Should Divots Be Considered Ground Under Repair?

[Darkfrog]

25 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

I wonder how many other illegitimate analogies we can find to justify not getting relief from a fairway divot? Was a flagstick there because an individual golfer put it there? no, because it is meant to be there. How can one compare a flagstick to a manmade gouge in the fairway to justify their stance on a particular situation? Sadly, many people try. Although, bouncing off a tree branch and landing in the fairway justifies no relief from a divot, right? No!

It seems like the main argument you are making for relief from fairway divots is centered on fairness, so these seem like appropriate responses, IMO. Can you frame your rule change proposal with justification that isn't centered on fairness? Justifying a rule with fairness seems like a Pandora's box to me.

Your words:

Quote

I don't know why, in a game with very strict rules that promote fairness, how some think an unrepaired fairway divot is a fair situation.

 

[Billy Z]

2 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Go ahead, write a definition that takes all factors into account, that can be consistently enforced, and that stops short of allowing preferred lies in every fairway.  You want the rule change, you can try to make it happen.  We'll help you trouble-shoot it before you send it to the Ruling Bodies.

I think what would make me happy would be getting relief from an unrepaired divot, a hole made by a club stroke that has not been attended to. What Lee landed in a couple weeks back was unfortunate, unlucky, but had been repaired.

1 minute ago, Darkfrog said:

It seems like the main argument you are making for relief from fairway divots is centered on fairness, so these seem like appropriate responses, IMO. Can you frame your rule change proposal with justification that isn't centered on fairness? Justifying a rule with fairness seems like a Pandora's box to me.

Your words:

 

I think the whole game of golf is based on fairness, that's why it is held in such high esteem. 

[saevel25]

Just now, Billy Z said:

I think what would make me happy would be getting relief from an unrepaired divot, a hole made by a club stroke that has not been attended to. What Lee landed in a couple weeks back was unfortunate, unlucky, but had been repaired.

So, you are going to leave it up to the golfer to define what a divot is versus some other sort of course defect? 

I understand, it is easy to see on the PGA Tour that it was a divot. The courses are in pristine shape before the tournament starts. 

We do not have one set of rules for PGA versus what we play. The courses we play are not pristine. They get beat up. The maintenance crews might mess up. There might be some wild animals digging up the fairway a bit. 

Figure out a definition that defines a divot clearly that it can be applied equally and not abused by the golfer for their advantage. 

[Billy Z]

3 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

So, you are going to leave it up to the golfer to define what a divot is versus some other sort of course defect? 

I understand, it is easy to see on the PGA Tour that it was a divot. The courses are in pristine shape before the tournament starts. 

We do not have one set of rules for PGA versus what we play. The courses we play are not pristine. They get beat up. The maintenance crews might mess up. There might be some wild animals digging up the fairway a bit. 

Figure out a definition that defines a divot clearly that it can be applied equally and not abused by the golfer for their advantage. 

any unnatural hole in the ground

[DaveP043]

5 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

I think what would make me happy would be getting relief from an unrepaired divot, a hole made by a club stroke that has not been attended to. What Lee landed in a couple weeks back was unfortunate, unlucky, but had been repaired.

Please address all potential issues.  Does a poorly repaired divot(hole) still merit relief?  If so, how do you draw the line?  How much re-growth of the surrounding grass terminates its status as relief-worthy?  Does replacing the divot in its original hole constitute repair?  How about a few days later, when that old divot has dried and curled up?  Or only a part of the original divot was available to replace?

1 minute ago, Billy Z said:

any unnatural hole in the ground

Including tractor ruts?  Including deer prints?  

[Darkfrog]

5 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

I think the whole game of golf is based on fairness, that's why it is held in such high esteem. 

I think you are confusing fairness with some other concept. Golf is absolutely not fair, and I can think of plenty of examples of how unfair it is at times.

[Billy Z]

Yes, tractor ruts and deer prints, among other things. If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

[Ole Duffer]

Payne Stewart and divots:

https://www.pinehurst.com/news/payne-stewart-the-divots-and-two-u-s-opens/

When the Payne Stewart Golf Club opened, Grand Opening June 6, 2009, each hole was dedicated to some aspect of Payne Stewart.  14 was the divot hole, with a plaque on the tee marker commemorating Payne's divot frustration.

But, the GM asked me to remove the sand bottles from all the carts, and divots have not been filled or replaced since.

Unrelated, later I removed the sand bottle holders, because they have sharp edges, and arms were getting scraped.

I believe those bottles and holders are still in the cart barn, 12 years later.

I have not heard one complaint about having to play out of a divot.

😷

Edited March 16, 2021 by Ole Duffer

[DaveP043]

2 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

Yes, tractor ruts and deer prints, among other things. If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

AAhhh, so we don't need a divot-hole rule, we need a fairway rule.  So it does indeed become preferred lies at all times.

[saevel25]

3 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

any unnatural hole in the ground

Define unnatural? 

1 minute ago, Darkfrog said:

I think you are confusing fairness with some other concept. Golf is absolutely not fair, and I can think of plenty of examples of how unfair it is at times.

The game of golf is like any other probabilistic system. Your results are going to fluctuate from two extremes, some really really bad break and some really really good break. Most of the time, your golf ball is going to end up in spot that doesn't feel like you've been screwed over. 

How many times has Dustin Johnson hit the flagstick in his life? Some very very small number compared to the number of times he's hit an approach shot. He probably has hit a bad shot into a bunker way more often than hitting a flag stick. Yet, he had one really bad break on #17, and he laughed it off. 

There is no need for a rule to exist to allow golfers to take drops in the fairway outside of what already allows. 

1 minute ago, Billy Z said:

Yes, tractor ruts and deer prints, among other things. If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

Why?

What if the course is in crap shape and 50% of the fairway is beat to hell? Do you get to move the ball 15 yards to some grass? 

What if you hit the ugliest shot in your life and get a good bounce back into the fairway? What if you hit the ball OB, it hits a house, and the ball goes back into the fairway? Do you deserve a good lie because you got a good break? 

By your logic, if you hit a good shot you should be rewarded. So you are not implementing a rule that helps out better golfers more often than bad golfers. Better golfers hit the fairway more often than bad golfers. Now, you just made an unfair rule. 

 

[StuM]

41 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

I understand the comparison, I just think it doesn't support the effort. It's that the ROG considers divots as a useful tool to add difficulty to a course. Maybe we should not have relief from MMH's, LCP, or embedded balls? We could always use one situation to support another if we wanted to, but I like sticking to the idea of just the subject at hand, that being relief from a unrepaired fairway divot. I know, we can put a man on the moon but can't figure out what constitutes a fairway divot.

Mabey I missed in your prior posts, but are you only suggesting relief from "unrepaired divots" or from all divots?  If only from "Unrepaired Divots" how about those that were repaired poorly?  One of the problems, as mentioned in several prior posts, is how to define what you get relief from for consistency.  If we need to judge if it was repaired vs not repaired vs not repaired properly vs it was repaired properly then something else occurred to make it appear it was not repaired?   There is already a lot of vagueness in the rules and to add another just gets messy, especially when it is not a frequent occurrence. 

You keep trying to separate flagsticks sprinkler heads, etc. from Divots but they cannot be separated.  The reason you get no relief from Flagsticks, sprinkler heads, etc. is they are common on the course and are a regular part of playing the course.  The reason you get relief from ground under repair is that GUR areas are not normal, they are abnormal.  Divots are common on courses and are part of playing the course, they are normal and thus no relief from divots.   The intent of the rules is to provide relief abnormal conditions and that applies to many situations, not just divots.

EDIT: In regards to sprinkler heads, I am referring to a bad bounce off one, not if it is in the line of your putt.

Edited March 16, 2021 by StuM
Added clarification on sprinkler heads.

[Darkfrog]

8 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

Yes, tractor ruts and deer prints, among other things. If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

I can't tell if you are serious or trolling at this point.

[Billy Z]

Just now, Darkfrog said:

I can't tell if you are serious or trolling at this point.

There's always a little truth in humor. I mean, tractor ruts??? This is somehow accepted as fair in the game of golf? Oh, that's right, golf is not a fair game. Maybe that is why there are hundreds of rules that apply to the game, to make it unfair?

[saevel25]

1 minute ago, Billy Z said:

There's always a little truth in humor. I mean, tractor ruts??? This is somehow accepted as fair in the game of golf? Oh, that's right, golf is not a fair game. Maybe that is why there are hundreds of rules that apply to the game, to make it unfair?

Name one rule that makes the game unfair. Let's define unfair as meaning it gives a competitive advantage to a group of golfers versus another group of golfers. Example, giving an advantage to better golfers versus bad golfers, or golfers who hit it longer versus shorter. 

If the rules apply equally to everyone, and does not give a certain group an advantage, then they are fair. The outcomes then are just because we do not live in a binary world, but a probabilistic world were you have a range of outcomes for every instance you hit a shot. 

You want a binary world, good hit must mean good result. 

I am fine with a probabilistic world, good hit means a range of outcomes and very small percentage of them could be bad. 

[Vinsk]

22 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

Wrong. You just have a better chance at having a good lie and a shot to the green. That’s all.

[Darkfrog]

6 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

Maybe that is why there are hundreds of rules that apply to the game, to make it unfair?

What makes golf, or any game fair, is that everyone plays by the same rules. Rules provide the framework for fair competition, they do not guarantee a fair outcome.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Billy Z said:

I wonder how many other illegitimate analogies

Nope, gotta stop you there. Just because they're inconvenient doesn't make them "illegitimate."

1 hour ago, Billy Z said:

Was a flagstick there because an individual golfer put it there? no, because it is meant to be there.

Divot holes are naturally occurring things on a golf course. They're part of what one can expect to have to deal with. They're not at all "unnatural."

47 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

It's that the ROG considers divots as a useful tool to add difficulty to a course.

No, just that they're an expected part of the golf course.

47 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

Maybe we should not have relief from MMH's, LCP, or embedded balls?

And you accuse others of "bad analogies."

Look, @Billy Z, we've reached the point now where you're willfully ignoring other posts that argue these types of things already. Enough. It's intellectually dishonest. And just scummy.

And I'm not a fan of LCP unless warranted. And I rarely think it's warranted.

36 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Go ahead, write a definition that takes all factors into account, that can be consistently enforced, and that stops short of allowing preferred lies in every fairway.  You want the rule change, you can try to make it happen.  We'll help you trouble-shoot it before you send it to the Ruling Bodies.

I've asked the same thing of him, and he has given us nothing that isn't easily picked apart in two seconds.

31 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

It seems like the main argument you are making for relief from fairway divots is centered on fairness, so these seem like appropriate responses, IMO. Can you frame your rule change proposal with justification that isn't centered on fairness? Justifying a rule with fairness seems like a Pandora's box to me.

Bingo.

31 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

I think the whole game of golf is based on fairness, that's why it is held in such high esteem. 

You have the wrong definition of "fairness."

The Rules of Golf are entirely fair, because everyone follows them. Tournaments are conducted under the same Rules, top to bottom.

If anyone hits it into a divot hole, they have to play from it. That's the definition of "fair."

One of your problems, in addition to not understanding more than the surface level view of the Rules, is that you're confusing "unlucky" with "fair."

24 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

any unnatural hole in the ground

Ha ha ha. Others have already picked that apart.

And again, divot holes on the golf course are perfectly natural.

23 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Please address all potential issues.

He won't be able to. And while I'm sure maybe he can decide for everyone what is and isn't granted relief, even he has to know others would disagree, and that's where he falls way, way short: he cannot and will not be able to write a definition that's universally employed with very little differences of opinion on what is or isn't a "divot hole."

21 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

I think you are confusing fairness with some other concept. Golf is absolutely not fair, and I can think of plenty of examples of how unfair it is at times.

Yes, he's confusing it with "luck." Or, more specifically, only "bad luck in the fairway."

18 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

Yes, tractor ruts and deer prints, among other things. If you hit it into the fairway you deserve a good lie.

No, you don't.

6 minutes ago, Darkfrog said:

I can't tell if you are serious or trolling at this point.

Trolling.

You're on thin ice at this point, @Billy Z. The intellectual dishonesty is getting old.

6 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

Let's define unfair as meaning it gives a competitive advantage to a group of golfers versus another group of golfers.

There you go. If blonde golfers got to take a mulligan every round, that would be "unfair." If golfers playing Titleist clubs got to skip a hole, that would be "unfair."

Everyone plays under the same Rules of Golf in a given event. Ergo, fair.

6 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

I am fine with a probabilistic world, good hit means a range of outcomes and very small percentage of them could be bad. 

Yep.

[ncates00]

16 minutes ago, Billy Z said:

There's always a little truth in humor. I mean, tractor ruts??? This is somehow accepted as fair in the game of golf? Oh, that's right, golf is not a fair game. Maybe that is why there are hundreds of rules that apply to the game, to make it unfair?

Are you equally upset when a ball finds the rough in a worse condition than another ball that finds the rough, or when one ball hits a tree and bounces OB when another ball hits a tree and bounces onto the green?

The above responses by others, I think, more than adequately provide the rationale for not calling fairway divots GUR.

Edited March 16, 2021 by ncates00