Ruler

Sounds bizarre. There is a prohibition but no penalty. I can understand that touching the flagstick was not recommended (as it was around here), especially as the current Rules allow keeping it in, but prohibiting removal of it is just silly, especially as there was no penalty. Btw, may I ask how did you manage the trolleys? If it was not allowed to touch any 'public stuff' then the trolleys of the course must have been out of use, must they not?

By talking trash yourself? That is certainly one way but is it the right way?

Yes, that is one way and it is allowed if done without touching anything in the other player's bag.

I'd say sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. But the Rule must apply to both cases.

That is how I see it as well.

And for a good reason. Excellent change. What if there are 4 players on a par3 and players 1 and 2 have already played their shots and player 1 asks player 2 what club did he use and he responds. If players 3 and 4 hear his response is that a breach and if so, by whom?

Not allowed to take the flagstick out? What would be the penalty for doing it?

There are Rules that I have never even heard having been invoked/breached. Yet they have been included in the Rules of Golf.

Spirit of the game may be hard to prove for a person who has not understood it, or to say it better, has not embraced it. Talking a little s**t may be ok in your group but in a seriously taken competition among strangers that just might not be ok. The way I see this game of golf is that you let the others do their things when it is their turn to play and it is not my place to comment on how difficult situation they have at hand. Apparently you and I have a different view on this and that is just fine, it is a question of opinion. Until the referee steps in, when it is a question of his/her opinion and no longer ours...

It is but it is extremely theoretical. Picture an out of bounds line making a 90 degree turn to left and the green is to the left of the white corner stake. The player hits his ball so that it is leaning against that corner stake. That ball is now in bounds but moving the ball to any direction it will be closer to hole than it is now. The player makes a swing at the ball and misses. Now the player cannot take stroke and distance, and back on the line or 2 cl's sideways would render the ball either out of bounds or closer to hole.

Rule 14.7b(1) tells us what is the outcome IF that is a Serious Breach, it does not define SB as such. However, I would tend to agree with you that it would be a SB based on the description you gave in your opening post. To be sure one needs to be at the scene so all this is hypothetical.

There are many Rules where intent is the key, such as deliberately or accidentally deflecting / stopping a moving ball, or putting a ball in play, or starting a hole. Maybe you will explain to me what you meant with your comment as I do not understand it. Nor have I ran into such a person (have heard of some such individuals, though...) but this is simply a discussion about potential need for such a Rule. I have not yet seen anything that could have been classified as serious misconduct either but here we are, there is a separate sub-rule to deal with it as well as a tool for the Committee to deal with minor misconducts as well. Apparently there has been a need for it. Are you seriously comparing sports like football, ice hockey, basket ball or soccer with golf?? Sports where players try to do as much wrong as they can without being detected?? Yes, I have played all most common sports and many of them on a competitive level, and there are sports in which players respect the opponent(s) and only concentrate on their own performance (snooker, pool, tennis, table tennis, etc.) and then there are those in which you try to shake your opponent(s) with anything you can. Golf belongs to the former and I cannot imagine one competitor trying to verbally shake another, that just does not belong to competitive golf. You can exercise it among your pals and we do that as well but never ever in a competition.

Indeed it can be but that cannot be an obstacle for making an act a breach. At least it has not been so far. As I have said quite a few times before, I am not talking about a single comment but continuous and deliberate verbal acts aimed at making another player to make bad shots. The way I see it such behavior does not belong to a golf competition, or on a golf course in general, for that matter. But I guess we are done here. We all have our own opinions on this and that is only fair.

I am rather surprised by that comment. There are various points in the Rules of Golf where intent matters and in every case the intent has to be verified in order to reach the correct ruling. That is nothing new or extraordinary.

So after every comment aimed to distract or disturb you you would just step back and compose yourself? How many times would you do it before it would make you mad? Ok, I am done with this. I have never experienced any such behavior on the course described in the original post so I have no problem if there is a Rule or not.

I always have had the understanding that the Local Rule about stones in bunkers was in place to protect players and bystanders from injury. Due to 1.1.2019 change various professional tours around the world expressed their desire to have that LR available again but the Ruling Bodies did not yield for reasons I personally cannot comprehend. After all, such a LR used to be allowed and very widely used, for that matter, so why no longer? Interestingly enough, there is a Model Local Rule F-9 granting free relief from tree roots on or close to the fairway. It can be seen as a safety issue or a fairness issue or both. Sounds pretty close to the issue of stones in bunkers to me.

This is the original question: 'My question is..is there any rule where a competitor can't talk smack on his competition's shot before they hit it like, "that out of bounds is deadly, or man I hope you don't hit it into the water," right before their competition hits? If this isn't the case this is the one time I think a rule needs to be added for a competition!' If that 'talk' is done in order to distract/disturb another competitor it is in my eyes equivalent with any other non-physical act with the same intention. So, the question lies whether there should be a Rule to make it punishable, or if CoC with 1.2a can do the trick. I certainly wonder why some posters seem to be reluctant to have tools to solve the original poster's question.

You are partly right, I was merely making a point. The core issue taken up by the original poster is behavior that is experienced distracting. I have simply wanted to create some sort of solution to the problem. It is my opinion that no player should deliberately behave in a way that another player experiences distracting.

I already did.

So, if a player continuously coughs, shouts or claps hands when another player is hitting their ball with the intention of causing that player to shoot poorly there is nothing in the Rules to make him stop nor should there be? Is that what you guys are saying? It is very fortunate that such situations occur extremely seldom. Also serious misconducts occur very very seldom and yet there is a Rule how to handle such situations. Furthermore the Committee has been given tools in the form of Code of Conduct to address less severe misconduct as well. Why should purposeful distracting and disturbing of other competitors be fenced out?

saevel, I think you are arguing just for the fun of it. We are not talking about chatting or random nasty remarks but actual deliberate and continuous disturbing of another player that should not be tolerated. And I am not going to define 'disturbing' as everyone knows when they are being disturbed. But I have a question for you. How many times have you asked a player as a referee of their motives when trying to give a ruling? Have you found that to be helpful or not? If not, why?

There are situations when a subjective call is needed as not everything is black and white and that is the task of the referee / Committee. I am by far not suggesting this would be an easy call but if the alternative is to tolerate such disrespectful conduct towards another player with no means to stop it I think my proposal is much better than no proposal at all. And once more, asking the player their motives is a magnificent tool and solves lots of tricky situations. Oh, and to your examples: I would tell the player to be more discrete as golf is a gentleman's game. I am rather convinced that would help.

How do you define a serious misconduct? There are some guidelines but a referee / Committee will have to make a judgement call in any case. It is not easy, especially when one is talking about disqualification. It is not seldom a referee has to ask a player questions in order to come to a conclusion. One of the questions is 'why did you do that?'. That would be the way to solve this issue as well. Also I believe that when a player is being confronted for their behavior that behavior most often changes. It is not about using a tool but it is all about having the tool.

In my mind the Code of Conduct could be written something like this: 'Any less than casual and repeating remarks aimed to distract another player would be considered as misconduct. Such behavior can lead to a penalty.' A person may be irritating by nature to another person due to human features but any distracting done on purpose does not belong to the golf course, as far as I can see it and there are means in the Rules to stop such behavior. Besides, the penalty need not be DQ and that is what the Code of Conduct is all about. A player may be penalized with 2 strokes or a loss of hole when a breach described in the Code occurs. Without the Code only DQ is possible and that would be a hard call.

Why not? After all, if the purpose of a player is to distract other players it very much sounds like misconduct and when repeated could be subjected to a penalty. At least it should be. The easiest way to get rid of such behavior is to write it down in the Code of Conduct of the competition. Easy to add and easy to implement, Rule 1.2a.