Here’s a question, and I mean this in the nicest way, I’m pretty certain I know the rules about 90%. I’ve been in and seen in Tournaments I played in rules referees have some differing interpretations, not of the rule, but more so of the ground condition. Most guys in a tourney are looking to save a stroke because of what they deem abnormal condition. Most people I’ve played with, not in our GA, don’t know the rules… they play ready golf, they don’t count penalties, they ground their club in the bunker…etc! not my place to bust their bubble, I just tool around along with them as long as we aren’t holding anyone up! Oh yea forgot the question, do we really care what anyone else is doing on the course so why, if no one is holding you up. Is a golf shot worth life or death in a casual round? Simple question, i sometimes get the feeling that it really bothers people who are purists. Does it really matter ? I’d rather see people have fun
What was the question?
I don’t care what others do with their golf game. Unless we’re having a small wager, other than that I could careless.
Once played with a guy who wants to play dollar, some of them lose the excitement when they don’t place a bet on the game; most of them are 15-20 handicappers, This guy will get into the bunker and takes several practice swings, with sand blasting out. Then he got out and made the putt to what he thought was a par. I straightened him out right there and then, and told him that I won’t be playing money game with him in the future, not even for two bits.
The stake was not high but the competition was real. I’d known affluent people fought tooth and nail for $2 Nassau. They’d tip more than that at the 19th hole on one round of drink.
People make wrong decision and not the best decision all day long. What they do is not my business. I would stick my neck out for a friend but not everyone and especially if I’m not asked.
I had learned, not to “help” if not asked to help. This goes with a simple advice for golf swing or simple golf club repair works. I don’t have time to give free advice and free repair works when it’s not appreciated.
I think you are misunderstanding me.
Golf in the UK has been seen as a rich white guys sport where others aren’t welcome. Especially if you are a women or from a diverse background. It puts people off. Thankfully its changing but almost any clubs gallery of past captains…old white guys in club blazers and ties.
The sport realized that to survive it needed to adapt and things are much better now. But you DO NOT need a course to learn how to act. I know and didn’t take one, you know and didn’t take one. I would not be a golfer if the Swedish system existed in the UK and I don’t drink, play music, go around bare chested or wear a stringer on the course. I can now wear a hoody and, surprisingly the world hasn’t ended with a bit of modernisation.
I really disagree that the game was built on the premise of being stuffy. It was run and taken over by the landed gentry who created that air (in fact the first professionals were looked down upon and often not allowed in club houses etc.) It developed the racist and sexist overtones through a small elite taking control and thankfully that control has been wrestled from their grasp. All a new player needs is a brief 5 minute into on how to repair a pitchmark and a divot and then let them learn the joy of the game.
I’ll say it one more time, as you missed it the first time. You do NOT have to play the ball from that “dangerous spot”, not ever, not under the strictest interpretation of the rules. You are ALWAYS allowed to take relief, at any time, under the Unplayable Ball Rule, Rule 19. Is it stupid to take a silly risk to avoid taking that one penalty stroke? Of course it is, in hindsight. So I agree with you, move it, don’t play it from a dangerous spot. And if you’re playing by the Rules, move it and add that penalty stroke.
And I suppose I am a rules purist, the rules are a big part of what makes the game of golf so great. At the same time, I realize that there are many ways to play, not all golfers care enough to want to follow all the rules. I’ll quote what I said earlier:
Back in my times, the young were willing to learn and the elders were generous to teach.
This is not the atmosphere these days.
The young are too smart to learn and the elders don’t have the time nor the patience to teach.
As I said about myself. I stopped being “helpful” unless I was asked to help. I’d like to help the new golfers, to give back what I had received. However, I can’t give if none was wanted.
Now, One of my kid’s friend is a new golfer and he is eager to learn this game, We have been including him when we go driving range and short executive golf courses, he will be a good golfer as he is athletic and willing to learn; very rare for the kid from generation Z.
Well, If I look back, my generation was also rebellious, luckily as we grew older, we morphed to be a more reasonable and respectable human being.
As for the prejudice treatment for women and minority in golf, it is written in history. Prejudice is built in the human history no matter where one look. There are the race distinction and now more common is the class distinction. Instead of racial discrimination, the economic barrier is being used to select the preferred companies.
Not many private golf and country clubs in this country is “affordable”. There are some family friendly GCC, few and far in between.
My father’s generation saw the membership of a GCC as a status symbol, my generation will look at it from an economic angle. Not many of my friends are members of a private GCC, a few had been and quit.
I had never been a member of any GCC since older than 17, when the privilege of using my father’s membership expired with age.
I enjoy golfing at different location, meeting different type of people. If you never travel and golf then you won’t understand it.
I can lay off golf for a few weeks when the weather is not suitable and save the money for maybe a new golf club, instead of the mandatory monthly due for golf and food/beverage. If I’m busy at work, I’ll not see a golf course in weeks without paying for it.
Public golf venue has its draw back. As some times the company are not ideal. But most of the time, I would meet great people who I would never have met. In fact, a couple of my close friends were first acquainted on the golf course as strangers being paired up by the starter.
Oh, there is a golf course near by, which states, no change of golf shoes in the parking lot ( they don’t provide a locker room for golfers as a public golf course ), no jeans on the driving range, no this and no that. I saved my pennies and drive farther to golf.
AND this is why our game will always be considered an elitist, stuffy sport. This is why I stopped playing in club championships! This is why I play in a chill group and we play within the “spirit of the rules” because everyone thinks it’s Ben Hogan vs Arnold Palmer and in today’s world, well Someone is going to get killed… Ya think it’s the 1970’s NHL and where is Clark Gillies and Dave Schultz! Over what! Not in a chill round of golf in my world! Just a couple of F-Bombs! Ya gotta watch both Twitter vids… what a bunch of clowns! Wait until they start packin side-arms to settle a dispute!
I can see your point of view, as I felt the same some time ago.
However, it’s like going 5 MPH over the posted speed limit vs. going triple digit at an unsafe speed on the freeway.
Both scenario broke the law, of course, but there IS a difference between the two.
I still golf with the rules I had learned but I leave the rest to do their things.
Completely agree.
I don’t play competitively yet prefer to stay true to the spirit of the game.
Additionally … and imho obviously other golfers feel differently … but you’re either playing “Golf” the game as it’s developed over many many years, or you’re playing your own sub-version (
) call it “weekend golf” or “social golf” or “Marty McFly golf” or whatever you like…
(…just don’t be bragging in the bar afterwards how you broke the course record 
)
I love the game. We predominantly know the rules in my group. Predominantly, means we don’t know all of them or remember all of them. Like reading the article about Pieters and Bryson on the same hole at different times. One rules official ruled against Pieters who hit a ball to the edge of a penalty area, and a couple groups later, Bryson hit it in the same spot and received a favorable ruling from a different ref and then everyone realized the hazard was mismarked and changed it for everyone. Didn’t help Pieters though did it? That’s the predominantly part. The last few weeks we have been playing complete winter weather golf and our regular 4some, is now a 2some and we have been getting hooked up with other 2somes that, don’t know anything about the rules… AT ALL! We just play our game and have fun. I would bet 90% of players shooting in the 90’s, or above… don’t know the rules at all. Most of the commenters on here, from what I gather are a little more serious about the game and the idiosyncrasies of the game. I don’t go out and break course records, I shot sub 70 rounds 3 times this year. In those rounds, guess what, I was so grooved, I didn’t have to roll my ball out of a footprint in the trap, or off a tree root, or out of a divot in the fairway… I didn’t hit it that wayward…if you are following me. Pretty much FW and Green or apron and such. The one round was 15 GIR, I coulda said 18, but 3 were on the apron. Once, you get a round like that going, you tend to get serious, it’s not often. The one round I shot 68, I was 5 under after 6 holes… and patched together a +2 over the final 12. But, you tend to follow the rules to the best of your abilities… you don’t want to ruin Karma. As Mr Jones famously said, and I know it’s a repeat, but there’s everyday golf, competitive golf and tournament golf. Most of us play the first 2, very few of us play Tournament Golf. In the grand scheme, and Dave did agree with the general premise. Unless there’s some crazy anomaly. Hit your ball, find it and hit it again where you find it, keep hitting it until you hole it! If you can’t hit it, take a penalty stroke, then drop it to where you can hit it… pretty simple! Most of the time you won’t go wrong with using that rules structure.
Just a little clarification on this. First, the Pieters ruling was correct, in that his ball was touching the red paint line, so it was definitely in the Penalty Area, per 17.1a. Even though the paint wasn’t exactly where the Committee wanted it, the Official wasn’t empowered to override the actual location of the painted line. But the Committee realized the mistake in the marking before Bryson got anywhere close, and had already made the decision to correct it. With the decision being made, and the red paint in transit, the Referee in Bryson’s match ruled in accordance with the Committee’s intent, with the Committee’s specific direction to do so. And remember, this was Match Play, it really IS acceptable to change this stuff between matches. It was a really unusual occurrence, but it was handled properly by everyone involved.
Coming from a rule’s official. Bet you $1 that Pieters doesn’t feel that way. You can take that to the bank. If he would have lost his match 1 up. (He did win it). It would have really pissed him off even more. However, Bryson halved his match with the drop they gave him, against Bland, so think about that! Nothing is perfect and my personal opinion would have been change the markings tomorrow. Live with the mistake. Pictures don’t Lie It’s like football or balls and strikes. It’s imperfect, if you really looked closely linemen hold every play, or one pitch it’s a strike next one is a ball. Same thing in golf, for goodness sakes it was ruled at the phoenix years ago technically a 1 ton boulder was a loose impediment. Something I’ll never forget, or someone calling in and saying stads built a stance when he was so vain about his clothes he knelt on a towel not to ruin his trousers. Or, this Pieters special If I did this in money match, I’d be shanghaied! 
While Pieters may not have liked the Ruling, it was the CORRECT ruling. If a ball is touching the red line, it is in the Penalty Area. If it is in the Penalty Area, there is no free relief for an Abnormal Course Condition. The first link you posted says almost exactly what I had said in an earlier post. In the second link, it was later confirmed that Pieters’ movement fit the Definition of a Stroke, so he should not have been allowed to replace the ball. But in accordance with the Rules, a ruling by a Rules Official stands, even if its later determined to be wrong. What is amusing in the second article you linked is the number of Twitter posts it quotes from people who clearly aren’t familiar with the current rules. But that’s really common in golf rules clickbait articles.
Shooting your best score, or counting the birdies will feel different if one played by the conforming rules or social golf.
I don’t mind my friends use foot wedge or lift the golf ball out of a fairway divot. I choose to play by the rules because it makes me feel better when I achieved personal goal.
As I told some new golfers often, one would be cheating themselves because the cheaters know what they did. One guy answered to me, but he does not care for scores ( right?), he just want to have all the edges ( and he maintain a GHIN index for local golf ).
In my opinion, save the GHIN fee for a round of golf, why bother.
Rules are there for everyone and it does not care how one golfer feels to the next.
There might be in rare circumstances some confusion or misinterpretation of the rules. Nevertheless, everyone should be playing on a leveled field if anything is at stake.
Agree completely. The two stories that @MJTortella has linked in also show that even the most experienced Rules Officials will occasionally make a mistake. In the first case, the mistake was made in marking the course, in the second it was simply the application of the wrong rule, based on what I am confident was an honest discussion with Pieters.
I’m going to take a quick opportunity to boast a bit, I took a USGA Rules Workshop in Pinehurst a few weeks back (most of it, before the lights went out), took the 100-question exam, and scored my personal best, 97 of 100. And for all that testing success, I know I’m going to make a mistake or two along the way.
Wonderful experience you had, maybe sneaked in a round or two while you were there ?
I saw one of the local golf courses marking for a regional event, The caravan of the head professional with his 2 assistants plus two of the USGA rule officials were up and down the golf course examine and marking and re-marking all the O.B. Hazards and especially the ground under repair area. Took them almost a whole morning.
Dave, I know you know the Rules way better than me and I wouldn’t dare pit your expertise against my 3rd grade understanding of the rules… BUT, even the Chief referee, said we screwed the pooch on the Pieters ruling. He basically said, it’s water under the bridge. The issue to me was Bryson was in the exact same spot, they were on their way out to physically change the marking. I get the decision was made, but Bryson didn’t know that, the referee allowed him to drop even the the actual marking change hadn’t physically taken place. It didn’t affect the Pieters match because he won, Bryson’s match was halved… that ruling affected that match. That’s the hub-bub. Brysons ball was touching the line… it’s a tough situation. The putt thing… OMG, can you imagine… I hit the ground on a 40 footer and mis-strike my putt, and say a goose honked and distracted me…LOLOL! Wouldn’t hold water in my group regardless of what the rule book technically says. I’d surely get flushed!
He said they made a mistake marking the course, the ruling at the time was correct based on the markings.
Yes, as soon as they decided to correct the marking, it was treated as being changed immediately. It is for exactly this reason that officials are all in contact with one another on the radio. It would have been much worse to knowingly enforce an incorrect marking.
My best guess is that the mistake in the ruling was based on language differences between Pieters and the Referee on site. In deciding whether this was a stroke or not, it is essential to understand when Pieters decided that was not going to try to hit the ball, and I don’t believe that the Referee got the right information. Or he simply made a mistake.
I was in town for 3 full weeks, played 15 rounds. And the Workshop was great, lots of people with TONS of experience to learn from. Its just sad that a few nut-jobs thought it was a good idea to vandalize two power substations and kill the power to 40,000+ households for most of a week. I lost a day of instruction, but lots of people lost wages and spoiled food that they really couldn’t afford to lose.
First of all, being a golf fanatics, I envy the 3 week in the warmer weather with 15 rounds ( are you sure 15 rounds were all you could have squeezed in ?)
Getting credential for attending accredited classes is awesome. I’m passed the age to pursue that, just treasuring the days I could get on the golf courses.
I agree there has been a lot of these senseless happenings in the Nation. We should send those sabotaging to overseas for them to learn to appreciate what we have here. Most of these incidents were instigated by ignorant younger guys being used by someone with hidden intentions.
I had encountered a few of those , out of all the places, on golf courses. One had tried to recruit me, LOL. I gratefully turned down the offer. Maybe if I were in my early 20s, being a rebellious young guy, could take a further look into the offering.
But they can’t teach new tricks to an old dog, it has seen most of them.
I should have said this earlier, its never really too late. I’m 67 now, and didn’t take my first Workshop until about 2 years ago. As I move into retirement, I’ve realized that I can’t (or maybe I don’t want to) play golf every day. Volunteering as a Rules Official gives me a connection to the game without the swinging of the club. It also gives me a chance, when working junior events, to help the next generation to learn a bit.