Golf’s two principal keepers of the rules announced this past Monday the changes in the game’s rulebook effective January of 2019. The United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews come up with rules changes every couple of years. To their credit, the USGA and the R&A held a six-month period of commentary and assessment by the game’s major stakeholders such as the professional tours, college golf, and state associations. In the world of the blue blood keepers of the rules, there hasn’t always been this measure of democracy when it comes to new dictates.
More recently, the USGA and the R&A have enacted rules changes that have been controversial to say the least. The anchoring of the putter is one case in point as is the fiat that golfers playing on their own cannot post a score. Sometimes the rules people forget that most people play the game for the sheer enjoyment (or perhaps sheer torture) that golf can provide.
More often than not, rules changes or alterations are the result of something that happened under the glaring spotlight of television in one of golf’s major moments. The Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open controversy regarding whether he caused or did not cause his ball to move is now a moot issue. He was penalized that day, but if it were to happen again it wouldn’t be a penalty. Lexi Thompson’s ball marking mishap at the ANA Inspiration garnered a combined four-stroke penalty and ultimately a runner-up finish at one of the LPGA’s major championships. Today it would be a complete non-factor based on recent changes in the rules. The tours won’t take a phone call from a viewer who wants to call in an infraction that he’s seen from the comfort of his living room couch.
This time around, the changes to the rules of golf are very minor and greatly lacking in any sort of impact. One of the stranger conversations that has occurred of late is the discussion about how high the golfer should hold the ball when he’s taking relief from a hazard, an obstruction, ground under repair, and the like. In the olden days, you used to drop the ball behind your back and over your shoulder. For a period of time, you could spin the ball as you dropped it, perhaps resulting in a fortuitous position from where to play your next shot.
The USGA and the R&A have decided that you must hold the ball at knee length or above prior to dropping it onto the field of play. I’m not sure what advantage is gained based on the height of the drop. Maybe a hardpan surface would make it bounce higher if the ball were released higher than the knee, yet it still has to find a place to come to rest on planet earth. I never knew there was a lot of concern about the height of the drop. This rule has next to no impact upon the game whether it’s competitive golf or fun golf.
The game’s governing bodies have been discussing an alteration to the rules when taking relief from a water hazard, ground under repair, or a manmade obstruction. Normally you get one club length relief for a free drop, such as a ball that came to rest on a cart path. That manmade obstruction gets you one club length away from the problem. If you ball were to go into a pond, the resulting one-stroke penalty would include two club length relief from where the ball crossed into the water hazard. For a while the USGA was debating about putting relief in the form of a measurement, such as getting 80 inches relief for a ball in a hazard. In the end the rules makers decided we shouldn’t have to carry around our clubs and a tape measure as well.
T.C. Chen might very well be a U.S. Open champ and Andy North would have one less major championship trophy on his mantle based on a new rule. At the 1985 National Open at Oakland Hills, Chen made a costly final-round quadruple bogey, lost his lead, and ended up finishing one stroke behind North. It was North’s second U.S. Open triumph. Chen was penalized for a double-hit during that fifth-hole quad debacle. In January of 2019, a double-hit will no longer incur a penalty. I don’t know what the thinking was about this rule change, but I can easily contend that I have never seen anyone truly benefit from hitting the ball while it’s in motion. Normally they end up hitting it dead left or straight up in the air.
Most recreational golfers were looking forward to a stroke and no distance change in the rules. Up until the mid-1960s, a golfer who hit the ball out of bounds would go to the place where the ball crossed the golf course’s boundary, drop another ball within two club lengths, and add a one-stroke penalty. Then the rule was changed and suddenly a shot that came to rest out of bounds was now being played from the place where the ball was originally struck with a one-stroke penalty added to the score. If you teed it up and hit it out of bounds, then you would tee it up again and hit your third shot.
This time around, for the sake of pace of play, the rules people have deemed that the errant golf ball striking golfer can choose to play his third shot from the tee or can play his fourth shot from where the ball crossed in the land of out of bounds. Either way, the third shot from the same place or a fourth shot from where all your playing partners are hitting their second shot is not an enviable choice. In fact, most golfers I know have been playing this rule this way for the last 30 years. The only difference is that when they throw down another ball near the out of bounds fence, they “forget” to take a one-stroke or two-stroke penalty.
In the end, the four recent rules adjustments that will take effect on Jan 1, 2019 are truly much ado about nothing. The game’s top professionals need to know about the rules. Leading competitive amateurs also have to play by the letter of the rulebook. Yet for most golfers, the game’s already too tough without calling penalties on yourself while playing a fast nine on your own at the end of the day. The big picture for Joe Six-Pack is that it doesn’t matter how high he drops the ball. Furthermore he doesn’t distinguish between a two- or four-club length drop. He never did count those dastardly double hits. And if the people living in that house adjacent to 17th fairway aren’t home, then it seems like it would be OK to hit your next shot from their front lawn even though you are way out of bounds. After all, there are lots of very different reasons to play golf the way you like to. Someday the USGA and the R&A will figure that out.
