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USGA/R&A Re-Evaluating All Rules, Top to Bottom


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1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

There is a delightful randomness to golf and to the way the ball rolls and settles into its lie.  To remove that from the game by placing the ball instead of dropping would remove that element of suspense and surprise which is so eagerly (or fearfully) anticipated as we commence the dropping process.

This is the most poetic justification for a rule I've ever heard!  Love it.

- John

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1. Repair spike marks in your putting line like you can ball marks. 

2. When temporary greens are in effect sometimes they're unputtable. In the spring and fall, some of them are like my front lawn. At present, the USGA says that a course cannot institute a local rule for an auto two-putt on them. The rule is (X)Par+HC. But what if the player doesn't carry a handicap? Do they simply take Par? That's a unfair advantage for some players who maybe took three shots to get there. I think they should allow the local rule for auto two-putt on temporary greens.

* During the fall when the course has an abundance of leaves it is very easy to lose a ball in places where you normally wouldn't lose one. Some courses have used a local "leaf rule", calling the excessive leaves an "abnormal ground condition" where the player takes an estimate of where the ball should be and drops another ball. A failure to do this renders the rough and nearby fairway impossible places from where to find your ball due to the deciduous trees. 

Julia

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14 minutes ago, DrvFrShow said:

2. When temporary greens are in effect sometimes they're unputtable. In the spring and fall, some of them are like my front lawn. At present, the USGA says that a course cannot institute a local rule for an auto two-putt on them. The rule is (X)Par+HC. But what if the player doesn't carry a handicap? Do they simply take Par? That's a unfair advantage for some players who maybe took three shots to get there. I think they should allow the local rule for auto two-putt on temporary greens.

There is a separation between the score you record for handicap purposes, and the score you record when you're competing against someone else, and this is one of those circumstances.  For handicap purposes only, it doesn't matter how many strokes it took you to get onto the temporary green, you still record par plus handicap.  You could hit 5 balls OB, and you still record par plus handicap for your handicap posting only.  For someone who doesn't maintain a handicap, there's no reason to be concerned at all about handicap posting.   If you're playing against someone for a beer or a nickel or whatever, you can certainly agree (or the club can decide for you) to take two putts once you get to the temporary green for competition purposes.  That doesn't affect your score for handicap posting.

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Dave

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@DaveP043 I understand what you're saying, but currently the rules don't allow the club to institute the auto two-putt rule as a local rule in those cases. If your club is holding a competition and there are for example two temporary greens on the course, the auto-two putt rule on those would level the playing field. However, I also think that if there are more than two temporary greens, that the course should be considered unplayable for competition purposes. Or I suppose the competition could simply say "skip holes 7 and 11."

Julia

:callaway:  :cobra:    :seemore:  :bushnell:  :clicgear:  :adidas:  :footjoy:

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Driver: Callaway Big Bertha w/ Fubuki Z50 R 44.5"
FW: Cobra BiO CELL 14.5 degree; 
Hybrids: Cobra BiO CELL 22.5 degree Project X R-flex
Irons: Cobra BiO CELL 5 - GW Project X R-Flex
Wedges: Cobra BiO CELL SW, Fly-Z LW, 64* Callaway PM Grind.
Putter: 48" Odyssey Dart

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1 minute ago, DrvFrShow said:

@DaveP043 I understand what you're saying, but currently the rules don't allow the club to institute the auto two-putt rule as a local rule in those cases. If your club is holding a competition and there are for example two temporary greens on the course, the auto-two putt rule on those would level the playing field. However, I also think that if there are more than two temporary greens, that the course should be considered unplayable for competition purposes. Or I suppose the competition could simply say "skip holes 7 and 11."

I have to think that skipping those holes would be the fairest thing.  The only other way to do it would be to play it into the hole.  When you talk about the USGA prohibiting an automatic 2-putt rule, can you point me to the rule or decision?  The only time I know of when par plus handicap comes into play is for handicap posting, and that sounds different from what you're talking about.

Dave

:callaway: Rogue SubZero Driver

:titleist: 915F 15 Fairway, 816 H1 19 Hybrid, AP2 4 iron to PW, Vokey 52, 56, and 60 wedges, ProV1 balls 
:ping: G5i putter, B60 version
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It's in the Handicap manual.

Julia

:callaway:  :cobra:    :seemore:  :bushnell:  :clicgear:  :adidas:  :footjoy:

Spoiler

Driver: Callaway Big Bertha w/ Fubuki Z50 R 44.5"
FW: Cobra BiO CELL 14.5 degree; 
Hybrids: Cobra BiO CELL 22.5 degree Project X R-flex
Irons: Cobra BiO CELL 5 - GW Project X R-Flex
Wedges: Cobra BiO CELL SW, Fly-Z LW, 64* Callaway PM Grind.
Putter: 48" Odyssey Dart

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So I go back to the separation between handicap posting rules and rules of golf.  I believe your local committee can decide to count those holes for the competition, and can use a auto 2-putt rule for the competition.  However, when it comes time to post your score for handicap, you have to use par plus handicap for that hole, whether you made a birdie or a quadruple bogey.

Dave

:callaway: Rogue SubZero Driver

:titleist: 915F 15 Fairway, 816 H1 19 Hybrid, AP2 4 iron to PW, Vokey 52, 56, and 60 wedges, ProV1 balls 
:ping: G5i putter, B60 version
 :ping:Hoofer Bag, complete with Newport Cup logo
:footjoy::true_linkswear:, and Ashworth shoes

the only thing wrong with this car is the nut behind the wheel.

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Just a final thought on the placing versus dropping.  If I am in a shitty place, often placing the ball isn't going to be a whole lot better than dropping.  Placing doesn't mean placing the ball, it sinks into the rough, so you place it somewhere else.

As @Abu3baid said, one has sort of "paid" for the right to at least not have the ball roll into a worse situation.

Brian Kuehn

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1 hour ago, bkuehn1952 said:

As @Abu3baid said, one has sort of "paid" for the right to at least not have the ball roll into a worse situation.

You haven't paid anything though. You paid to get out of the situation you were in.

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Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
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3 hours ago, DrvFrShow said:

@DaveP043 I understand what you're saying, but currently the rules don't allow the club to institute the auto two-putt rule as a local rule in those cases. If your club is holding a competition and there are for example two temporary greens on the course, the auto-two putt rule on those would level the playing field. However, I also think that if there are more than two temporary greens, that the course should be considered unplayable for competition purposes. Or I suppose the competition could simply say "skip holes 7 and 11."

I don't see how this would "level" anything.  Everyone still has the same course to play and the same issues to overcome on the temporary greens.  That sounds perfectly level to me.  It's not like some players get to use the regular green while others are stuck on the temps.  

I've heard of courses that use temporary greens for virtually the entire off season.  That isn't an issue for handicap so I guess they can do what they like.  When I've played a course where there were several temps, we instituted our own rule for an auto two-putt.  

My home course lost half of their greens in the mid 80's due to a contaminated batch of fertilizer.  While those greens were under repair, they had 8 temporary greens on the championship course and all of the greens on the par 3 course.  That was before I joined the Men's Club or carried a handicap, but that year they must have made some sort of accommodation for handicap posting to keep caps from inflating too badly.  For their tournaments they just played the course as they found it, since all of the players faced the  same issues. 

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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Is the Handicap Manual considered part of 'The Rules' or separate? If the former, I'd like to see them update some of the 40 year old data and assumptions within course rating & slope now that better stats descibing the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer are available.

Kevin

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19 hours ago, Fourputt said:

I'd go along with you on alignment assistance, and I'd add one more.  

I'd like to see the R&A soften it's stand on the embedded ball and allow it to be in effect through the green.  My understanding is that the USGA has wanted this for some time, but the R&A always vetoes it.  

That way they could eliminate the fuzzy wording about grass closely mowed to fairway height.  By eliminating any reference to "fairway" they take a lot of the steam out of the lobbying for relief from divots.  If the rules don't recognize the existence of "fairway", then you couldn't realistically take relief from something just because the grass is shorter in one place than it is ten feet away.

Agree.  That's a local rule that my group, as our own committee, always adopts.

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43 minutes ago, natureboy said:

Is the Handicap Manual considered part of 'The Rules' or separate? If the former, I'd like to see them update some of the 40 year old data and assumptions within course rating & slope now that better stats descibing the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer are available.

Courses are, or should be, re-rated (or at least re-evaluated) on a regular basis.  As courses age or mature they certainly change and those changes need to be factored in.  My home course applies for at least a walk through every time they make any noticeable change.

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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33 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Courses are, or should be, re-rated (or at least re-evaluated) on a regular basis.  As courses age or mature they certainly change and those changes need to be factored in.  My home course applies for at least a walk through every time they make any noticeable change.

That's not what I'm saying. The data for the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer profiles are from 1975 and include some dubious assumptions. The 90% emphasis on distance in the basic formula does not correctly reflect the relative difference in skills that are now known through the 'big data' collection of Broadie and others since that time.

Edited by natureboy

Kevin

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28 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That's not what I'm saying. The data for the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer profiles are from 1975 and include some dubious assumptions. The 90% emphasis on distance in the basic formula does not correctly reflect the relative difference in skills that are now known through the 'big data' collection of Broadie and others since that time.

I don't think that's all that important as long as everything is based on the same measure.  They may not specifically relate to current technology, but as long as they are all measured by the same yardstick, then they should all fall in proper relationship to each other.

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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@Fourputt, better to just avoid this one. @natureboy's knowledge of the course rating/slope process seem to be minimal at best. See this whole discussion for more on this.

1 hour ago, natureboy said:

If the former, I'd like to see them update some of the 40 year old data and assumptions within course rating & slope now that better stats descibing the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer are available.

It has been updated, many, many, many times.

And no, this is not an invitation to engage me in this discussion here. This is about the Rules of Golf, not the Rules of Handicapping. They're different topics. I'm at a USGA Rules of Golf Workshop right now and we… are not discussing (nor will we) handicapping, ratings, etc.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
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40 minutes ago, natureboy said:

That's not what I'm saying. The data for the 'average' scratch and bogey golfer profiles are from 1975 and include some dubious assumptions. The 90% emphasis on distance in the basic formula does not correctly reflect the relative difference in skills that are now known through the 'big data' collection of Broadie and others since that time.

Are you a course rater for your state golf association?

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4 minutes ago, Asheville said:

Are you a course rater for your state golf association?

He is not.

Erik J. Barzeski —  I knock a ball. It goes in a gopher hole. 🏌🏼‍♂️
Director of Instruction Golf Evolution • Owner, The Sand Trap .com • AuthorLowest Score Wins
Golf Digest "Best Young Teachers in America" 2016-17 & "Best in State" 2017-20 • WNY Section PGA Teacher of the Year 2019 :edel: :true_linkswear:

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