What is the one rule you wish could be changed

[Hawkeye77]

It's been a few years since I saw someone actually vain enough and arrogant enough to take after someone based on a post/like ratio - that asshat got banned eventually, but you take the cake.

This will go over your head, but all here lost their likes in the changeover, including the person you are taking after. Number of comments from the beginning of time still there. Many of us had well over 10,000 vanish, lol, again including the person you think you are showing up. And most really don't worry about it at all, but it's a fact you should appreciate and I wouldn't have ever even talked about it but for the pure idiocy of that post.

Just go away.

 

[Hawkeye77]

 

Always great to hear from folks who have truly been there! I have not, but . . .

When we were at The Masters in 2016 we had several opportunities to see Bernhard very up close and of course made a "study" of his putting from up close and with the long range zoom from a little farther away. At least on the days we saw him - nope! Isolated examples maybe, but off my ass and actually observing him so I can speak to those observations.

Just nothing about the guy and his approach to the game to suggest he's intentionally cheating, which is what one person on here in particular who has demonstrated NO INTELLIGENCE WHATSOEVER towards understanding the actual rule and has nothing else to add other than "I say so". But like in other threads he enjoys the trolling.

Oh well.

[LICC]

I know this discussion is way beyond you, so I’ll try to simplify again. No one has said Langer is intentionally cheating. I’m saying the rule is terribly worded and construed, and Langer has chosen a technique that pushes the boundary of the principle of the rule in a questionable way. I wouldn’t want to play against someone who pushes the rule like that.
Also to @isaacbm ’s comment, the definitions in golf’s rules have no bearing on the absurdity of distance penalties.

[antip]

If I put something up that I later realize is really stupid, should I get excited if it gets lots of likes?

[Vindog]

That basically sums it up for me since June 2011.

[isaacbm]

Let me try to explain to you the logic of stroke and distance. In the game of golf, there are various “dangers” that the architect is using to create challenge and difficulty in the game. When standing on a teeing ground, a player is supposed to understand which potential danger out in front of him pose the greatest threat. Based on that, he decides to play the hole a certain way. A penalty area is worse than a bunker for example. A bunker generally is worse than short green side rough, out of bounds is the worst of all. The reason you get penalized more severely for OB is because it is an integral part of the game (“danger”)that you were supposed to avoid. A red stake penalty area is a section of the course that MIGHT offer you an opportunity to still go for the green, or it might present a situation where you’ll be forced to take a drop. The uncertainty of it is the point. The randomness is part of the game. Because there are potentially different outcomes when you hit into a penalty area the very definition of that means that it is not as severe as the OB.

One is deemed to be MORE SEVERE (by definition!) than the other therefore you are given a greater penalty.

The point is that you don’t know before you hit the shot whether or not you will be, as you said,”at the bottom of a pond” or possibly maybe just inside the red line with a clear shot at the green. That possibility pre-shot makes a red staked penalty area less penal then OB. The architect is saying that if there is a red penalty area on one side of the hole and an out of bounds area on the other side of the hole it is more prudent for you to air towards the one that gives you the least penalty. If they were the exact same then there would be no strategic advantage for the player.

 

If every single penalty area was a deep pond that 100% of the time that your ball entered you could not ever play the shot or have any opportunity to advance it then that would be the same as OB. But they are not the same because of the potential for you to be able to hit out of the penalty area.

Potential is something that happens before the shot, not after it. The potential is what makes one “danger“ worse than the other “danger“.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sui generis]

Nice try, but LICC will soon show up and proceed to explain the game of golf to you and how your misguided understanding of the awful Rules has hindered your development as a human.

[LICC]

I appreciate this but the fundamental weakness of your explanation is that for the first 60 years of USGA rules, the rule changed several times and for much of it, including the years when many of our most highly regarded Golden Age courses were designed, the rules did not impose distance penalties. Therefore these courses could not have been designed to take account for greater danger in OB areas. Another flaw in your explanation is that yes, if you see a pond location, you do know that a bad pull or slice or what have you will likely end up at the bottom of the pond. From a results standpoint this is not any worse of a danger for an OB shot that you can’t play.

[isaacbm]

Oh believe me, I understand the type of person he is. I think it really comes down to he just quite simply doesn’t agree with the definition of the rule. The rule is a rule because a bunch of people got together and agreed on it. I find it hilarious that somebody could possibly say that the consequences for breaking a rule is completely “illogical” when they are penalized more severely for missing the entire golf course.

A person can say “I don’t like it” but to say it’s not logical is ridiculous.

 

[LICC]

It is undeniably illogical. Same bad swing. One ball bounces one foot past a white stake. The other ends up at the bottom of a pond. One is penalized more than the other. Illogical.

[LeoLeo99]

Here is an example: Tight par 4. River to the right. Apple orchard to the left. Hit it in the river, no distance penalty. Hit it in the apple orchard, stroke and distance. The current rule softens the penalty if you hit it off the course into water. That's the gist of it. If water is involved, the penalty is less severe.

[isaacbm]

You didn’t address anything I said in my original post. You would fail miserably at debate.

That’s literally the entire game then. So I agree with you GOLF is an illogical game.

You make one bad swing and it goes 9 yards left of the hole and it ends up in a bunker plugged under the lip. It goes 9 yards right of the hole and you end up on the green putting. Both was the same “bad” swing that hit the ball 9 yards away from your target.

sometimes you end up in a divot, sometimes You hit a sprinkler head and it bounces over the green, sometimes you hit a tree over the green and it bounces back onto the green. All of it is illogical.. the fact that any of us like this game at all is illogical!

 

Sometime you hook it Over a penalty area and then out of bounds and it bounces off a house back onto the green and you one putt for birdie.

 

why exactly do you think that you shouldn’t be penalized for doing something wrong? Out of bounds by definition is the most wrong place you can hit a ball. That very definition is an integral part of the rules of the game. You might as well say I want to invent my own rules because the rules of this game that I profess to love aren’t good enough for me.

 

 

[isaacbm]

Lol! It’s literally like saying I made a putt and one ball ricocheted off a heal print and went in the hole and one ball ended up sitting on the lip. I want those two to count the same because I made the same swing. By definition, one is holed and one is not holed.

 

By your logic you would just count either as one shot because you made the same swing.

 

Shots are counted based on the outcome, not on intent.

 

[HitEmTrue]

 

If you don’t think Langer is anchoring, why are you making such a stink about him?

[LICC]

Did you miss my post 548? That is where I addressed the fundamental weakness of your explanation.

Im not saying you shouldn’t be penalized for OB. You shouldn’t be doubly penalized, which is what the current rule does.

Golf can be random due to nature. It should not be illogical in its rules.

[LeoLeo99]

It's about the enforceablility of the rule. That's why it's a bad rule. Everyone could putt similar to Langer and we'd have to rely on everyone's integrity. Not everyone has Langer's purported integrity.

[LICC]

Bingo. You really can’t tell if he is anchoring.

[sui generis]

"Bingo. You really can't tell if he is anchoring" from the comfort of your XL La-Z-Boy.

Nevertheless, tell us about your experience as a referee and how you've enforced R10.1b in the past.

[LICC]

“It was curious to me,” Chamblee said. He added that at least 10 PGA Tour Champions players had contacted him by phone or text message to express concern.

“There is no shortage of players who are aghast,” Chamblee said. “I realized there was a great deal of animosity and suspicion, and it needed to be talked about.”

[isaacbm]

Yes you should be penalized more because by definition, OB is worse.

[LICC]

Circular argument. You should be penalized more because the rule says you should be penalized more.

[isaacbm]

[Vindog]

 

 

One Swing - One Penalty is not considered within the game. There are even situations where one single act can result in 2 penalties, but also situations where one act can result in only one penalty. The point is, there can be both. And also remember that the rules are clear that any penalty relief strokes (yes even for OB) are in addition to any other penalty strokes. So you can double penalized there as well.

 

The distance penalty is 100% logical, as has been laid out. But in any case there really isn't any need to defend against the one swing one penalty argument that isn't relevant.

[sui generis]

And was put to bed by the R&A and USGA.

[bladehunter]

Yes.

 

The info in this thread has been valuable though. It may save my putting as I’ve learned that I can anchor as long as I don’t spilt my grip. I truly did not know that.

[LICC]

I addressed it in comment 555.

[LICC]

What other rule doubly penalizes a poorly executed swing, rather than an intentional or careless act? Hitting another ball with your putt is a two-stroke penalty but that is not bad execution. That is being careless in not asking the other person to mark their ball.

[LICC]

By a twisted interpretation of the rule that said they weren’t going to do anything about it.

[LeoLeo99]

The topic of this thread is what rule would you change. Therefore, rules we don't like for whatever reason. Nothing to get excited about.

[Vindog]

I don't really have to, because what you are asking isn't relevant. A stroke in an action like any other. Some actions can result in more than one penalty, some only one penalty. There can be both.