Too Soon to Begin Playing Proposed "Penalty Area" Rule?

[Fourputt]

17 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

So all they're doing is changing the markings on all water hazards to lateral water hazards?

For what it's worth, I've been told by a CGA rules expert (who you probably know as well), that courses should go ahead and start doing this. The current rules allow the committee to mark hazards in the first place, and it gives them latitude in defining what are lateral hazards. So I understand the impulse, as long as these areas are actually water hazards in the first place.

The biggest difference in doing that is that sometimes you get an advantage that you wouldn't have with a water hazard if you get your ball past the hazard and it rolls back in. The rest of the time, I don't think changing it to a lateral water hazard makes much of a difference. You play at Foothills, right? There's probably two spot son that course where that would be an issue (holes 7 and 18), and I think it would be extremely rare for a ball to get past that hazard but then roll back in. It's not a significant advantage on 18 (like 10 yard difference), and I don't think on 7 the slope is extreme enough to have balls rolling back into the hazard. (EDIT: I forgot one hole, but it's the same situation as 18 in my opinion).

I think this is a non issue, really.

I agree.  That's why I wasn't all that concerned by it.  If they did this on a course where it significantly affected the play on certain holes, then I might have an issue with them jumping the gun, but with only a few areas to be affected, and none that have a significant effect on the play of the hole, it's not really an issue.  I was just interested in other opinions on it.

[DeadMan]

I also don't think they're playing under new rules here. The title of the thread should really be remarking water hazards as lateral water hazards. The impetus for doing that might be the new rules, but they're if they're not marking non-water hazards as hazards, they're not playing under the new rules.