Rule Book
| Paying The Unplayable Price | |
| The good news is that you've found your ball. The bad news is that no matter how you stand, swing or hold the club, you can't possibly hit the ball without danger of making the situation even worse than it already is.This, unfortunately, is an unplayable lie. What do you do?The first thing is to declare it unplayable. Then, you have some options. First, you can -- under the penalty of one stroke...
Read more >> | |
| Ask First, Shoot Last | |
| The whole Dustin Johnson episode -- bunker or not -- begs the question: If he was in doubt, why didn't he ask?It's a cautionary tale that we can all take heed, whether we play at the highest level or not. Johnson had the luxury of having a walking Rules official with his pairing, which would have solved the problem before it started, had he availed himself of the privilege.All he had to do was...
Read more >> | |
| Loose Impediments | |
| Brian Davis was loudly hailed for doing the right thing at the Verizon Heritage when he called a penalty on himself for touching a loose impediment in a hazard on the first playoff hole, which he lost to Jim Furyk. Bobby Jones said, “You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.” What Davis did was laudable and all good things should come to him as a result. But he did what golfers...
Read more >> | |
| Wrong Ball | |
| It would appear that playing your own ball would be a simple matter. You know the brand and you know the number on your ball. But unless you exchange information about your ball with your playing companions, you run the risk of having two people in the group with the same brand and number.The penalty for hitting a wrong ball is two strokes in stroke play and loss of hole in...
Read more >> | |
| The Case Against Stroke and Distance | |
| It's the most reviled of the Rules of Golf: the penalty for hitting a ball out of bounds or for a lost ball. In no other situation in the game are you forced to suffer such a harsh penalty. If you rinse one in the creek or a pond, you are hit with a one-stroke penalty, but you don't lose the distance you've covered. Hit one OB or lose one and it's like a two-stroke penalty. If the truth be known,...
Read more >> |  |
| More Articles >> | |
