A little rules drama today

[LeoLeo99]

Today was the senior club championship at my local muni.  They have two courses and the tournament was being held on the other course than the one I played.  After my round I ate lunch on the patio and heard the commotion.  Some guys were complaining.  "He shouldn't be playing a tournament if he doesn't know the rules."  Then I heard the reason.  A player lost his ball and dropped in the fairway and added two penalty strokes under the new rule.  Another guy said, "That's a local rule for pace of play. It's not for use in tournaments.  He should know that!"  I'll look tomorrow to see if anyone got DQ'd.  

 

 

[SNIPERBBB]

Id look to see if the rule was on the rule sheet too

[jvincent]

Did they publish a rule sheet for the tournament?

[cardoustie]

That rule was in play for my Club C ... ridiculous 

[LeoLeo99]

1 hour ago, jvincent said:

Did they publish a rule sheet for the tournament?

 

I'll ask tomorrow.  The scores will be up in the Wall and maybe the rules sheet, too.  Today was qualifying and this weekend is the 36 hole finals.  

[Mudguard]

43 minutes ago, cardoustie said:

That rule was in play for my Club C ... ridiculous 

I don't see why it's ridiculous, it saves some time, and it's not a free pass. There's also some strategy. If you have OB left and hit a screaming hook that goes OB 50m from the tee, will you drop and hit your fourth 50m from the tee on the fairway, or will you re-tee and and hopefully hit one 230m down the middle to hit your fourth from there? However if the first tee shot dribbles out of bounds 240m away, I might be inclined to take the the drop from further up. 

[goaliedad30]

Our club uses that Model Local rule for our competitions. Especially for tournaments with a wide variety of handicaps, it makes sense for pace of play. 

[2bGood]

I hate this rule and its uneven use. Our club allows it for casual play but not for competition. The average member already does not have good grasp of the rules so havIng a rule that they can use only some of the time makes them really confused. 
 

The reality is it does nothing for pace of play as in a casual round(ie just playing for fun), prior to the rule you would hit a provisional if you thought the ball was lost. In the rare case where you lost a ball unexpectedly guys would just not finish the home and take their ‘most likely score’ or max handicap score (which ever is lower) and move on. No one was going back to the tee on ‘mean nothing’ rounds and the rules of golf already had an allowance of how to score hole you did not complete for handicap purposes. 

[LeoLeo99]

Found out more information today.  There was a DQ in the tournament.  My "don't quote me" source relayed what he heard.  So we'll have to take it with a grain of salt but it's an interesting discussion none the less.  There was a rules sheet printed up by the head of the committee who planned to explain the local rules in place to each group as they teed off.  The first group of the day in the tournament was sent off by a committee member earlier than their scheduled tee time and unbeknownst to the head of the committee who was not at the first tee and therefore did not tell the first group of the local rules.  

[Sawgrass]

9 minutes ago, LeoLeo99 said:

Found out more information today.  There was a DQ in the tournament.  My "don't quote me" source relayed what he heard.  So we'll have to take it with a grain of salt but it's an interesting discussion none the less.  There was a rules sheet printed up by the head of the committee who planned to explain the local rules in place to each group as they teed off.  The first group of the day in the tournament was sent off by a committee member earlier than their scheduled tee time and unbeknownst to the head of the committee who was not at the first tee and therefore did not tell the first group of the local rules.  

Of course I t’s inappropriate not to have alerted all players about local rules, but nevertheless you can’t assume one is adopted if you’ve simply not been informed. Anyway, too bad for the player, he was likely not trying to get away with anything.  (There are better ways to cheat than declaring a 2sp on yourself.)

[magnus7319]

I was playing in a local district event and one of the guys in my group got DQ'd for this. 18th hole, he hits his ball down the left hand side, near OB stakes... we look for the allotted time, and can't find it. The group behind us already teed off... I said you need to go back to the tee for a lost ball (or it's presumed OB... anyway, either way you're going back and hitting 3 off the tee).

 

He drops in the fairway to hit his 4th and finishes the hole, makes 6.

 

Anyway, we hole out and at the scorers table they said, sorry that's a local rule for leagues and casual play, not competition. Your DQ'd if you turn your card in. He held the card and just WD. He would have missed the cut by like 5 with a par on 18 anyway.

 

Moral of the story for comp play: Always have the rules sheet on you. Always have a rules guy cell # on you. Worst case play 2 balls on that hole, if you're not sure.

[LeoLeo99]

20 minutes ago, Sawgrass said:

Of course I t’s inappropriate not to have alerted all players about local rules, but nevertheless you can’t assume one is adopted if you’ve simply not been informed. Anyway, too bad for the player, he was likely not trying to get away with anything.  (There are better ways to cheat than declaring a 2sp on yourself.)

 

correct on every point.  Seemed to throw a small pall over the tournament.  

[rogolf]

4 hours ago, 2bGood said:

I hate this rule and its uneven use. Our club allows it for casual play but not for competition. The average member already does not have good grasp of the rules so havIng a rule that they can use only some of the time makes them really confused. 
 

The reality is it does nothing for pace of play as in a casual round(ie just playing for fun), prior to the rule you would hit a provisional if you thought the ball was lost. In the rare case where you lost a ball unexpectedly guys would just not finish the home and take their ‘most likely score’ or max handicap score (which ever is lower) and move on. No one was going back to the tee on ‘mean nothing’ rounds and the rules of golf already had an allowance of how to score hole you did not complete for handicap purposes. 

Ahh, the beauty of playing Stablefored instead of pure stroke play!  More competitions should use Stableford, it's much less punishing.

[2bGood]

1 hour ago, rogolf said:

Ahh, the beauty of playing Stablefored instead of pure stroke play!  More competitions should use Stableford, it's much less punishing.

 

Yes I don't disagree. We use it a fair bit. We also have very active Match Play tournaments, that of course allow you to pick up and move on.

 

The culture at our club is close to no one plays stroke play casually. It is all match play casually, but we do have a stroke play event once per week that is typically Stablefored.

[rogolf]

11 minutes ago, 2bGood said:

 

Yes I don't disagree. We use it a fair bit. We also have very active Match Play tournaments, that of course allow you to pick up and move on.

 

The culture at our club is close to no one plays stroke play casually. It is all match play casually, but we do have a stroke play event once per week that is typically Stablefored.

Nothing worse than seeing anyone (particularly beginners) grinding over a three-footer for an eleven or worse!  Turns people off the game, whereas Stableford always allows them to still accomplish a personal best.

[2bGood]

Just now, rogolf said:

Nothing worse than seeing anyone (particularly beginners) grinding over a three-footer for an eleven or worse!  Turns people off the game, whereas Stableford always allows them to still accomplish a personal best.

 

There is some fun it, some of the time. The club championship is our clubs big stroke play event - 54 holes of fun. There is always great stories of guys 4 putting from 2 feet etc. ?

[cardoustie]

It’s ridiculous because two of our closing 4 holes you could be 5 off the tee if your nerves leave you .. 

[Mr. Bean]

4 minutes ago, cardoustie said:

It’s ridiculous because two of our closing 4 holes you could be 5 off the tee if your nerves leave you .. 

 

So..? How is that connected to any Rule and to E-5 in particular?

[cardoustie]

Because if you go ob you used to have to re-tee, maybe a 2nd or 3rd time

now go up .. play 4 and make a 6
it favours wilder hitters I feel

[Mr. Bean]

12 minutes ago, cardoustie said:

Because if you go ob you used to have to re-tee, maybe a 2nd or 3rd time

now go up .. play 4 and make a 6
it favours wilder hitters I feel

 

Maybe so but if you hit the fairway you are lying 1 and if you hit OB you will be lying 3. And you could hit OB on any hole having OB.

 

In principle I agree with you and I dislike the entire idea of E-5 as it gives you a guaranteed fairway hit with you 'provisional', i.e. drop. IMO one should use clubs that keep the ball in play instead of grabbing the big monster on every hole.

[Mudguard]

1 hour ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

Maybe so but if you hit the fairway you are lying 1 and if you hit OB you will be lying 3. And you could hit OB on any hole having OB.

 

In principle I agree with you and I dislike the entire idea of E-5 as it gives you a guaranteed fairway hit with you 'provisional', i.e. drop. IMO one should use clubs that keep the ball in play instead of grabbing the big monster on every hole.

That's all good in theory. However there's a tournament I would play every year that had one particular hole that was very difficult into the wind. The prevailing wind is a tail, and you hit from an elevated tee into a valley that's traditionally quite sheltered. OB left, jungle right (instant re-tee), when a northerly would blow, there would two or three groups bunched up on it. I saw one group hit three tee shots each trying to get one in play. With no wind, it's hybrid or 3i to a fat fairway. But when the wind picks up, you have to carry it about 200m to get to the wide part. 

I don't know if the new rule will be in place for that tournament, but it's a good use for it. 

 

The black tee is behind me. My old man is teeing off the white tee. 

 

[HatsForBats]

On 8/20/2020 at 9:59 PM, Mudguard said:

I don't see why it's ridiculous, it saves some time, and it's not a free pass. There's also some strategy. If you have OB left and hit a screaming hook that goes OB 50m from the tee, will you drop and hit your fourth 50m from the tee on the fairway, or will you re-tee and and hopefully hit one 230m down the middle to hit your fourth from there? However if the first tee shot dribbles out of bounds 240m away, I might be inclined to take the the drop from further up. 

 

I agree that it is ridiculous for a club championship or any other 'high level' competition at any particular course. It's a partial free pass and should never be used in in a gross stroke club championship IMO.

[nsxguy]

43 minutes ago, HatsForBats said:

 

I agree that it is ridiculous for a club championship or any other 'high level' competition at any particular course. It's a partial free pass and should never be used in in a gross stroke club championship IMO.

 

Which is almost exactly as the local rule itself reads.

[xxio]

We've never implemented it for the reason that having local rules that you implement off and on confuses membership.

 

We've always used other ways to address pace of play, the rare times they become issues.

 

Having players discuss if a drop was correct under this local rule would slow down pace of play anyway.

[Pete O'Tube]

If the senior had played a provisional ball, this situation wouldn't arise. Always, always play a provisional if you have any doubt.

Edited September 4, 2020 by Pete O'Tube

[Quasimoto]

We are currently playing all tree lines (which is thick trees and undergrowth both sides of the fairways) as lateral due to large amount of wasp nests on the ground this year. Lots of people stung looking for balls in the bush, as well as while on tee boxes.