Why 2 stroke penalty for hitting flagstick?

[MRR]

11 hours ago, dedalus101 said:

I can find no rationale for there being a two stroke penalty for hitting the untended flagstick while putting from the green. My experience is that if you are putting from the green or even from just off the green the flagstick is an obstacle not an aide. A well struck putt is more likely to carom off the flagstick when it is still in the hole than lip out if it is not in the hole so why a penalty and a two stroke penalty at that for hitting the flagstick when putting from the green? It makes no rational sense.  

1) You stated that you prefer to take the flag out when you putt.
Since the rules allow you to do this, then you should do so.  I fail to understand why you are complaining against a rule that allows you to play to your personal style.

2) You opine that a well-struck putt is less likely to go in if the flag is in place.
Study suggests otherwise.
Rules do not exist exclusively for “well struck balls”.  Otherwise we would have no rules for “out of bounds”.
Even if your conclusion were true for well-struck balls, study and my experience has shows a great tendency for a struck pin to seriously impede the velocity of a ball, and rules need to apply to people who would snipe the pin instead of use correct speed.  Or are you suggesting that the rules should require the use of a radar gun to determine the speed at which the ball strikes the pin to assess the correct penalty?

I disagree with a two-shot penalty, but iacas gave a reasonable explanation.
 

[Rulesman]

1 hour ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Sure, sometimes you may get some weird bounce off of it that will leave you further away, but the odds are much higher that the ball will be much closer.

Correct. On level ground, it is physically impossible for a ball striking an object to bounce further away than it would otherwise have done. The possible exception is if it rebounds backwards down a severe slope.

[MRR]

9 minutes ago, Rulesman said:

The possible exception is if it rebounds backwards down a severe slope.

Or a ball that would have gone past the hole with enough backspin to end up in the hole, but instead goes off the stick and back a long ways.

However, that has nothing to do with a long putt, which is the limited topic of this discussion.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, MRR said:

However, that has nothing to do with a long putt, which is the limited topic of this discussion.

Or chip shots, or the other types of shots where it's reasonable to take the flagstick out of the hole (unless you're Phil Mickelson).

A related topic (as I'd like to keep this one on the topic of the Rules, please):

Maybe @dedalus101 can argue his case over there about how "Pelze" got it wrong. I think he'll quickly learn that he has no real evidence to support his claim that you should take the flagstick out of the hole.

[iacas]

I explained the reasoning several times in the thread. I'll try one last time.

If a golfer hits a putt so firmly that if the flagstick were not in the hole it would roll eight feet away (which really isn't all that firm), he has the potential to two putt from there. In fact, it's likely he'll two-putt from there given the percentages of putts made. So, counting the initial putt, he'll take three strokes: the initial putt and the two putts that follow.

Yet with the flagstick in the hole, that same putted ball will either go in (1 stroke total) or bounce away but stay close, where he'll likely tap in (2 putts total). Simple physics.

That's the very easy to understand rationale for the flagstick rule. The advantage gained (up to two strokes) should not be greater than the penalty: two strokes.

See, here's the thing… you see to be operating under the completely misguided idea that leaving the flagstick in would not allow that ball to fall into the hole or remain really close to the hole. You're acting as if the ball would go further from the hole than it otherwise would have. That's not the case.

That, or you're not considering that the rules don't care about whether a golfer is good or bad, they just concern themselves with the proper way to play golf and not gain advantages that aren't the result of your play, but rather, by gaming the system somehow.

[Lihu]

11 hours ago, dedalus101 said:

So what you are saying is that the penalty for hitting the flagstick while putting from the green is aimed at the golfers who essentially have very poor speed control. This makes very little sense to me. Those golfers are their own penalty and you really don't need to penalize them much less by two strokes. I truly believe this is a rule that may once, back in the day when greens had the consistency of today's fringe,  might have mnade some sense but today is just an anachronism and a weird one at that.

@iacas stated it in his first response to you. Generally, you miss the hole by up to 2 strokes because it usually means a more aggressive putt when you are aiming at the flag stick. A more aggressive putt is less affected by breaks and the stick basically absorbs a lot of the energy from the ball.

For instance, I have decent enough speed control for my handicap, but in some cases I really need that aggressive putt. It is an advantage that I often take advantage of when just off the green. I had 2 cases in just one round Sunday. I was 65 feet away from the hole and needed to match the point because my nephew had a 2 footer. I was 4" off the green 65 feet from the hole and had to putt really aggressively because that putt could even out the match. If I had missed then I would have had a 2 putt situation. If I chose to putt less aggressively I'd have lost by 1 stroke for sure. The upside was worth it to even the match. It's either lose by 1 with a standard putt or 2 if I missed with the aggressive one.

[JonMA1]

Of all the stuff in my life I over-analyze, this isn't one of them.

It's a rule for a reason. Break the rule and you get penalized. If the penalty is too harsh, don't break the rule.

[dkolo]

The rule is what it is, and I'm OK with it. That said, I don't pull the flag when I'm playing by myself unless I'm putting for birdie, and I sleep just fine at night about it. 

[roamin]

14 hours ago, SG11118 said:

There are many different flagstick designs in use.  Different designs definitely behave differently.  Pretty difficult to make universal proclamations on their behavior without analyzing the various designs.

I played on a course near the beach once where some of the pins seemed to be made of rubber as we watched them bounce back and forth in the wind. A perfectly timed, high chip could have theoretically been returned Venus Williams-style, but outside of that I think it's a pretty safe bet that the ball will slow down when it hits a stationary metal stick.

[alleztom]

Maybe part of the rationale is it is such an easy rule to follow (esp if playing in a group, I get the I can't be bothered when I'm by myself rationale) that you should be penalised 2 shots for being belligerent. 

[boogielicious]

5 hours ago, alleztom said:

Maybe part of the rationale is it is such an easy rule to follow (esp if playing in a group, I get the I can't be bothered when I'm by myself rationale) that you should be penalised 2 shots for being belligerent. 

This year, in the US, we can't post rounds for HC if we play alone. So I usually don't take the flagstick out because it is really a practice round anyway. 

[DaveP043]

Just a little historical note, apparently the penalty was 1 stroke until about 1908, when it was changed to 2 strokes.  This change certainly predates "The Principles Behind the Rules of Golf" by many decades, but is definitely in agreement with Mr. Tufts' discussion of penalties.  The principle Mr. Tufts applies is the same as @iacas outlined in about the 3rd or 4th post in this thread, that the penalty should be no less than the potential advantaged gained by a breach of the rule.  It would be interesting to see if there's an explanation from the 1908 time frame as to why the rule was changed.

Other historical notes, in 1956 the rules were changed, striking an unattended flagstick from any distance was not penalized.  In 1968, the rule was changed again, back to a 2-stroke penalty for hitting an unattended flagstick with a stroke form the putting green.  These changes definitely WERE in the era when Mr. Tufts was active in the USGA rules area.  Mr. Tufts suggested in about 1959 that the golf rules were getting "soft", perhaps the 1956 change was one that made him think that.  I wonder if the change back in 1968 was one that he worked to implement, to return that rule to where he thought it should be.

 

[Rulesman]

Just looked at Chapman's history of the rules and that adds nothing of relevance

[DaveP043]

History oi the rules is kind of , but:

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Rulesman said:

Just looked at Chapman's history of the rules and that adds nothing of relevance

I didn't realize that this book was available, but I've found it on Amazon for about $4, so it'll be on my winter reading list.  I usually refer to this website for rules history:

http://www.ruleshistory.com/

and they recognize Chapman's book as a good reference.

 

[Patch]

I accept the rule on the flag being in while putting, when on the green.

I have also thought why is using other objects, say,  ricocheting a ball off a wall, or some other object to get to the green was acceptable?

Golf is a funny "fun" game, with funny "fun" rules. 

[dkolo]

 

I accept the rule on the flag being in while putting, when on the green.

I have also thought why is using other objects, say,  ricocheting a ball off a wall, or some other object to get to the green was acceptable?

Golf is a funny "fun" game, with funny "fun" rules. 

If you can hit a wall and land the ball on the green, I'm OK with giving you even a bonus negative stroke. It's like my rule with my family rounds where if you hit a bird, it's a birdie.

[SG11118]

On ‎1‎/‎31‎/‎2017 at 11:30 PM, roamin said:

I played on a course near the beach once where some of the pins seemed to be made of rubber as we watched them bounce back and forth in the wind. A perfectly timed, high chip could have theoretically been returned Venus Williams-style, but outside of that I think it's a pretty safe bet that the ball will slow down when it hits a stationary metal stick.

My home course previously had fairly large diameter stiff metal pins that tapered to a smaller diameter at the flag.  They were not very accepting of golf balls.  Usually when your ball hit these pins, you ended up outside of easy one-putt range.  I'm not going to definitively say the pins caused the ball to deflect this far, but perhaps some combination of the hole adding energy to the ball and the stiff pin deflecting most of that energy might have resulted in the ball ending up further away than had the pin not been there?  We went to skinnier fiberglass pins at the end of last year that were definitely less stiff and more able to absorb rather than deflect energy.

[Lihu]

46 minutes ago, SG11118 said:

My home course previously had fairly large diameter stiff metal pins that tapered to a smaller diameter at the flag.  They were not very accepting of golf balls.  Usually when your ball hit these pins, you ended up outside of easy one-putt range.  I'm not going to definitively say the pins caused the ball to deflect this far, but perhaps some combination of the hole adding energy to the ball and the stiff pin deflecting most of that energy might have resulted in the ball ending up further away than had the pin not been there?  We went to skinnier fiberglass pins at the end of last year that were definitely less stiff and more able to absorb rather than deflect energy.

We have these at my home course(s). They're about 3/4" thick. They still roll in. I've never actually had one bump out even on pretty aggressive putts? No one seems to complain, but OTOH, I don't go to the meetings. . .