Rules? For the Average Golfer?

[Goonsidious]

Divots aren't new to the game.. and how long has golf been around? And they have never changed this rule? Sounds like it is fine as is.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by Grumpter

Do you really think the game of golf would be weakened if the rule was changed so that a ball stopping in the fairway currently in play and landing in a divot was allowed to be moved up to 1 club length no closer to the hole?

I think the divot issue is a bad example because, as has been discussed in other threads, it would be difficult if not impossible to define what you get relief from. (E.g., how much grass needs to grow back before it's not a divot any more?) The only solution I can think of would be to make a generic rule that allows you to move the ball to a better lie whenever it's in the fairway. I think such a rule *would* weaken the game. (And besides, how do you define a fairway if the mow line is not sharply delineated?)

I believe you can make a case for changing a rule that is truly nonsensical, inequitable, etc... I just don't think the (lack of a) divot rule is a good example of that, nor have I seen what are (IMO) any other good examples.

[Grumpter]

Originally Posted by David in FL

What I mean is that the game of golf is what the game of golf is. Rules and all.

I get that and play the same way (or the round is considered practice). However, I think there is room for discussing whether something should be a rule or not rather than just going "it's a rule, no use discussing it".

Originally Posted by sacm3bill

I think the divot issue is a bad example because, as has been discussed in other threads, it would be difficult if not impossible to define what you get relief from. (E.g., how much grass needs to grow back before it's not a divot any more?) The only solution I can think of would be to make a generic rule that allows you to move the ball to a better lie whenever it's in the fairway. I think such a rule *would* weaken the game. (And besides, how do you define a fairway if the mow line is not sharply delineated?)

I believe you can make a case for changing a rule that is truly nonsensical, inequitable, etc... I just don't think the (lack of a) divot rule is a good example of that, nor have I seen what are (IMO) any other good examples.

Good point that it may not be easily defined. I agree that moving any ball in the fairway would weaken the game. I do think some loose definition could be made that would cover most cases without needing to be 100% defined - (any divot where a noticable amount of grass had not grown back?). In cases where the fairway line is not sharply delineated I would think you would be out of luck.

[dak4n6]

To Mr Munson, I repeat:

I don't care if you want to kick or throw your ball down the fairway, so why should you care if others want to play by the rules? Why does that bother you so much? Please explain.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by David in FL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grumpter

Do you really think the game of golf would be weakened if the rule was changed so that a ball stopping in the fairway currently in play and landing in a divot was allowed to be moved up to 1 club length no closer to the hole? It is what it is until it isn't anymore.

IMO the game of basketball would surely be weakened if you no longer had to dribble the ball.

P.S. How does saying 'it is what it is' validate your argument'? Everything in life is what it is. It adds nothing to your stance making such a statement.

What I mean is that the game of golf is what the game of golf is. Rules and all.

And yes, at the very HEART of the game is the requirement that we play the ball as it lies. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Maddening to be sure, but that's golf. Anything else is some other game, pure and simple, and a game I choose not to play.....I'd rather play golf.

I'll stop banging my head against this particular wall now.

My philosophy matches yours to a "T".  Anyone who doesn't get this, doesn't get golf.

[Wisguy]

Originally Posted by David in FL

Wow.

Generalize much?

Nope.  Not one iota - anyone who claims they smoke cigars primarily because they enjoy the scent and flavor is full of crap.  Certain scents are essentially universally repugnant to human beings who are not accustomed to them by long exposure (e.g. someone growing up on a pig farm is no longer bothered by pig manure) and I would throw cigars into that category.  It's not a matter of developing a taste for something that is highly subjective - I love beer, but understand that some do not, same as with other distinctive flavors such as coconut or cilantro.  Any sort of whiskey causes me to gag, but I vaguely could appreciate that some might claim to like it (I suspect many/most who drink it do not actually like its flavor, though).  But cigars are something else, a scent that is so vile and repugnant to most people that it is along the lines of excrement in repulsiveness - I suspect that more than 80%, maybe 90% of people would say they not just dislike but actually hate the smell of cigars.  I have no doubt that some cigars taste significantly better than others, but in the same way that it would be preferable to sleep with a young Roseanne Barr rather than the older, current version.  And unlike a drink with a distinctive flavor, which bothers or pleases only the person who imbibes it, cigar smoke pollutes the air that everyone in the vicinity must breathe.

The primary reason ALL cigar smokers light up a stogie is image - they want to others to think that they are some sort of highly successful Titan of Industry/Finance, bon vivant, iconoclast, ass-kicking man's man, uber-cool chick who can hang with the boys, etc....  There may be other secondary reasons someone smokes cigars, but the bottom line is that the cigar smoker seeks to project an image of his (or her) superiority in one shade or another of pretentiousness over the less-cool masses.

I think we'd all agree that a lot of teenage boys like to spit in public because they think it's cool; who wouldn't like to see their mothers rap them on the back of the head if they deliberately hawk a loogie right into the center of a busy sidewalk?  I think we'd all agree that this "I'm spitting because I'm a cool Dewd!" affectation is simply juvenile, correct?  But how is a teenage boy's spitting habit different to any significant extent than adults smoking cigars?

It's been my experience that this "I'm cool because I smoke cigars" mentality leads the subtantial majority of cigar smokers to adopt a hell-with-everyone-else attitude about lighting up a cigar.  I have very seldom encountered cigar smokers who moved away from others so as not to bother them with their foul habit.  This summer at the US Women's Open we saw a raging horse's ass light up a cigar notwithstanding that he was sitting right next to a bunch of little kids who all wrinkled their noses in disgust.  And of course every cigar guy on this board will claim that he's one of the rare few cigar smokers who is conscientious about it, which is about as common as someone who follows up "With all due respect,..." with a genuinely respectful comment.

If you are a smoker of any sort, don't view my opinions as nonsense to be dismissed smugly, but a challenge to prove that, regardless of your motivations behind your habit, you can at least be conscientious and respectful toward others.  Don't smoke around others, even if it's outside, unless you know they will not be bothered if you light up.  Don't smoke around kids, period - no exceptions.  Don't leave your damn lit cigar or cigarette burning a hole in the green as you line up your putt.  And pick up your filthy butts and after extinguishing them completely, put them in the garbage.  You wouldn't just toss a candy bar wrapper on the ground, so why the hell do you think that tossing a cigar or cigarette butt on the ground or out the window isn't littering?  I've watched people just dump out their car's ashtrays on the ground in parking lots countless times - how is it that one second you've got something in your mouth that you're sucking on like a starving calf at its mother's teat, the next minute it's so disgusting that you can't bear to have it in your car with you a moment longer?

Changing topics, it appears from the OP's second post and the various replies to it that maybe I wasn't so far off from accurate when I labeled him a troll.

And on the topic of rules making sense, can someone please tell me why it makes sense that one can drop (with a penalty) after a tee shot that is lost into a pond, but a ball lost into the woods, high grass, etc... requires one to go back to the tee to rehit the shot?  Maybe there is some logic behind that rule, but if there is, I don't see it, so please enlighten me as to the basis behind the different treatment of those two types of lost ball tee shots.

[Wisguy]

Originally Posted by David in FL

What I mean is that the game of golf is what the game of golf is. Rules and all.

And yes, at the very HEART of the game is the requirement that we play the ball as it lies. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Maddening to be sure, but that's golf. Anything else is some other game, pure and simple, and a game I choose not to play.....I'd rather play golf.

I'll stop banging my head against this particular wall now.

As a general rule, I agree with this.  However, what about when your ball ends up on a hard patch of dirt where there should be fairway or first cut of rough and the course has not marked it ground under repair?  At inexpensive courses, one expects that for a $20 greens fee, conditions may be less than pristine, but what about at a higher level course?  If I'm playing a $50 or $75 course (an above average greens fee in my state), I expect that if I hit a good tee shot in the fairway or hit a green in regulation, my ball will have a nice lie on short grass (except if it lands in a divot - an occasional expected occurance) and not end up on a hard-packed patch of bare earth, or that if my ball is sitting on bare earth, the course will at least have the decency to mark off that area as grounds under repair and give me a free drop to a decent lie.  Don't you feel you've been cheated a bit by a course superintendent who hasn't done a competent job making the entire course properly playable, or failing that, taking the time and effort at least to rope off the areas where they've had problems?  Isn't superior fairways and greens part of what one pays for with more expensive courses?  Probably our early-summer drought has been the cause, but it seemed like half or more of the course I played this year, even really nice courses, had problems with bare patches, particularly on greens, and few courses were marking them as GUR.

[Grumpter]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

The primary reason ALL cigar smokers light up a stogie is image - they want to others to think that they are some sort of highly successful Titan of Industry/Finance, bon vivant, iconoclast, ass-kicking man's man, uber-cool chick who can hang with the boys, etc....  There may be other secondary reasons someone smokes cigars, but the bottom line is that the cigar smoker seeks to project an image of his (or her) superiority in one shade or another of pretentiousness over the less-cool masses.

Yikes. This guy could go postal at any minute.

[Wisguy]

Originally Posted by Grumpter

Yikes. This guy could go postal at any minute.

The hallmark of a small person:  if you can't come up with a more intelligent, applicable or better argument, accuse the person of mental instability.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

Don't you feel you've been cheated a bit by a course superintendent who hasn't done a competent job making the entire course properly playable, or failing that, taking the time and effort at least to rope off the areas where they've had problems?

Yes.  If you were playing in a tournament, you would expect those areas to be chalked off as GUR, so when they're not, it is a little frustrating.

[AmazingWhacker]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

The hallmark of a small person:  if you can't come up with a more intelligent, applicable or better argument, accuse the person of mental instability.

Well then tell me this, mr intelligent, applicable argument-maker:

If the smell and taste of cigar smoke is universally unappealing such that *nobody* could enjoy one and the only reason people smoke cigars is to look cool, then why did somebody smoke the first cigar?

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

And on the topic of rules making sense, can someone please tell me why it makes sense that one can drop (with a penalty) after a tee shot that is lost into a pond, but a ball lost into the woods, high grass, etc... requires one to go back to the tee to rehit the shot?  Maybe there is some logic behind that rule, but if there is, I don't see it, so please enlighten me as to the basis behind the different treatment of those two types of lost ball tee shots.

The difference is that with a water hazard, you know where your ball is (it is In the hazard) and it is still within the confines of the golf course .  Both conditions exist with certainty.  You should get a potential break for knowing the location of the ball and keeping it in bounds (not guaranteed - you still might end up with a stroke and distance penalty depending on the situation).

In the other two cases you either do NOT know where the ball is (you can't hit what you can't find, and you have no point of reference to work from), or it is no longer within the boundaries of the course (your ball is no longer on the playing field and your last point of reference where it was at rest and in bounds is where you played that stroke from.  In either case stroke and distance is the only thing that makes any sense.

Originally Posted by Wisguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by David in FL

What I mean is that the game of golf is what the game of golf is. Rules and all.

And yes, at the very HEART of the game is the requirement that we play the ball as it lies. Sometimes good, sometimes not. Maddening to be sure, but that's golf. Anything else is some other game, pure and simple, and a game I choose not to play.....I'd rather play golf.

I'll stop banging my head against this particular wall now.

As a general rule, I agree with this.  However, what about when your ball ends up on a hard patch of dirt where there should be fairway or first cut of rough and the course has not marked it ground under repair?  At inexpensive courses, one expects that for a $20 greens fee, conditions may be less than pristine, but what about at a higher level course?  If I'm playing a $50 or $75 course (an above average greens fee in my state), I expect that if I hit a good tee shot in the fairway or hit a green in regulation, my ball will have a nice lie on short grass (except if it lands in a divot - an occasional expected occurance) and not end up on a hard-packed patch of bare earth, or that if my ball is sitting on bare earth, the course will at least have the decency to mark off that area as grounds under repair and give me a free drop to a decent lie.  Don't you feel you've been cheated a bit by a course superintendent who hasn't done a competent job making the entire course properly playable, or failing that, taking the time and effort at least to rope off the areas where they've had problems?  Isn't superior fairways and greens part of what one pays for with more expensive courses?  Probably our early-summer drought has been the cause, but it seemed like half or more of the course I played this year, even really nice courses, had problems with bare patches, particularly on greens, and few courses were marking them as GUR.

Show me where in the rules it says that if you pay more money, you deserve a better lie.  This has always struck me as a rather peculiar belief, and certainly one which has no foundation in reality.  You may or may not have the right to expect better conditions overall, but not in specifics.  It's nearly impossible to take 20 acres of land and perfectly groom every inch, or identify every little blemish as GUR.  Play the ball as it lies and just be happy to be playing golf.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by AmazingWhacker

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wisguy

The hallmark of a small person:  if you can't come up with a more intelligent, applicable or better argument, accuse the person of mental instability.

Well then tell me this, mr intelligent, applicable argument-maker:

If the smell and taste of cigar smoke is universally unappealing such that *nobody* could enjoy one and the only reason people smoke cigars is to look cool, then why did somebody smoke the first cigar?

I'm sure Wisguy's answer to that would be "Because they wanted to look cool". And I'm sure that's true for many cigar smokers and cigarette smokers.

The thing is, many cigar smokers and cigarette smokers continue to smoke because they enjoy the flavor. I'm a cigar smoker. I'm mindful of others when I smoke. I enjoy the smell and flavor. I don't understand how anyone can enjoy the smell and taste of cigarettes, but I'm not stupid enough to claim that "They don't *really* do it because they like it, they're actually just trying to be cool. And are all horses' asses."

Wisguy, the reason no one is going to bother to respond intelligently to your rant is because you're obviously a know-it-all that has thrown intelligence out the window on this topic. Once you've lost the youthful arrogance (I'm guessing you're in your teens, no?), you'll understand how ridiculous your comments are.