone is aware of the rules it should be fine

Because strokes is the scoring mode.....would other sports cap scoring? Rugby caps scoring at the age grade level, but if Italy are getting trounced in the Six Nations, the score doesn't stop incrementing at a pre-determined point.

....and for the example above, it'd pretty galling to turn in a good score based on consistent scoring and good course management, only to lose out to someone who blew a hole or two but benefitted from capping.

Maybe there is room for a modified strokeplay format, but it still won't be strokeplay, to my mind.

billy3sheets

Jawgap wrote: »

Because strokes is the scoring mode.....would other sports cap scoring? Rugby caps scoring at the age grade level, but if Italy are getting trounced in the Six Nations, the score doesn't stop incrementing at a pre-determined point.

.

Well you could argue that professional golf caps scoring by implementing a cut?

Anyway I think score capping wouldn't apply to professional golfers. I think this is totally aimed at high handicap amateurs.

Roger_007

Russman wrote: »

.....

One of the problems with the divots thing is "what constitutes a divot ?" I reckon any kind of a bad lie would have fellas claiming they're in an old divot. Plus, how often has it happened ? I'm playing golf 30+ years and I reckon I've been in a divot maybe 3 or 4 times tops. For me, divots are rub of the green. I wouldn't want to put my ball back in the trees if it bounced out.

Plus I think guys wouldn't bother repairing their divots if they knew there was relief from them.

I think that there should be a reward for keeping the ball on the fairway. One way of doing this would be to have a rule change whereby 'placing' was always allowed on all 'closely-mown' areas.
Low handicap players don't see a problem with divots because they generally are hitting longer than the average player and so avoid the landing areas where most players are hitting from. Therefore they have less chance of finding divots.
If there was an old pitch mark on your line of putt on the green, you can get relief by repairing it. You do not regard that as 'the rub of the green'.
Why not have similar relief on fairways.

PS. I can't see where you are going with the argument about the ball bouncing back out of the trees.

Russman

Roger_007 wrote: »

PS. I can't see where you are going with the argument about the ball bouncing back out of the trees.

I was just making the point that some guys seem to want to be getting relief from the bad break of landing in a divot and presumably would also want to benefit from, say, the good break of a ball bouncing out of the trees. Surely luck and the bounce of the ball is an essential part of sport....? It can't be all upside imo.

Russman

Roger_007 wrote: »

If there was an old pitch mark on your line of putt on the green, you can get relief by repairing it. You do not regard that as 'the rub of the green'.
Why not have similar relief on fairways.
s.

I think on the green is different because we're allowed to mark and lift the ball. Through the green I think "play it as it lies" should be pretty sacrosanct.

Imagine how sterile the game would be if there was always placing on fairways ?

As Jack said, no one ever said golf was meant to be fair.

Jawgap

billy3sheets wrote: »

Well you could argue that professional golf caps scoring by implementing a cut?

Anyway I think score capping wouldn't apply to professional golfers. I think this is totally aimed at high handicap amateurs.

Completely different. That's more akin to a knockout round, like in tennis where half the players go out in round #1 of any competition. And you make the cut by knocking it around in fewer strokes, not in "fewer strokes up to a given maximum on any of one hole."

The great thing about stableford, imo, is that a single hole doesn't have to wreck your round - the great thing about strokes is consistency is rewarded. I don't know about anyone else, but I find a decent strokes score more rewarding than a decent stableford tally.

Montgolfier

Jawgap wrote: »

Completely different. That's more akin to a knockout round, like in tennis where half the players go out in round #1 of any competition. And you make the cut by knocking it around in fewer strokes, not in "fewer strokes up to a given maximum on any of one hole."

The great thing about stableford, imo, is that a single hole doesn't have to wreck your round - the great thing about strokes is consistency is rewarded. I don't know about anyone else, but I find a decent strokes score more rewarding than a decent stableford tally.

+1 "Consistency" isn't that what every handicap golfer is searching for yet we play formats where its not required.

martinkop

I think it's a good ides to have a "max stroke" format available. I mean it's not replacing the original and IMO the best format of "stroke", but it just give another option for clubs to run stroke competitions without having lads needing to hole out everything after say +4. But is should be a +4 or +5 cap. If a lad recovers from that to win a comp, that is pretty impressive shooting, so I'd say it would be rare. It seems like a stableford comp for those who can't or are too lazy to do maths of points

Hoof Hearted2

Where are people getting this +4 or +5 cap for strokes, is there an example or proposed cap in the new proposed rules changes?.

Personally I can't see any cap in strokes been anything less than +10, otherwise there's no point.