Mini-tour simplifies rules for OOB and hazards, good idea?

[Braivo]

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/usga-could-learn-from-this-professional-tour-that-has-simplified-the-rules?mbid=social_twitter

A Florida senior mini-tour has taken the step of simplifying the rules, in part, because most of their courses are lined by subdivisions and OOB is quite common. 

Quote

Treat the white stakes (out of bounds), the red stakes (lateral hazards) and yellow stakes (water hazards) equally, a one-shot penalty and take a drop at the nearest point of relief.

I love this idea. First of all, most amateurs treat these three areas the same anyway. It intuitively makes sense and keeps pace of play intact. The real question is how would this play out at high-level competitions? Would this change much? 

[alleztom]

Nope - OOB is there for a reason. Hit away from hazards.

[boogielicious]

2 hours ago, alleztom said:

Nope - OOB is there for a reason. Hit away from hazards.

Agree. Plus I think they did it because if the old guys had to walk back, they might pass away before getting there! 

[Gunther]

I like it.  In my mind there is no difference between them.

[Elmer]

4 hours ago, Braivo said:

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/usga-could-learn-from-this-professional-tour-that-has-simplified-the-rules?mbid=social_twitter

A Florida senior mini-tour has taken the step of simplifying the rules, in part, because most of their courses are lined by subdivisions and OOB is quite common. 

I love this idea. First of all, most amateurs treat these three areas the same anyway. It intuitively makes sense and keeps pace of play intact. The real question is how would this play out at high-level competitions? Would this change much? 

My league has played played this way for years, for pace of play purposes!

[JxQx]

Most leagues I've played on do this and I don't really mind it all that much. For that tour they should probably make it a 2 stroke penalty instead of one though, to keep the severity to score closer to going OB with stroke and distance.

[iacas]

4 hours ago, Braivo said:

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/usga-could-learn-from-this-professional-tour-that-has-simplified-the-rules?mbid=social_twitter

A Florida senior mini-tour has taken the step of simplifying the rules, in part, because most of their courses are lined by subdivisions and OOB is quite common. 

I love this idea. First of all, most amateurs treat these three areas the same anyway. It intuitively makes sense and keeps pace of play intact. The real question is how would this play out at high-level competitions? Would this change much? 

I hate the idea.

OB exists for a reason. It's a tiered penalty system - when you hit the ball OFF the golf course, you should suffer a more severe penalty than hitting the ball on the golf course.

Additionally, what, if your ball may be lost or OB, do you have to know with virtual certainty that it's OB? Do you have to find your golf ball and know where it crossed? There's no splash like you'll often find with water hazards. OB is often beyond trees, where lost balls are increasingly common.

27 minutes ago, Gunther said:

I like it.  In my mind there is no difference between them.

OB is off the golf course. Hazards are on the golf course.

Seems pretty simple to understand.

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I should rename the thread "Mini Tour Bastardizes Rules for OB/Hazards".

[CarlSpackler]

I voted no. I have fought that idiocy in the company golf league for years. Now @missitnoonan calls me the "Rules Nazi".

[Jeremie Boop]

22 minutes ago, CarlSpackler said:

I voted no. I have fought that idiocy in the company golf league for years. Now @missitnoonan calls me the "Rules Nazi".

To be fair, it's probably also because you made him follow the rules when playing outside of that league too  I witnessed the amusing back and forths several times while playing with you guys.

 

[onthehunt526]

I agree with the idea that OB should be treated differently than lateral hazards and water hazards. 

Out-of-bounds and lost balls should be penalized more severely than water hazards/lateral hazards.

My issue with the whole thing is the way some courses define their waterways. There is little or no transparency on how they are marked. That bothers me. The Pacific Ocean at Pebble in its entirety is marked as a lateral. Fall Creek at Newman (my home course) is marked as OOB. Both bodies of water are technically off the course, but how one is a lateral and one is out of bounds is beyond my understanding. Come on USGA, force some transparency on local rules. 

Apologies for the off-topic rant.

The mini-tour's idea has some merit on the pace of play front. However, that's what provisional balls are for. If you believe your ball to potentially lost or out-of-bounds, hit a provisional, so you don't have to go back. 

[Braivo]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

I hate the idea.

OB exists for a reason. It's a tiered penalty system - when you hit the ball OFF the golf course, you should suffer a more severe penalty than hitting the ball on the golf course.

Additionally, what, if your ball may be lost or OB, do you have to know with virtual certainty that it's OB? Do you have to find your golf ball and know where it crossed? There's no splash like you'll often find with water hazards. OB is often beyond trees, where lost balls are increasingly common.

OB is off the golf course. Hazards are on the golf course.

Seems pretty simple to understand.

---

I should rename the thread "Mini Tour Bastardizes Rules for OB/Hazards".

 

I agree in principle, but this article references that most of the tour is played on courses lined with homes. I'd go on a limb and say when the OOB rules were created there were very few holes that actually lined the boundary of the golf course property, so OOB didn't come into play very often.

Now, with some courses having homes lining both sides of nearly every fairy it would seem to fall outside the original intent of OOB and becomes excessively penal. See the picture below as an example. Any shot, on any hole, that goes far wide is OOB. Not only would this be frustrating for most amateurs to play, but if played by the rules, would take forever. 

In cases like this, it would be easy to identify where the ball traveled OB by which house it hit or which lawn it rests on. 

 

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Additionally, what, if your ball may be lost or OB, do you have to know with virtual certainty that it's OB? Do you have to find your golf ball and know where it crossed? There's no splash like you'll often find with water hazards.

The problem I have with this is that I play a lot of courses with hazards that aren't simply giant ponds full of water where you'll see a splash, but rather arroyos and canyons with dense brush and weeds lining the edges.  You'll have carries and doglegs and then not even be able to see for certain if it actually made it into the hazard.  You determine that it's pretty likely in the hazard because you can't find it outside of the hazard, and you make your best guess as to where it crossed.

It seems to me that the same logic could apply to OB balls.  (Obviously not lost balls, but I don't think that is part of the rule change that tour is proposing anyway :))

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The rule change for a PROFESSIONAL tour, even at the lower levels, seems pretty insignificant because, really, how often do pros hit balls OB, or even flirt with OB?

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, onthehunt526 said:

My issue with the whole thing is the way some courses define their waterways. There is little or no transparency on how they are marked. That bothers me. The Pacific Ocean at Pebble in its entirety is marked as a lateral. Fall Creek at Newman (my home course) is marked as OOB. Both bodies of water are technically off the course, but how one is a lateral and one is out of bounds is beyond my understanding. Come on USGA, force some transparency on local rules. 

This isn't a Local Rules issue.

Also, you're allowed to play a shot from the beach at Pebble Beach. Or the cliffs.

You're not allowed to play a shot from OB. So if a course wants to define a lake or a stream at the edge of their property as OB, they're welcome to do so.

11 minutes ago, Braivo said:

I agree in principle, but this article references that most of the tour is played on courses lined with homes. I'd go on a limb and say when the OOB rules were created there were very few holes that actually lined the boundary of the golf course property, so OOB didn't come into play very often.

So because it wasn't in play very often a long time ago… what? They revisit the Rules every four years.

11 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Now, with some courses having homes lining both sides of nearly every fairy it would seem to fall outside the original intent of OOB and becomes excessively penal. See the picture below as an example. Any shot, on any hole, that goes far wide is OOB. Not only would this be frustrating for most amateurs to play, but if played by the rules, would take forever.

Those look like incredibly wide fairways. I see no problem with defining those as OB. If you can't keep the ball in an 80-yard wide corridor, hit a hybrid.

11 minutes ago, Braivo said:

Now, with some courses having homes lining both sides of nearly every fairy it would seem to fall outside the original intent of OOB and becomes excessively penal. See the picture below as an example. Any shot, on any hole, that goes far wide is OOB. Not only would this be frustrating for most amateurs to play, but if played by the rules, would take forever.

Why forever? Hit a provisional. I would say that if you're hitting it that far offline, your rounds are already gonna take forever.

The original intent is that if you hit a ball off the course, you suffer a harsher penalty. That's still true here. The intent hasn't changed… the course just may be a poorly designed course.

So you want to change the rules (or this Tour has) because of poorly designed courses? That's like changing the OB rule to consider path of flight for that other poorly designed hole in the other thread.

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

The problem I have with this is that I play a lot of courses with hazards that aren't simply giant ponds full of water where you'll see a splash, but rather arroyos and canyons with dense brush and weeds lining the edges.  You'll have carries and doglegs and then not even be able to see for certain if it actually made it into the hazard.  You determine that it's pretty likely in the hazard because you can't find it outside of the hazard, and you make your best guess as to where it crossed.

Drew as you know "pretty likely" doesn't cut it. You have to be virtually certain, or your ball is lost.

To be virtually certain, that definitely increases the odds that you saw it enter, and if you saw it enter, you know more precisely where it last crossed.

To put it another way, if you aren't sure if it's in the water hazard, line of flight and thus last crossed margin stuff doesn't matter, because your ball isn't in there, it's actually lost instead. If you find your ball, then you can extrapolate to figure out how it got there, or if you see it go in, you know where it went in.

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

 

The rule change for a PROFESSIONAL tour, even at the lower levels, seems pretty insignificant because, really, how often do pros hit balls OB, or even flirt with OB?

More often than you might think.

[Wally Fairway]

I'm thinking this bastardization of the rules is driven by a dual purpose:
- pace of play, to prevent having to retee or ever go backwards during a round
- it is clearly less punitive, due to not having to rehit over the same hazard or OB from the same distance

I don't mind playing these rules occasionally, when playing with buddies as long as it is agreed to or generally understood. But if they do this I think it won't be too long before they start to roll the ball over and play "winter" rules; I mean you can't let a bad lie slow you down or hurt your score . . . any you might as well pick it up, as your are inside the leather or at least pretty close.
Hey nice 81 you shot there Bob!

[CarlSpackler]

I was playing a guy in league one evening who hit his drive OB. There was no doubt in my mind, but he insisted to go look for it. When he can't find it, he takes a drop to "speed play" as is being suggested here and hits a wonderful shot to about 4' and makes the putt and calls it a par. I call BS. He quits the league. C'est la vie! Of course I am then the a__hole rules nazi that is taking the fun out of league.

It's simple. If you hit a ball OB, tee up #3. If you think it may have gone OB, play a provisional. If you hit into tall grass, etc. that is not a hazard, play a provisional. They claimed that was too difficult. The extra strokes may be difficult to swallow, but there is nothing difficult about how to play. If you want to play by different rules, then you are playing a different game. Just because chess and checkers can be played on the same surface, they are not the same game.

[metbid]

3 hours ago, Braivo said:

I agree in principle, but this article references that most of the tour is played on courses lined with homes. I'd go on a limb and say when the OOB rules were created there were very few holes that actually lined the boundary of the golf course property, so OOB didn't come into play very often.

Now, with some courses having homes lining both sides of nearly every fairy it would seem to fall outside the original intent of OOB and becomes excessively penal. See the picture below as an example. Any shot, on any hole, that goes far wide is OOB. Not only would this be frustrating for most amateurs to play, but if played by the rules, would take forever. 

In cases like this, it would be easy to identify where the ball traveled OB by which house it hit or which lawn it rests on.

I have to agree with @Braivo Don't change the OOB rule, but maybe change the definition to cover only the actual periphery of the golf course.  With all the courses that have houses lining the fairways today, to have every fairway OOB is ludicrous.

Maybe additional verbiage in the rules addressing house lined courses as being deemed lateral hazards and IF the local course rules prohibit trespassing, then lost ball would come into play.

[Asheville]

Looks a lot like some nonsense that Peter Kostis would cook up. 

[iacas]

28 minutes ago, metbid said:

I have to agree with @Braivo Don't change the OOB rule, but maybe change the definition to cover only the actual periphery of the golf course.  With all the courses that have houses lining the fairways today, to have every fairway OOB is ludicrous.

Why isn't it just a "bad design"? Why do the Rules of Golf have to be altered in a non-sensical (and far more "ludicrous") way? The ball is hit off the course's property and onto someone else's. That's the common sense and Rules of Golf (if marked) definition of things.

You don't like it… design a better golf course.

Plus, internal OB is allowed anyway, so… your rule would eliminate internal OB on other courses, too.

28 minutes ago, metbid said:

Maybe additional verbiage in the rules addressing house lined courses as being deemed lateral hazards and IF the local course rules prohibit trespassing, then lost ball would come into play.

You want the Rules of Golf to add verbiage that defines a "house" and "trespassing" and the areas which, by their nature, directly conflict with the definition for "water hazard"?

Someone's yard is not a water hazard. Not even their pool. It's out of bounds.

Your proposals open up 10x the silliness of what we have right now.