tdiii

Right??? It's a total mystery. My best guess would be teens who have failed to steal balls from Daddy's bag. I'd say, "Aren't you going to fix that?" Or, "Are you really a douche bag?"

Except that is not true either. I am a member at an equity club now and was a member at another in my area several years ago. Sadly, I still find myself fixing ball marks. Maybe there's an entitlement thing -- I pay the greenskeepers, they can fix it. I don't really have a good theory for it. I also want to find the @ssholes who won't rake bunkers and take range balls out on the course. Both are at my club -- I haven't seen them in the act. I want to push for hidden cameras and nail some of these jerks.

I think the flaw here is how the rules of golf operate. I understand the rule here and generally appreciate rules that are black and white, as are the rules of golf. But because of that black and white nature, combined with the reality of tournament golf and video review, you get these kind of situations. One wonders if it would be better to have these issues go to the rules committee to decide, based on the available evidence (a) did the player gain an advantage?, or (b) was the infraction intentional? If either is the case, then the penalty is assessed. There are judgment calls in every other sport and they all seem to survive with them. The solution I just outlined is anything but perfect -- you introduce human judgment into the mix, and you exacerbate the problem of delayed rulings. It would be interesting, at the very least, to experiment with a policy like this. It could well make things worse but we don't really know without trying things out.

Yup. Our 17th hole is 190 downhill. A couple of months ago I sh@nked one right into the lake next to the green. I re-teed and left it on the lip. And was, like you, strangely relieved.

I almost holed out off the tee on a par 3 -- for par. Yes, I kind of live in fear that I will never have a HIO, but will hole out my par attempt after re-teeing following a calamity off the tee.

I play at Fountaingrove Golf and CC, a private club in Santa Rosa, CA. I probably play 80% of my rounds there, and then play other private and public courses the remainder of the time. We recently dropped the food and beverage minimum -- the club's management wants to see food and bev stand on its own feet or go away. Apparently, that is the trend these days.

I don't see a place for it in the Olympics. The Olympics should be the pinnacle of any sport -- and, yes, to me, this would suggest tennis, soccer/football, and basketball really don't belong. Additionally, coverage, at least in the U.S., will be cr@ppy. I am hopeful it is a positive for the women's game, but it is silly for the men's game.

Too slow a thug to lay a mitt on Johnny Hockey. He's on the downside and was a liability to L.A. both because of degrading skills and because he spends too much time in the penalty box. A shame to saddle McDavid with him.

And Bergevin will rue this trade. It is inexplicable. This locker room guy stuff is myth, urban legend, horsecrap. There's never been any proof that a locker room guy leaving causes the team he leaves to get worse and the team he joins to get better -- independent of his skills. In any sport. Same is true of locker room "cancers". What makes for a good locker room? Winning. What makes for a poor locker room? Losing. In just about every metric there is, Montreal gave up a better player for a worse player. And an older one to boot. Even if we assume they are similar players now, where will they be in three years?? I have no dog in this fight -- just a Sharks fan watching this in disbelief -- and, perhaps, dismay as my team never would have gotten past Nashville without Weber's contributions. Weber played with Josi last year -- who does he get in Montreal??

Still just shaking my head at the two terrrible trades by Edmonton and Montreal. What if, instead, Edmonton just traded Hall to Montreal for Subban? Edmonton gets its defenseman -- and a superstar at that -- and Montreal gets real value in exchange.

Twitter is annhihalitng the Habs for this trade. Rightly so. You folks who are finding a way to justify the trade should read this article, which lies out in precise detail all the reasons it makes sense: http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2016/6/29/12061824/a-justification-for-the-p-k-subban-vs-shea-weber-trade-what-the-****-is-going-on

Stunned to see the Subban trade. Webber was pretty much exposed by the Sharks as being a liability defensively (conceding I don't watch the Preds day in and day out and he could have been hurt or something). Giving up Subban for an older guy who already is on the down side just strikes me as nuts. I have to wonder if there's something going on behind the scenes. Habs nation in full meltdown mode: http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2016/6/29/12061540/pk-subban-trade-analysis-shea-weber-montreal-canadiens-worst-trade-ever-fire-bergevin

http://www.gamegolf.com/player/tdiii/round/1006283 Good round for me. I shot under my handicap. Sadly, I lost my match 2 down. First hole (I started on 2) was a total wheels off disaster. After that, I played great (for me).

In a matchplay situation?

The rule was not expressly waived -- I think if I'd asked it would have been but I did not. I posted the 6 on the hole.

I'm guessing the average tour pro would have it it 350 then. Thank goodness for downhill par 4s. DJ averages 310 off the tee but his longest drive is 400. My 240/300 split doesn't look so bad does it? I'm good with there not being virtual certainty. There's a couple of small trees and a few big rocks in the area between the two fairways. It certainly is possible the other group didn't play my ball -- although very likely someone did. The rules official is the club pro back at the clubhouse so there's no real way to get a ruling at the time in what are supposed to be friendly matches. I think my opponent would have given me the drop if I asked, but I just took it straight back to the tee.

Actually, we don't know that DJ broke the rule as written. You surmise he broke the rule based on a 51% preponderence of the evidence standard. It is absolutely possible that something else caused the ball to move and we'll never know for sure.

"Virtual certainty". . . It certainly wasn't known, because the place the ball should have ended up is blind from the tee. By the time we teed off and got down there, the group playing the other hole was hitting from the rough and the other balls were still visible, so we didn't even bother to ask. Only after they hit and we inspected the area and couldn't fine my ball did we ask them and they were on their green putting. I'm not sure what "virtual" certainty is but it, in theory, my ball could have disappeared down a hole or just taken a funny hop and we never saw it, so I think I played it right. I actually think it cuts against me a bit that there were 2 balls down there after the other guys hit. Presumably they saw multiple balls down there and were more careful about identifying. When I get to an area with just one ball, I can get lazy about identifying. When I find 2 or 3 balls then I'm going to be extra careful.

Further facts: We did not see my ball come to rest, so did not affirmatively see someone else hit my ball. Just in case that was not crystal clear. I hadn't bothered to hit a provisional because the ball was hit to an area where one would always find it. Wrestling the guys on the green was an option, but I'm a lover not a fighter. [Yes, if I'm playing a match among my buddies, I think we would all allow a drop without penalty even if money was on the line.]

I'm saying, "who cares if it moves, if the movement is caused by an unintentional act, and the movement did not create any material advantage?" What we saw Sunday. And I'm making the larger point that strict adherence to the rule makes the game look silly. Now you are creating a different situation that is not before us. I understand the purpose of the rule. I understand that all rules lead to results no one comtemplated. I'm not outraged -- I just know the USGA and rules gurus look silly to commonsense viewers. You can continue with the insults if you wish, but that won't change this reality.

And you continue to make my point. EVERY rule, statute, regulation, etc. leads to absurd results under certain circumstances. Do you just continue blindly applying them, or do you take a step back and think about why we have the rule? You'd blindly apply them.

I'm playing a match the other night. I pull hook my iron off the tee. We get down to the adjacent fairway (the hole goes the opposite direction) and find 2 balls in the light rough, neither of which is mine. There is a group on the green. We scour the rough between the two fairways to no avail. We ask the players playing the other hole if they have might have hit the wrong ball. They sort of ignore us and don't engage but then claim they all have their own balls. My ball remains MIA. My opponent and his partner both say they think the other group is lying because one of them probably hit my ball and doesn't want to fess up and take the 2 shot penalty in their match (the other group is playing a match as well). I decide to take the cautious approach and drive back to the tee to re-hit (where I busted a 304 yard drive per Game Golf!). I take a 6 on the hole and lose it to my opponent. Given the evidence, and my opponents' statements that they think the other team hit my ball, could I have dropped where we thought my ball was and played from there?

I explained my reasoning. It is unfair to be penalized when there was no advantage gained, particularly through an inadvertent act (assuming the preponderence of the evidence suggests it was his act). Yes, there's a judgment element to it. But we have judgment elements throughout the rules of golf. The larger point is this sort of myopic reasoning makes the game look silly.

Highlighted because you are merely making my point for me, wandering down the rabbit hole of rules triviality, rather than looking at the policy. Why do we have the rule? Since we have a judgment involved in the rule's application, why not have some judgment in when the rule is applied too? . As far as DJ would it have been different if, say, it was Bubba or some other annoying person? Maybe. But that's not really relevant.

For purposes of discussion, let's grant that the ruling on 5 was proper. There's a pretty healthy disagreement there, but whatever. Folks have a pretty good innate sense of fairness; of what is or is not an advantage, and of what's right and wrong. A ball wobbles and a golfer doesn't get any advantage whatsoever -- I'm hopeful we could agree in this situation DJ received no advantage. The larger problem here is how myopic and picayune the rules are and how stuffy the USGA and rules nazis appear. This type of situation just opens up golf to ridicule. And the fact that the USGA does not seem able to take a step back and recognize this absurdity only exacerbates the problem. In the legal world, when strict interpretation of a statute leads to truly absurd results, more often than not, the courts take a step back and look at the policy that is being forwarded with that statute. Why did we enact this law? If the application of that law in a particular set of circumstance is absurd the courts will not enforce it. Instead, the courts will try to fashion a proper remedy. Now, there's lots to be criticized about such judicial activism (a never-ending debate we won't resolve here). But both liberal and conservative judges and justices do it on a regular basis. (Of course, each side of the aisle blames the other while asserting it is not guilty of it.) My point: 99% of the viewing public sees the situation and thinks a rules infraction is simply absurd. Had this cost DJ a championship, I think the game would truly have suffered. There needs to be some ability on the part of the Rules Committee to look to commonsense fairness. Yes, I understand the issues with that -- but in this situation, it does not appear anyone in the field would have assessed DJ the penalty. The very people who we protect with the rules, who have the most to gain by application of a rule, would not have applied it here. Until the rules gurus out there are ready to recognize the absurdity and unfairness in the application of picayune rules, the game will always be the subject of ridicule and, really, scorn.