Clever Use of Rules?

[DaveP043]

3 minutes ago, SG11118 said:

To me an embedded ball should be much more obvious than that to give relief.  On tightly mowed ground to need to mark and pull your ball to possibly see the smallest of indentations in the ground is a little ridiculous.  

How would you change the wording of the rule to accomplish that?  Would you require a certain minimum penetration, a half-inch, maybe up to the equator of the ball?  The way its written, its relatively straightforward to interpret.  To do something more stringent would make it more difficult to measure and determine, in my opinion.

[SG11118]

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

How would you change the wording of the rule to accomplish that?  Would you require a certain minimum penetration, a half-inch, maybe up to the equator of the ball?  The way its written, its relatively straightforward to interpret.  To do something more stringent would make it more difficult to measure and determine, in my opinion.

Just change it similar to the rule for whether or not a ball went in a hazard or not.  It needs to be plugged in its own pitch mark "beyond reasonable doubt" or something similar.  It is pretty tough to put a measurement to it.  In this case, I don't think that CM gained an advantage by getting a drop.  It just seemed like a waste of time for him to ask for relief and the RO to give him relief.  

[saevel25]

Just now, SG11118 said:

Just change it similar to the rule for whether or not a ball went in a hazard or not.  It needs to be plugged in its own pitch mark "beyond reasonable doubt" or something similar.  It is pretty tough to put a measurement to it.  In this case, I don't think that CM gained an advantage by getting a drop.  It just seemed like a waste of time for him to ask for relief and the RO to give him relief.  

Try to prove he doesn't have enough reasonable doubt to do what he did. 

[SG11118]

24 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Try to prove he doesn't have enough reasonable doubt to do what he did. 

There was obviously uncertainty and reasonable doubt with the rules official before he hemmed and hawed and said it was plugged.  If you had a beyond unreasonable doubt clause, the official could have quickly denied the claim.  If you don't have a rules official, if golfer and a playing partner agree ball is plugged beyond reasonable doubt, then it is plugged.  

I honestly don't care that much.  I wouldn't have ever tried to claim that ball was plugged though.  I would have been thankful it didn't roll all the way down the hill and counted my blessings, and played the shot as it layed.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, SG11118 said:

Just change it similar to the rule for whether or not a ball went in a hazard or not.  It needs to be plugged in its own pitch mark "beyond reasonable doubt" or something similar.  It is pretty tough to put a measurement to it.  In this case, I don't think that CM gained an advantage by getting a drop.  It just seemed like a waste of time for him to ask for relief and the RO to give him relief.  

It was beyond reasonable doubt.

1 hour ago, SG11118 said:

There was obviously uncertainty and reasonable doubt with the rules official before he hemmed and hawed and said it was plugged.  If you had a beyond unreasonable doubt clause, the official could have quickly denied the claim.  If you don't have a rules official, if golfer and a playing partner agree ball is plugged beyond reasonable doubt, then it is plugged.  

The RO had it wrong at first.

The drop was fully legit.

[Rulesman]

15 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

How would you change the wording of the rule to accomplish that?  Would you require a certain minimum penetration, a half-inch, maybe up to the equator of the ball?  The way its written, its relatively straightforward to interpret.  To do something more stringent would make it more difficult to measure and determine, in my opinion.

"where part of the ball is below the level of the ground."

Seems to be good enough