Modernized Rules Discussion: Areas of the Course

[mvmac]

Ok here's my video testing out the flagstick staying in the hole. All the putts I hit are in the video except for the first 3 because they weren't hit firmly enough and one sequence that where I missed 3 in a row (angle was basically a duplicate of my first sequence and one of the misses is featured below). 

No doubt in my mind that it's an advantage, it's honestly kind of ridiculous how much easier it makes the short putts. Even if you have a 10-15 ft putt and give it a run and leave yourself 3-4ft, it's no longer a "knee-knocker" (unless the next putt is severely downhill or something).

I encourage others to test it out for themselves.

Few things:

- I wouldn't consider myself a good putter.
- I only hit 3 practice putts.
- It was harder than I thought to get myself to hit them firm enough.
- I think it's easier to hit them firm and on line with more of a "pop" stroke than making a longer backswing. Or at least that was the feel.
- The greens were fairly slow today, like a 9 stimp, so that is something to take into consideration.

Here's a miss to give you guys an idea of how far past the hole the balls would go.

 

[phillyk]

8 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

Me too.  And I think that we can all agree that that is just idiotic.  And also him just him being a showman.

 

Whats odds of hitting flagstick on fly vs needing it in to help when ball is rolling back towards the hole? He's thinking more that he doesn't want to hit flagstick on fly and have ball ricochet somewhere. It makes some sense but also not because of how unlikely it would be to happen. 

[Golfingdad]

8 minutes ago, phillyk said:

Whats odds of hitting flagstick on fly vs needing it in to help when ball is rolling back towards the hole? He's thinking more that he doesn't want to hit flagstick on fly and have ball ricochet somewhere. It makes some sense but also not because of how unlikely it would be to happen. 

Yeah, the odds are fairly low.  However, in the audio he said that he was trying to fly it into the hole.  No idea how to study it, but I cannot imagine that balls flying into an empty hole from 70 yards away wouldn't nearly all bounce out.

Secondly, when it's spinning back towards the hole the stick is going to help more than hurt.

(In retrospect, I'd like to dial back the "idiotic" comment to just "silly.") :)

[Abu3baid]

1 hour ago, mvmac said:

Ok here's my video testing out the flagstick staying in the hole. All the putts I hit are in the video except for the first 3 because they weren't hit firmly enough and one sequence that where I missed 3 in a row (angle was basically a duplicate of my first sequence and one of the misses is featured below). 

No doubt in my mind that it's an advantage, it's honestly kind of ridiculous how much easier it makes the short putts. Even if you have a 10-15 ft putt and give it a run and leave yourself 3-4ft, it's no longer a "knee-knocker" (unless the next putt is severely downhill or something).

I encourage others to test it out for themselves.

Few things:

- I wouldn't consider myself a good putter.
- I only hit 3 practice putts.
- It was harder than I thought to get myself to hit them firm enough.
- I think it's easier to hit them firm and on line with more of a "pop" stroke than making a longer backswing. Or at least that was the feel.
- The greens were fairly slow today, like a 9 stimp, so that is something to take into consideration.

Here's a miss to give you guys an idea of how far past the hole the balls would go.

 

This test isn't really telling me much.  Hit those same exact putts without the flag and does the ball not go in?  Did those putts really go in just because the stick was in?   

[mvmac]

1 hour ago, Abu3baid said:

Hit those same exact putts without the flag and does the ball not go in?  Did those putts really go in just because the stick was in?   

Some will, some won't. One thing I can say for sure is that I wouldn't normally make that many putts from those distances....and it was fairly easy. Hitting the putts at those speeds makes it really hard for the ball to find the hole. The flag being in dampens the blow and the ball falls in.

Basically hitting putts at those speeds is a low percentage play but it's not with the flag in.

Good point though, should have filmed a few without the stick in.

Like I said, give it shot yourself and share your thoughts.

[Pete]

In the unlikely event of the flagstick change being implemented, for a while, some people will gain an advantage over others because they'll leave the flag in and the others won't. Eventually it will become generally accepted that leaving it in gives you an advantage and there will be less and less people choosing to take it out. But for a while I imagine it would be a total farce with the flag being removed and replaced many times per hole. 

I don't think they will leave the change as it is.

How did they not think about these issues when they went through this? It took me about 30 seconds of hearing of this change to work out the problems due to people's preferences for putting with flag in and out.

 

 

 

 

[boogielicious]

6 hours ago, mvmac said:

Ok here's my video testing out the flagstick staying in the hole. All the putts I hit are in the video except for the first 3 because they weren't hit firmly enough and one sequence that where I missed 3 in a row (angle was basically a duplicate of my first sequence and one of the misses is featured below). 

No doubt in my mind that it's an advantage, it's honestly kind of ridiculous how much easier it makes the short putts. Even if you have a 10-15 ft putt and give it a run and leave yourself 3-4ft, it's no longer a "knee-knocker" (unless the next putt is severely downhill or something).

I encourage others to test it out for themselves.

Few things:

- I wouldn't consider myself a good putter.
- I only hit 3 practice putts.
- It was harder than I thought to get myself to hit them firm enough.
- I think it's easier to hit them firm and on line with more of a "pop" stroke than making a longer backswing. Or at least that was the feel.
- The greens were fairly slow today, like a 9 stimp, so that is something to take into consideration.

Here's a miss to give you guys an idea of how far past the hole the balls would go.

 

Excellent, thanks!

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

How did they not think about these issues when they went through this? It took me about 30 seconds of hearing of this change to work out the problems due to people's preferences for putting with flag in and out.

1

I think the change was thought up to try and speed up play, where a group behind could stop pulling the pin out to help save time or regular golfers could avoid the extra time it takes to remove and replace the flagstick. My guess is that they, in thinking about modernizing the rules, did not consider too much the group of people who will staunchly stick to tradition and remove the flagstick until their dying breath.

As it stands though, I'd be willing to bet the people that continue to require that the flagstick be taken out will be a minority if the change goes through. I'd be willing to bet you'd see at least half of all golfers leave the flag in once it's allowed by the rules, for a variety of reasons including laziness, wanting a backstop, or because they already never took it out in the first place. In the several years that followed I would think that social pressures would lead to more and more people leaving the flagstick in until the situation reverses from how it looks today, where a majority of people pull the flag when in a group but some may not do so if they're playing alone.

If the change goes through, I'll be pretty happy because I know I'll have an advantage over what I would estimate to be nearly 50% of the field in tournaments when the change first comes into effect. I see so many people pull the pin when they're off the green in tournaments because they think it leaves more room in the hole for the ball and makes it easier to hole the putt or chip. I know all of those people, along with a number of others, would keep removing the flag during tournaments while they putted and I'd be better off compared to them for it. I've had someone ask me to tend the flag when he had a 50 yard pitch into the green, so I'm pretty sure I'd have an advantage over at least some of the field.

I, personally, think that the flagstick is the most interesting change. Close behind that, for me,  would be the changes on loose impediments/grounding in a hazard and repairing all types of damage on the putting green.

Between leaving the flagstick in and being able to repair spike marks and all other unnatural irregularities in the green I think that the putting percentage, for the best putters, from 6 feet would increase by a fair amount. As @mvmac showed, it's pretty easy to be aggressive with your putts and make a lot of them when you don't have to worry about a lip-out rolling another 3 feet past. Essentially if you hit the hole, the worst case scenario is you have a 1 foot tap in for your final stroke. 

Grounding my club in a hazard and moving loose impediments would make playing out of most hazards much easier than it is now. Hazards usually have the most "trash" lying around in them anyways, meaning you can now clean all that up and get it out of your way. 

My favorite change, which isn't all that interesting but I like it the most, is the one about touching sand in bunkers. Being able to move larger stones out of bunkers will save my wedges from a fair amount of dings (Colorado tends to have pretty rocky sand), and I can now keep the same routine that I have on grass in the sand. When I'm standing behind the ball visualizing my shot, I like to set my club down leaned against my thigh and tug my glove up so that the thumb of the glove is tight (I apparently have short thumbs, I've had to do this with every glove I've worn). That's generally my cue to really focus and picture exactly what I want to do one final time before stepping into the shot, so it'll be nice that I can have that part of my routine even in the bunker if the change goes through without having to do all that a ways away in the grass.

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

How did they not think about these issues when they went through this? It took me about 30 seconds of hearing of this change to work out the problems due to people's preferences for putting with flag in and out.

They seem blinded by the possibility of faster play. Like I said I think it was Thomas Pagel himself who said "Tour pros won't have to worry about an unattended flagstick, they have caddies."

[DeadMan]

Another thought about the flagstick: making it so you can always leave the flagstick in makes the game more dangerous. There are a couple of greens on courses that I play where the only way you know if someone is on or off the green is whether the flagstick is in. It's not every hole that's like that, but there's a few fair that are like that around me. You always have to be careful on those shots, and the flagstick isn't the only thing to look at. But removing a tool for doing that seems like a bad idea.

On red vs. yellow penalty areas: I don't know if this is true, but I was told by someone who is extremely knowledge on the rules that the new rules suggest all be red except to preserve integrity of the hole. So, #12 at Augusta would still be a yellow hazard under that definition. I like that approach a lot, assuming you can trust the people who mark courses to understand it.

[Groucho Valentine]

I applaud the USGA for deciding on changes that actually makes sense. Who knew they were capable of that? 

[Pete]

1 hour ago, DeadMan said:

Another thought about the flagstick: making it so you can always leave the flagstick in makes the game more dangerous. There are a couple of greens on courses that I play where the only way you know if someone is on or off the green is whether the flagstick is in. It's not every hole that's like that, but there's a few fair that are like that around me. You always have to be careful on those shots, and the flagstick isn't the only thing to look at. But removing a tool for doing that seems like a bad idea.

Yeah I thought about this too. I think it is more likely to cause even more delay as people wait even longer to be sure the green is clear. But you are right, we have one hole on our course where we do exactly this. It is the only way of knowing the coast it clear from the tee.

Perhaps we will see an adjustment to the rule such as 'if the ball hits the flagstick from beyond 10 yards, then no penalty' to make sure the flag comes out on virtually all greens to let people hole out, but won't make people wait for the pin to be removed for long putts. 

I'm still thinking of what else they can do to achieve the pace of play gain that they are looking for. Edit: Not that I think there is a huge pace of play issue relating to the flag.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Pete

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Pete said:

Perhaps we will see an adjustment to the rule such as 'if the ball hits the flagstick from beyond 10 yards, then no penalty' to make sure the flag comes out on virtually all greens to let people hole out, but won't make people wait for the pin to be removed for long putts.

That wouldn't make sense. Nobody's gonna want to measure 10 yards any time they're close.

3 hours ago, Pete said:

I'm still thinking of what else they can do to achieve the pace of play gain that they are looking for.

Not much. Slow golfers are going to be slow. Only so much you can do in the RULES to make them play faster. We'll see what effect the 40-second rule has first, eh?

[WestKyGolfer]

I don't like the flagstick rule, the changes to the drop rule, some of the aspects of the hazard marking changes and I am on the fence about how the changes to the ball at rest on the putting green will end up. I do like that causing your ball to move during a search will not be a penalty. I have not completely read through the entire draft proposal yet, but I did leave feedback on the USGA site and request to be included in the phase 2 feedback.

 

[Rulesman]

8 hours ago, iacas said:

They seem blinded by the possibility of faster play. 

Not surprisingly. I reckon that more posts on slow play have been made on forums such as this than any other single topic (except possibly divots or divot holes). The USGA/R&A must have been very conscious of the concerns of Joe Public.

 

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Rulesman said:

Not surprisingly. I reckon that more posts on slow play have been made on forums such as this than any other single topic (except possibly divots or divot holes). The USGA/R&A must have been very conscious of the concerns of Joe Public.

Yeah, and while that's to be applauded, doing it with the flagstick rule - which may have the opposite effect on slow play - is befuddling.

[Rulesman]

But back to the issue.

The videos above suggest that inside about 10' makes putting too easy.

1) Why not make greens 20' across

2a) only require the flagstick to be out if playing from that surface or b) if using a putter

3) only use a putter on the green

If the size was reduced to 20' diameter, maintenance costs and more significantly, construction costs would be decimated.

*******************************************************************************

Edit: I agree about the potential for making things worse

Edited March 3, 2017 by Rulesman

[Pretzel]

1 hour ago, Rulesman said:

But back to the issue.

The videos above suggest that inside about 10' makes putting too easy.

1) Why not make greens 20' across

2a) only require the flagstick to be out if playing from that surface or b) if using a putter

3) only use a putter on the green

If the size was reduced to 20' diameter, maintenance costs and more significantly, construction costs would be decimated.

*******************************************************************************

Edit: I agree about the potential for making things worse

 

While we're at it, in order to speed up play we should condense the whole course into a single hole with one green like that at the end of it. Just make the hole between 5,500 yards and 7,200 yards long, depending on the teeboxes used, and then the pace of play would really be good! We'd be having 20-30 minutes rounds of golf, since that's the pace for one hole.

Maintenance would love it too! Just think, they'd only have to prepare a single hole in the morning before golfers got out, meaning that their job would be easy and costs would go way down. 

Courses would also be able to more easily differentiate themselves from each other. It opens up the possibility for so many more completely unique designs when course designers only need to create one hole per course. Think of the variety in courses we could have! Anything from a par 40 to a par 75 could be viable for pro play!