Another stupid rule

Seve OB

Playing in a major comp, roll your first putt close, mark your ball, stick it in your pocket wait your next turn. Ball accidently falls out of pocket and into a lake!

Why the hall can you not just play a new ball? Because it is much better to humilate a kid and make him strip to his boxers and video him for the internet as he goes diving to look for his ball, all while a dick counts down the seconds to deem the ball lost and penalise him and his team 2 shots.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/golf-men/article/2017-05-17/watch-jacksonville-golfer-drops-ball-water-strips-down-and-attempts

bustercherry

The rule is correct. It's unfortunate but He didn't have to jump in.

Jawgap

bustercherry wrote: »

The rule is correct. It's unfortunate but He didn't have to jump in.

The application of the rule may well have been correct, but it doesn't mean the rule itself isn't inherently idiotic.

What possible advantage did the player accrue that required him to be penalised? (That's more a question to the powers-that-be, than yourself)

martinkop

The rule is there, so players cannot use a different type of ball for putting than you use for long game.

It's unfortunate he dropped it in a lake, but oh well, he's unlikely to do it again.

AnneFrank

that's ridiculous

Senna

At the higher level of the game, if players could choose a ball for drives/irons/chipping/putting, they would have a favorite ball for each scenario, they cannot change the ball for putting, so a rule is in place. I don't see the issue.

Jawgap

I think the issue is that it's fair enough to penalise a player for swapping out balls, but where's the advantage if he replaced the dropped ball with one of the same compression and construction?

If a player really wanted to swap balls wouldn't they just do it in their pocket? Rather than drop it so it falls into a lake?

Seve OB

Jawgap wrote: »

The application of the rule may well have been correct, but it doesn't mean the rule itself isn't inherently idiotic.

What possible advantage did the player accrue that required him to be penalised? (That's more a question to the powers-that-be, than yourself)

exactly

callaway92

Stuff like this is why golf is becoming a bit too backwards/old fashioned/traditional.

The game will fall behind with useless rulings like this.

martinkop

The rules around substituting balls are fair imo.

If you start bringing in leeway/rule changes for rare incidences like this, that is a slippery slope.

For me, it was a stupid incident from the player rather than a stupid ruling. Harsh I know, but can't blame the rules guys for not anticipating someone dropping their ball into a lake.

ShivasIrons

Seve OB wrote: »

Playing in a major comp, roll your first putt close, mark your ball, stick it in your pocket wait your next turn. Ball accidently falls out of pocket and into a lake!

Why the hall can you not just play a new ball? Because it is much better to humilate a kid and make him strip to his boxers and video him for the internet as he goes diving to look for his ball, all while a dick counts down the seconds to deem the ball lost and penalise him and his team 2 shots.

http://www.ncaa.com/news/golf-men/article/2017-05-17/watch-jacksonville-golfer-drops-ball-water-strips-down-and-attempts

As many have mentioned the rule is so a golfer can't substitute one type ball for use on the green when another type was used for longer shots. I think it's pretty clear doing so can give an advantage.

As for the rules humiliating a kid, they didn't, it was his choice to jump in the lake and he felt that doing so was worth saving two shots for his team. That was his choice. Calling a rules official a dick is totally uncalled for.

The argument that no advantage came from this breach and should be ignored is a dangerous slope to go down. The rules of golf are black and white, bringing interpretation into them would lead to potential disarray.

Here's a situation, imagine teeing one inch in front of the markers, does this bring an advantage? Not really could be argued, but if one inch is ok, then another inch in front of that should be ok too, pretty soon a golfer could take enough inches and be in the hole. Rules are black and white for a reason.

Please look into the reasons behind a rule before calling them stupid based on a extremely rare occurrence. Also your thread title implies other rules are stupid, kindly name which ones are, because there are none, they are not stupid. Normally when someone calls a rule stupid they are looking at other rare occurrences, laws made for extremely rare occurrences invariably are bad laws.

AnneFrank

callaway92 wrote: »

Stuff like this is why golf is becoming a bit too backwards/old fashioned/traditional.

The game will fall behind with useless rulings like this.

Yes i agree, i'd rather they sort out all these silly rules, instead of trying to turn the game into darts, with fireworks and screaming, american type fans.
Just let common sense prevail

martinkop

AnneFrank wrote: »

Yes i agree, i'd rather they sort out all these silly rules, instead of trying to turn the game into darts, with fireworks and screaming, american type fans.
Just let common sense prevail

You talk about "they" running the show. Some very different entities involved in your post:

The R&A set the rules for the sport and try to do so to make the game playable in the modern era without sacrificing the heritage of the game. And doing a good job despite the rare incident occurring such as this.

The other lot are the European Tour, who are an entertainment business entity that try to make as much money as possible, using golf as the vehicle for the entertainment they provide.

Both have very different agendas, not to be confused.

Seve OB

ShivasIrons wrote: »

As many have mentioned the rule is so a golfer can't substitute one type ball for use on the green when another type was used for longer shots. I think it's pretty clear doing so can give an advantage.

As for the rules humiliating a kid, they didn't, it was his choice to jump in the lake and he felt that doing so was worth saving two shots for his team. That was his choice. Calling a rules official a dick is totally uncalled for.

The argument that no advantage came from this breach and should be ignored is a dangerous slope to go down. The rules of golf are black and white, bringing interpretation into them would lead to potential disarray.

Here's a situation, imagine teeing one inch in front of the markers, does this bring an advantage? Not really could be argued, but if one inch is ok, then another inch in front of that should be ok too, pretty soon a golfer could take enough inches and be in the hole. Rules are black and white for a reason.

Please look into the reasons behind a rule before calling them stupid based on a extremely rare occurrence. Also your thread title implies other rules are stupid, kindly name which ones are, because there are none, they are not stupid. Normally when someone calls a rule stupid they are looking at other rare occurrences, laws made for extremely rare occurrences invariably are bad laws.

Wow, well where do I start!

Stupid rules, there are none you say? PMSL! Well if there were none, then the R&A, & USGA wouldn't be bothering to clean them up!
how about off the top of my head and there are more...
not allowed to repair a spike mark, but you can repair a pitch mark
you can't repair a pitch mark that's off the green, even if it is your own and right in your line
punishing a perfect drive up the middle of the fairway and getting an unlucky lie in a bad divot hole, any shot that finds a fairway should never be penalised with a bad lie
no relief from sprinkler head
.
.
.
.

Jawgap

ShivasIrons wrote: »

As many have mentioned the rule is so a golfer can't substitute one type ball for use on the green when another type was used for longer shots. I think it's pretty clear doing so can give an advantage.

As for the rules humiliating a kid, they didn't, it was his choice to jump in the lake and he felt that doing so was worth saving two shots for his team. That was his choice. Calling a rules official a dick is totally uncalled for.

The argument that no advantage came from this breach and should be ignored is a dangerous slope to go down. The rules of golf are black and white, bringing interpretation into them would lead to potential disarray.

Here's a situation, imagine teeing one inch in front of the markers, does this bring an advantage? Not really could be argued, but if one inch is ok, then another inch in front of that should be ok too, pretty soon a golfer could take enough inches and be in the hole. Rules are black and white for a reason.

Please look into the reasons behind a rule before calling them stupid based on a extremely rare occurrence. Also your thread title implies other rules are stupid, kindly name which ones are, because there are none, they are not stupid. Normally when someone calls a rule stupid they are looking at other rare occurrences, laws made for extremely rare occurrences invariably are bad laws.

......and other much faster moving sports are well able to accommodate the idea of "advantage" and "materiality" into the interpretation processes of their rules....

......the fundamental problem with golf rules is not the rules, it's the process by which they are interpreted and the way in-game competition is managed. Other sports have their intellectual "centres of gravity" golf just seems to be stuck on having legalism is guiding interpretative philosophy and that's why you get silly decisions like this.

ShivasIrons

Seve OB wrote: »

Wow, well where do I start!

Stupid rules, there are none you say? PMSL! Well if there were none, then the R&A, & USGA wouldn't be bothering to clean them up!
how about off the top of my head and there are more...
not allowed to repair a spike mark, but you can repair a pitch mark
you can't repair a pitch mark that's off the green, even if it is your own and right in your line
punishing a perfect drive up the middle of the fairway and getting an unlucky lie in a bad divot hole, any shot that finds a fairway should never be penalised with a bad lie
no relief from sprinkler head
.
.
.
.

The reason the rules are being cleaned up is to make them a little easier to understand not because they're silly.

None of the rules you've outlined above are even remotely silly, you seem to want perfect conditions for every shot and if you don't you want to rules to give it to you. Allowing spike mark repair will slow down the game, they also don't impede the roll of the ball that much whereas a pitch mark will, off the green the option to hit over the ball mark is available.

You might see a ball ending up in a fairway divot as a bad break and be all whiny about it, I see it as an opportunity to show my skills on how to play different lies. It's not a silly rule. If you're suggesting that a well struck shot must get a good lie, then are you also suggesting that a poorly struck shot must get a poor lie? Sometimes you get good breaks sometimes you get bad breaks, deal with it.

There is relief from sprinkler heads, rule 24

Senna

Jawgap wrote: »

I think the issue is that it's fair enough to penalise a player for swapping out balls, but where's the advantage if he replaced the dropped ball with one of the same compression and construction?

If a player really wanted to swap balls wouldn't they just do it in their pocket? Rather than drop it so it falls into a lake?

The balls now in the water, do you want people to announce the make and model of the ball on each tee shot.
The rule is there for a reason, why should they legislate for some fool dropping their ball in the lake.

Jawgap

Senna wrote: »

The balls now in the water, do you want people to announce the make and model of the ball on each tee shot.
The rule is there for a reason, why should they legislate for some fool dropping their ball in the lake.

Nope, but you could simply announce your ball at the start of the round and be compelled to submit your ball to scrutiny at the request of a rules official at any time.....in much the same way a ref can call a player over and require him to allow boots, shin guards, shields or whatever in other sports.

Senna

Jawgap wrote: »

Nope, but you could simply announce your ball at the start of the round and be compelled to submit your ball to scrutiny at the request of a rules official at any time.....in much the same way a ref can call a player over and require him to allow boots, shin guards, shields or whatever in other sports.

Ah come on, you think this is better than the current rules that only penalise you if you have actually done something silly which there isn't much excuse for.
And I don't know of sure, but maybe pros might play a different ball on different holes, I know I always swap the Prov1 for a Dunlop on a hole with a big lake running down the right

Goldenjohn

People constantly give out about handicap cheats... Those who find a way of manipulating the system to their advantage. Yet because the rules are written in such a way as to minimise the ability to cheat....People constantly give out about them. Whilst I appreciate sometimes they can appear ridiculous based on certain situations they were written with the intention of the greater good and minimising potential cheating.

Jawgap

Senna wrote: »

Ah come on, you think this is better than the current rules that only penalise you if you have actually done something silly which there isn't much excuse for.
And I don't know of sure, but maybe pros might play a different ball on different holes, I know I always swap the Prov1 for a Dunlop on a hole with a big lake running down the right

Well, if you want to make the rules less silly, why not?

Then it'd be no different to other sports. As a soccer and rugby ref I check the match balls for compliance before the game and if I see or hear something during the game (or a player expresses a reservation about the ball) I'll check that the ball being used is still in compliance. Likewise, plenty of other sports have such scrutiny provisions for players' equipment in place, so it proves it can be done, especially as a lot of those sports involve contests that are much more difficult to manage, from an officiating perspective, than a golf comp.

Senna

Jawgap wrote: »

Well, if you want to make the rules less silly, why not?

Then it'd be no different to other sports. As a soccer and rugby ref I check the match balls for compliance before the game and if I see or hear something during the game (or a player expresses a reservation about the ball) I'll check that the ball being used is still in compliance. Likewise, plenty of other sports have such scrutiny provisions for players' equipment in place, so it proves it can be done, especially as a lot of those sports involve contests that are much more difficult to manage, from an officiating perspective, than a golf comp.

Sure, 4 ball of 28 handicapers, we'll get all 100 balls in their 4 bags checked before tee off, cause lets face it, their going to lose a good few and put their hand in the bag and grab the next one. So 4 ball tee off at 10am, better have them arrive at 6am for ball checks
Leave this rule alone, there are plenty of other rules that do need looked at, this one is 100% valid, it serves its purpose and if you fall foul of it, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Jawgap

Senna wrote: »

Sure, 4 ball of 28 handicapers, we'll get all 100 balls in their 4 bags checked before tee off, cause lets face it, their going to lose a good few and put their hand in the bag and grab the next one. So 4 ball tee off at 10am, better have them arrive at 6am for ball checks
Leave this rule alone, there are plenty of other rules that do need looked at, this one is 100% valid, it serves its purpose and if you fall foul of it, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

Well, you'll see I was referring to rules officials being empowered, not competitors..,,,,not too many 4 balls of 28 h'cappers get to have a ruled official, so they should still be grand.

fearruanua

Seve OB wrote: »

punishing a perfect drive up the middle of the fairway and getting an unlucky lie in a bad divot hole, any shot that finds a fairway should never be penalised with a bad lie

can't remember if it's on here I read it or was a greenkeeper friend who made a good point regarding the above comment/rule.
Fairways would massively suffer as divots probably wouldn't be replaced or repaired as much as they are now.
"sure it'll be grand, won't they get a free drop anyway from my divot"