Failure To Include an Unknown Penalty

[iacas]

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I talked about how remote the possibility of this occurring was and then said given that there are two possibilities. You quoted me saying there are two possibilities and then said there were other possibilities. I mean - yeah - that's what I said.

I'm not understanding your problem with this (and also don't care much as it's semantics). You said "Either people get caught breaking the rules in real time (in which case no change) or they don't get caught at all (in which case no change)." Those are not the only two possibilities. The change is that they get "caught" (if you want to use that word) not including penalty strokes in a scorecard they've already turned in. Prior to the rules change, there was an additional penalty (DQ, then two strokes). In 2019, there's no additional penalty.

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Two quotes from your post right there. The first one answers the second one.

No it doesn't.

I administer rules tests to my players and make sure they know the rules because I believe in the honor code of golf. I apply my own secondary penalty - they likely won't play and may be kicked off the team if they're caught turning in a score lower than they actually took on a hole.

Not everyone has the same moral standards I do, and there's a benefit to remaining ignorant of some of the Rules of Golf.

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

One last question - do you know for certain that pleading ignorance will get you excused the penalty?

Read the rule. They can't prove what you "know" if it doesn't come up in a conversation.

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If your reason for ignorance is that you don't know the rules, are you breaking something else?

It doesn't work that way, no. Lexi was still given two additional strokes - even though she's supposed to know that she has to put her ball back in the same place and not almost an inch to the side.

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Or will that excuse potentially just not fly? I don't honestly know. I think it could be interpreted that you are expected to know the rules, so not knowing the rules isn't a reason to not know you had a penalty.

Unfortunately, it is. You can't penalize a player simply for not knowing the rules, you can only penalize a player for a breach of the rules. So though the rules say it is your responsibility to know the rules (in a few places), it doesn't ever lay out a penalty for failing to know the Rules.

34 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

I don't see anything in the quoted rule that would go against that interpretation, but maybe I missed it or you have some other info that I don't.

You don't see anything supporting that interpretation, either, because… The Committee can't know what a player "knows."

If you claim you didn't know about the penalty, as Lexi did, that satisfies the conditions. That's why Lexi wasn't DQed, and why in 2019 she won't even get the additional two strokes.

---

It's pretty simple:

• Before, there was incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there was a direct additional penalty if you're "caught" either being ignorant or trying to cheat.
• Now, there's virtually no incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there's no additional penalty, so if you're ignorant or trying to cheat, you may as well try as there's tremendous upside.

For example: Let's assume you commit a breach of the Rules. In 2018, the Rules encourage you to find out if you incurred a penalty and write down the proper score because you're risking getting extra strokes added if you don't put the score down correctly. But in 2019, you'd be "wise" to not even ask, because once you ask, you can't claim that the penalty is "unknown," and worst case is that you just get the penalty strokes you actually incurred with nothing else added. Best case… you get to write down a 4 instead of a 5 or a 6.

The former rules encouraged golfers to educate themselves, by asking questions. The new rules encourage them to remain ignorant.

[Ty_Webb]

47 minutes ago, iacas said:

I'm not understanding your problem with this (and also don't care much as it's semantics). You said "Either people get caught breaking the rules in real time (in which case no change) or they don't get caught at all (in which case no change)." Those are not the only two possibilities. The change is that they get "caught" (if you want to use that word) not including penalty strokes in a scorecard they've already turned in. Prior to the rules change, there was an additional penalty (DQ, then two strokes). In 2019, there's no additional penalty.

No it doesn't.

I administer rules tests to my players and make sure they know the rules because I believe in the honor code of golf. I apply my own secondary penalty - they likely won't play and may be kicked off the team if they're caught turning in a score lower than they actually took on a hole.

Not everyone has the same moral standards I do, and there's a benefit to remaining ignorant of some of the Rules of Golf.

Read the rule. They can't prove what you "know" if it doesn't come up in a conversation.

It doesn't work that way, no. Lexi was still given two additional strokes - even though she's supposed to know that she has to put her ball back in the same place and not almost an inch to the side.

Unfortunately, it is. You can't penalize a player simply for not knowing the rules, you can only penalize a player for a breach of the rules. So though the rules say it is your responsibility to know the rules (in a few places), it doesn't ever lay out a penalty for failing to know the Rules.

You don't see anything supporting that interpretation, either, because… The Committee can't know what a player "knows."

If you claim you didn't know about the penalty, as Lexi did, that satisfies the conditions. That's why Lexi wasn't DQed, and why in 2019 she won't even get the additional two strokes.

---

It's pretty simple:

• Before, there was incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there was a direct additional penalty if you're "caught" either being ignorant or trying to cheat.
• Now, there's virtually no incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there's no additional penalty, so if you're ignorant or trying to cheat, you may as well try as there's tremendous upside.

For example: Let's assume you commit a breach of the Rules. In 2018, the Rules encourage you to find out if you incurred a penalty and write down the proper score because you're risking getting extra strokes added if you don't put the score down correctly. But in 2019, you'd be "wise" to not even ask, because once you ask, you can't claim that the penalty is "unknown," and worst case is that you just get the penalty strokes you actually incurred with nothing else added. Best case… you get to write down a 4 instead of a 5 or a 6.

The former rules encouraged golfers to educate themselves, by asking questions. The new rules encourage them to remain ignorant.

My problem with that first bit was that I had discussed the other alternative (that they get caught) and had stated that in 30 years of playing golf I had never heard of that happening to anyone other than players on the television. Therefore I consider that so unlikely to happen that it's not even worth worrying about. The either or are the only remaining alternatives. You then quoted the either or and said there are other alternatives. I knew that. I had talked about them. 

I was talking in the next bit about the new rules. What Lexi did and how she was dealt with is irrelevant to my question.

Your for example. I'll repeat one I gave earlier. Let's say you hit a ball into a water hazard. It goes straight over the water from directly in front of the tee. Picture 18 at Sawgrass. It starts out left and cuts back but not enough to make the fairway. You have to drop that within two clublengths of where it crossed the hazard. Let's consider though that you think there is no incentive to know the rules, so you don't know them. You think you hit it 260 yards, so you can drop it 260 yards out wherever you like. So you do. And you play from there. That's DQ. Your ignorance just cost you disqualification. There is ample incentive to know the rules. Sure, once you have broken them you're better off not knowing you broke them, but if you don't know the rules you're much more likely to break them, which will make you much worse off in the end. Especially than in that one in a million scenario where you did the wrong thing, weren't called out on it at the time, signed your card and handed it in and then it somehow came to light that you had done the wrong thing and you would avoid the additional penalty. 

How many people do you know who have ever been disqualified or had an additional two stroke penalty for signing for the wrong score? Please stick to people you actually know and either saw or heard about this happening. I can think of one example of that and that was because the person in question had erased a score and replaced it - his marker saw his score was lower than the card he had signed and asked about it. They found out what had happened and if memory serves he was kicked out of the club. That would have had the same outcome in 2019 as it did at the time (mid-90s). It never happens. If you think anyone is going to be better off being ignorant of the rules, then I think your irritation at this rule is clouding your judgement.

[iacas]

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

My problem with that first bit was that I had discussed the other alternative (that they get caught) and had stated that in 30 years of playing golf I had never heard of that happening to anyone other than players on the television.

And I've seen it happen - or could have happened - multiple times.

But those possibilities are a distraction. The new rules encourage and incentivize ignorance. If you have a question about a possible rules breach, there's little to nothing to be gained by asking and educating yourself. It's better to stay silent.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Therefore I consider that so unlikely to happen that it's not even worth worrying about.

Your 30 years of experience is under an entirely different set of circumstances. Circumstances where the additional penalty, for most of the time, was being DQed! Now there's going to be no additional penalty at all.

I'm not responding to your hypothetical, because each of us can create infinite hypotheticals. The simple fact remains that the new rules incentivize and reward ignorance and/or lying to claim ignorance.

If a player hits a ball into a water hazard and claims to have made a five when he should have scored a six, taking advantage of the fact that the 12-year-olds and their parents he's playing with don't know the rules very well or weren't paying much attention, then that kid has gotten away with outright cheating. And if someone asks about it later, well, he just gets the score he actually got. Nothing more, because he claims ignorance.

See? I can create examples too. The examples really don't mean shit.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

There is ample incentive to know the rules.

I disagree.

There's incentive, in 2019, to know some rules. There's also incentive to play dumb, and not ask, in many other situations. That's a reversal. In 2018, it was beneficial to ask. In 2019, it's not.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Sure, once you have broken them you're better off not knowing you broke them, but if you don't know the rules you're much more likely to break them, which will make you much worse off in the end.

They're not mutually exclusive, particularly since you can simply claim that you didn't know the rule should you be "caught."

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

How many people do you know who have ever been disqualified or had an additional two stroke penalty for signing for the wrong score?

Once again, the frequency is largely irrelevant. The Rules seek to cover all situations, not just the ones you think are likely to happen.

If you want a number, let's pretend I say 100. Or 1,000. Or 5. The number doesn't change my point.

3 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

That would have had the same outcome in 2019 as it did at the time (mid-90s). It never happens.

You're just making up another example, which again I could easily counter if I wanted to. Pointless.

My judgment is fine, and the game of golf is worse off in 2019 than it was before. Once again:

1 hour ago, iacas said:

It's pretty simple:

• Before, there was incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there was a direct additional penalty if you're "caught" either being ignorant or trying to cheat.
• Now, there's virtually no incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there's no additional penalty, so if you're ignorant or trying to cheat, you may as well try as there's tremendous upside.

For example: Let's assume you commit a breach of the Rules. In 2018, the Rules encourage you to find out if you incurred a penalty and write down the proper score because you're risking getting extra strokes added if you don't put the score down correctly. But in 2019, you'd be "wise" to not even ask, because once you ask, you can't claim that the penalty is "unknown," and worst case is that you just get the penalty strokes you actually incurred with nothing else added. Best case… you get to write down a 4 instead of a 5 or a 6.

The former rules encouraged golfers to educate themselves, by asking questions. The new rules encourage them to remain ignorant.

Still pretty simple.

[rehmwa]

As the premise here is essentially people will cheat (or at least slack off) if there's a loophole to exploit - it will be interesting to see how this plays out in reality -  (I believe the premise, sadly, but wonder about the extent of the response)

not on the pro tour really (when there are TV crews watching every breath, it's likely not a huge deal) but for local and school and college type scenarios - hopefully we have several coaches and tourney players here that share their stories about not only their competition, but also their own team members and mentees (one is skeptical when every example is about the 'other' guys).

Edited October 26, 2018 by rehmwa

[iacas]

10 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

As the premise here is essentially people will cheat (or at least slack off) if there's a loophole to exploit - it will be interesting to see how this plays out in reality -  (I believe the premise, sadly, but wonder about the extent of the response)

That's not the premise. Not the entire premise, anyway.

I think a big part of the premise is that players now lack the incentives they once had to learn the rules, or if they have a situation, to ask questions.

There aren't many DQ-able penalties in golf. Playing from a wrong place that involves a serious breach is one of the few. So the risk is pretty small, with the upside that you can claim ignorance and may get away with it.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

It's pretty simple:

• Before, there was incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there was a direct additional penalty if you're "caught" either being ignorant or trying to cheat.
• Now, there's virtually no incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there's no additional penalty, so if you're ignorant or trying to cheat, you may as well try as there's tremendous upside.

For example: Let's assume you commit a breach of the Rules. In 2018, the Rules encourage you to find out if you incurred a penalty and write down the proper score because you're risking getting extra strokes added if you don't put the score down correctly. But in 2019, you'd be "wise" to not even ask, because once you ask, you can't claim that the penalty is "unknown," and worst case is that you just get the penalty strokes you actually incurred with nothing else added. Best case… you get to write down a 4 instead of a 5 or a 6.

The former rules encouraged golfers to educate themselves, by asking questions. The new rules encourage them to remain ignorant.

[JxQx]

I feel like this change in rules further pushes golf away from a "self policing sport". It's pretty hard to self police if you don't know what you are policing for.

[Ty_Webb]

19 minutes ago, iacas said:

There aren't many DQ-able penalties in golf. Playing from a wrong place that involves a serious breach is one of the few. So the risk is pretty small, with the upside that you can claim ignorance and may get away with it.

It doesn’t happen very often because people know the rules. The risk of being DQ’d because you didn’t know the rules seems like a pretty good incentive to learn them. And a reason that even a morally questionable college coach should give his players rules education. 

Let me put it this way. I plan to spend some time over the next couple of months learning the new rules. The thought that ignorance about them might save me in some weird situation does not give me pause. Personally I think I’d have to be a complete moron to not do so. So many opportunities to get it wrong if you don’t know them. 

And if someone said “hey my ball is embedded. I get a drop now!” And then claimed they didn’t know how to drop for a hazard (or whatever they’re going to be called) I would tell them to go jump in a lake and f:(& off while they were about it. 

1 hour ago, iacas said:

 taking advantage of the fact that the 12-year-olds and their parents he's playing with don't know the rules very well or weren't paying much attention, then that kid has gotten away with outright cheating.

If I didn’t know any better I’d say that was a pretty good incentive for those 12 year olds to know the rules better. 

[iacas]

@Ty_Webb, you're losing the plot, and "selectively quoting" while ignoring the parts you don't like.

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

The risk of being DQ’d because you didn’t know the rules seems like a pretty good incentive to learn them.

There aren't many DQ-able penalties. That risk is low.

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

And a reason that even a morally questionable college coach should give his players rules education.

Nope. I could save my guys a bunch of shots in a year if I selectively educated them on some of the Rules but not others, and what situations they should ask about and when they should remain "ignorant."

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

Let me put it this way. I plan to spend some time over the next couple of months learning the new rules. The thought that ignorance about them might save me in some weird situation does not give me pause. Personally I think I’d have to be a complete moron to not do so. So many opportunities to get it wrong if you don’t know them.

Sample size of one. Cool beans.

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

And if someone said “hey my ball is embedded. I get a drop now!” And then claimed they didn’t know how to drop for a hazard (or whatever they’re going to be called) I would tell them to go jump in a lake and f:(& off while they were about it.

That situation isn't covered by this Rule if you're in the group with them, and if you're not in the group with them and they've turned in their scorecard, sorry, but "I didn't know" covers them.

9 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

If I didn’t know any better I’d say that was a pretty good incentive for those 12 year olds to know the rules better. 

The other ones, maybe. But again, as Dave says above… golf is moving further from self policing and closer to being refereed.

Which is sad.

2 hours ago, iacas said:

It's pretty simple:

• Before, there was incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there was a direct additional penalty if you're "caught" either being ignorant or trying to cheat.
• Now, there's virtually no incentive to know and follow the Rules of Golf, because there's no additional penalty, so if you're ignorant or trying to cheat, you may as well try as there's tremendous upside.

For example: Let's assume you commit a breach of the Rules. In 2018, the Rules encourage you to find out if you incurred a penalty and write down the proper score because you're risking getting extra strokes added if you don't put the score down correctly. But in 2019, you'd be "wise" to not even ask, because once you ask, you can't claim that the penalty is "unknown," and worst case is that you just get the penalty strokes you actually incurred with nothing else added. Best case… you get to write down a 4 instead of a 5 or a 6.

The former rules encouraged golfers to educate themselves, by asking questions. The new rules encourage them to remain ignorant.

[Ty_Webb]

11 minutes ago, iacas said:

There aren't many DQ-able penalties. That risk is low.

Do you think if you took someone off the street who knew nothing of the rules whatsoever that they could play a round of golf without being disqualified? I don’t. It’s rare because people know the rules. That isn’t changing. 

[iacas]

And I'm the selective quoter??? :)

You've got no proof that "that isn't changing." Particularly given that the rules regarding knowing the rules haven't changed yet, and may be a driver of that change. Meanwhile, I have evidence to support the possibility that it already has changed. Hell, I've played golf with parents who don't know the rules and get into heated arguments, or scream at people, when they're told what the rules are. Kids, as far as I can tell, know the rules far less than they did when I played as a junior. Cheaters aren't shunned like they once were.

But that's all beside the point. A point you still seem to be missing.

[Ty_Webb]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

And I'm the selective quoter??? :)

You've got no proof that "that isn't changing." Particularly given that the rules regarding knowing the rules haven't changed yet, and may be a driver of that change. Meanwhile, I have evidence to support the possibility that it already has changed. Hell, I've played golf with parents who don't know the rules and get into heated arguments, or scream at people, when they're told what the rules are. Kids, as far as I can tell, know the rules far less than they did when I played as a junior. Cheaters aren't shunned like they once were.

But that's all beside the point. A point you still seem to be missing.

The point seems to me to be that you think there is an incentive not to learn the rules. I agree there appears to be an incentive to claim you don’t know the rules. We will see how that turns out though. I still think there is ample incentive to learn them. 

As to what you say about parents screaming at people when told what the rules are I invite you to read again what I said I would have to be to play the game without learning the rules. 

The “that isn’t changing” comment was referring to the fact that people who know the rules aren’t likely to get themselves DQ’d for breaking them. Didn’t think I’d have to provide citations for that. 

[iacas]

I don't think that's the point I've been trying to make.

For now I'm actually done, so please don't quote or reply to me in this line of discussion. We've lost sight of the forest for the trees.

[DrMJG]

"I did not know it was against the rules" is something a miscreant 5th grader would say. 

When I heard a high school soccer player give that line to me, when I was a referee, my answer would be,"Well, now you do!"

[Ty_Webb]

So I started reading through the new rules. Figured now is as good a time as any. I read this as I went through in the section about matchplay:

Quote

 

(2) Telling Opponent About Penalty. When a player gets a penalty:

• The player must tell the opponent about that penalty as soon as reasonably possible, taking into account how near the player is to the opponent and other practical factors.

• This requirement applies even if the player does not know about the penalty (because players are expected to recognize when they have breached a Rule).

If the player fails to do so and does not correct that mistake before the opponent makes another stroke or takes a similar action (such as conceding the player’s next stroke or the hole), the player gets the general penalty (loss of hole).

 

The second bullet is the part I thought was interesting. I bolded it. Seems like in matchplay not knowing about a penalty will still get you a loss of hole penalty even if you don't know about it. Makes me wonder if the text of the other rule is really what they meant.

iacas - I am neither replying to you nor quoting you and I didn't reference you here either.

[iacas]

42 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

So I started reading through the new rules. Figured now is as good a time as any. I read this as I went through in the section about matchplay:

The second bullet is the part I thought was interesting. I bolded it. Seems like in matchplay not knowing about a penalty will still get you a loss of hole penalty even if you don't know about it. Makes me wonder if the text of the other rule is really what they meant.

Yes, that's yet another place in the Rules where they emphasize that players should know and play by the Rules. Yet then the exception is so vague with the word "unknown." The new Decisions manual, the "Interpretations," doesn't go any further on that either. Every reference to "unknown" in the Interpretations is about an unknown location for a ball.

42 minutes ago, Ty_Webb said:

iacas - I am neither replying to you nor quoting you and I didn't reference you here either.

Until there! 🙂 Look you seemed to care way too much, IMO, about the frequency of this type of thing, and perhaps even blissfully unaware of how often players actually breach the rules without knowing it. You also seem to give too much weight to a history where most of the time, failing to know the Rules could result in a DQ, and only recently still two additional strokes, and under-value how much removing the additional penalties could change how people treat those types of situations.

You get to have your opinion, though, and I get to have mine. Let's start over, though, in a way:

---

I have a question for you, anyone who thinks this was a "good" change: what was gained by removing the additional penalty? How do you feel that removing a two-stroke penalty for writing down the incorrect score and failing in your responsibility to know the rules and apply them correctly - or at least to ask when you're not certain (asking removes any chance of later claiming it's "unknown") - benefits golf as a whole?

I strongly encourage you to do a few things, too:

• Do not to concoct scenarios, as that is the worst way to debate things like this (I can create an entirely different scenario that supports my point).
• Don't consider "TV viewer call-ins" or anything like that, as that was handled separately.
• Also don't consider something like the Anna Nordqvist "grains of sand" HD/zoomed in thing, as the Rules now state things have to be discernible with the naked eye.

So, the simple question is this: how is golf better off now with no additional penalty for a situation where someone either fails to know the rules and apply them before signing their card or knowingly cheats and lies to say they didn't know them than it was before when they paid the relatively small additional penalty for their ignorance and/or cheating?

How is golf better off now?

Because I can't see it.

If nothing else, and if you understand how this mechanism of the Rules works - just this piece here - any time you're in a rules situation where you think you might have incurred a penalty but you're not sure, you'd do well for yourself to not ask for help or ask a question, because if you did incur a penalty, you might get away with it and, worst case, you will just get the penalty you actually incurred.

The old DQ or two-additional-strokes penalties encouraged golfers to get the information and thus their scores correct. The new rule encourages ignorance (whether real or merely claimed).

[chspeed]

13 minutes ago, iacas said:

How is golf better off now?

 

 

On 10/26/2018 at 2:23 PM, iacas said:

There's incentive, in 2019, to know some rules. There's also incentive to play dumb, and not ask, in many other situations. That's a reversal. In 2018, it was beneficial to ask. In 2019, it's not.

I can think of one positive change, which you already referenced above. This new rule discourages asking for a referee. In watching a lot of tournaments this year, I was amazed at how often players called a referee at any sign of trouble (ball in hazard, near grandstands, etc.). Inevitably, there is a delay of at least 15 minutes as they wait for a referee, ask painstaking questions, etc.

Speeding up the TV game would be a good thing.

On balance, however, I think this rule is a negative.

Edited October 29, 2018 by chspeed

[Ty_Webb]

I guess my issue is I don't know how this is actually going to be applied in practice. It seems very odd to me that you would get a general penalty in matchplay where you didn't know that something was a penalty, but not in strokeplay. That makes me wonder if there is something that I'm missing in the strokeplay bit. I don't know. I emailed the USGA to ask them the question. Will let you know what I hear back. 

For what it's worth, if I was the committee and someone claimed they didn't know that a water hazard was a penalty stroke when they signed their card, then I would say that they should have known and the rules say that a player has a responsibility to know the rules, so the exception doesn't apply and they would be disqualified. I may even put something in the conditions of competition that included a comment like "any time that you have ball in hand during the play of a hole, you should confirm with the committee before signing your card that penalty strokes have been applied correctly". If anyone doesn't do that, then I think the exception to the exception would apply and I would disqualify them for not including a penalty. 

[iacas]

4 minutes ago, chspeed said:

I can think of one positive change, which you already referenced above. This new rule discourages asking for a referee. In watching a lot of tournaments this year, I was amazed at how often players called a referee at any sign of trouble (ball in hazard, near grandstands, etc.). Inevitably, there is a delay of at least 15 minutes as they wait for a referee, ask painstaking questions, etc.

Proceeding without knowing what's going on is not a positive!

5 minutes ago, chspeed said:

Speeding up the TV game would be a good thing.

I should have added another bullet point:

• Don't consider just one type of golf, like the golf you see on TV. These rules affect ALL of golf.

8 minutes ago, chspeed said:

On balance, however, I think this rule is a negative.

As do I.

I can see how people thought an outright DQ was too harsh, but two strokes seemed like an appropriate penalty, to me, for failing to uphold your responsibility to know and play by the Rules.