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At least the scores are pretty close …otherwise..gotta be one of the most un-noteworthy leaderboards on day two in recent US OPEN history …🫩

Agreed, the way the rule reads is, "If the player’s ball in play is in the teeing area after A stroke."  It states A stroke, not the FIRST stroke on that hole. It specifies this applies to missing the ball and a drive that does not leave that teeing area but does not make a provision for any other stroke. The rules however define the teeing area as "The area the player must play from in starting the hole they are playing." and further states that "All other teeing locations on the course (whether on the same hole or any other hole) are part of the general area." The way I read it is if your ball comes to rest on the tee box you started the hole from you can re-tee it, but not from another tee box on that hole or another hole. An interesting way I think someone could use this rule is if they topped a drive then topped a fairway wood, and had let's say 300 in from a terrible lie, not confident they can get a fairway wood in the air. If the tee box is back on the line for an unplayable drop, they could drop in the tee box and re-tee. Super specific instance, and am not sure if the rule applies after a drop and not a stroke...

For clarity, and my edification, if the ball leaves the teeing area, hits something (a tree perhaps) and bounces back into the teeing area, can you retee? I think you can, but I'm not 100% sure. Further, if you skewer one into trees right near the tee, then attempt to play it out of those trees and it hits one of the trees and rebounds back into the teeing area, can you retee? That one I'm not sure about at all.   Edit: looks like it doesn't matter how the ball got there - if it's in the teeing area then you can retee it and move it. So that's a new answer to the "when can you move the ball closer to the hole?" question.

Right and in this instance, it's probably not unreasonable, given that the people doing this likely play matches against each other under those rules, so they should within their group have handicaps consistent with how they play. If they play anyone who's not willing to accept the "within the leather" thing, then they're only hurting themselves. IMO vanity caps are only an issue if handicap is determining eligibility for something and someone better, but with a higher index is squeezed out as a result. 

OK, I didn't think gimmies were allowed in stroke play.