Local Rule

[Quasimoto]

Wondering what the rationale is for various clubs implementing the local rule with respect to a lost ball; or not implementing the rule allowing being able to determine a point of entry and play another ball with a 2 stroke penalty.

[Sawgrass]

My club rejects the LR based on the fact that it is much more likely to benefit the high handicapper. 

[rogolf]

Imo, it's fine for casual/recreational play but should not be used for tournaments.  We have it at our club for everyday play, but state that it's not in effect for our competitions such as club championships and our other formal competitions.  In competitions, it removes an element of pressure and the true aspects of the game.

Edited September 6, 2020 by rogolf

[sui generis]

I'm the Rules Committee for my club. Our Director of Golf wanted E-5 and asked me to write it. Therein lies the rub. Had we merely copied the Model Local Rule almost no one would have bothered to figure it out. (It's necessarily wordy.) The challenge for a Rules Committee is to write "bumper sticker" Local Rules. It took awhile with lots of help from some of our pals here, but we settled on something that's not perfect, but seems to do the job. (It helps to have a golf course with an uncomplicated, from a Rules perspective, layout.)

[antip]

In my district, 2 of 10 clubs have implemented MLR E-5 (Lost/OOB ball S&D Alternative 2 stroke penalty). The motivation for those clubs is the hope that it assists with pace of play for the club competitions (one of those has extremely narrow fairways heavily large tree bordered). The majority of clubs are not convinced of the benefits, believe it brings new distortions and, overall, believe the superior approach is to have a strong culture of playing provisional balls. An extreme, but not uncommon version of this attitude is MLR E-5 is complete BS, not golf.

[Quasimoto]

Thanks to all for this.

I am in the camp of undecided at this time. So many people ignore the rule when it is in place and just play lateral for all tree lines because it is not a tournament, just casual play.

I would like to play with this rule for all golf for season and see how it works out, or abandon the rule altogether. This half -way stuff seems to be a saw-off of some kind and quite confusing to the average HC player.

[4x4GGG]

I know one course adopted a rule about OB stakes and grass cutting. Long story short, and this happened to me specifically, was that the mowers didn't place the whites back properly and there was a severe difference between actual OB and marked OB. We're talking 2 inch rough vs 2 foot high weeds. In one round my ball wound up in 2 inch rough a foot away from a cut line of 2 foot weeds but when you get a string out from stake to stake I was OB and it was complete bovine feces. There was a distinct cut line and I was clearly in play closer to the fairway and if there had been 1 more stake in the right place there would be no doubt. This happened enough that the changed the rule to include "obvious mow lines".  

[sui generis]

21 minutes ago, Quasimoto said:

Thanks to all for this.

I am in the camp of undecided at this time. So many people ignore the rule when it is in place and just play lateral for all tree lines because it is not a tournament, just casual play.

I would like to play with this rule for all golf for season and see how it works out, or abandon the rule altogether. This half -way stuff seems to be a saw-off of some kind and quite confusing to the average HC player.

 

E-5 has been generally successful at my club. The players generally understand the E-5 and like it. It is used for general play and all competitions. (That is a conscious decision  by the Director of Golf who reasons that he doesn't want to have different sets of Rules for different circumstances.) We have a well established suite of Local Rules and Temporary Local Rules. The course is pretty well marked. 

[Quasimoto]

SUI, this would be an ideal situation IMO, however there are many opinions other than mine.

[2bGood]

We did not put in MLR E5 as we were agreed we did not want it for competitive play and in casual play we did not have a pace of play issue. In casual the reality is most of our members are good about hitting a provisional and in the occurrence they have an unexpected OB or lost ball it rare they go back to hit again - they take their max or most likely score and move on.

[nsxguy]

59 minutes ago, 4x4GGG said:

I know one course adopted a rule about OB stakes and grass cutting. Long story short, and this happened to me specifically, was that the mowers didn't place the whites back properly and there was a severe difference between actual OB and marked OB. We're talking 2 inch rough vs 2 foot high weeds. In one round my ball wound up in 2 inch rough a foot away from a cut line of 2 foot weeds but when you get a string out from stake to stake I was OB and it was complete bovine feces. There was a distinct cut line and I was clearly in play closer to the fairway and if there had been 1 more stake in the right place there would be no doubt. This happened enough that the changed the rule to include "obvious mow lines".  

 

OB is defined by the OB stakes/lines/markers. Never heard of an OB line the difference between lower and higher mowed grass. Sometimes lower grass is IN and sometimes it's OUT. It's the boundary markers/lines that count.

 

What Local Rule is "obvious mowed lines" ?

Edited September 6, 2020 by nsxguy

[2bGood]

3 minutes ago, nsxguy said:

 

OB is defined by the OB stakes/lines/markers. Never heard of an OB line the difference between lower and higher mowed grass. Sometimes lower grass is IN and sometimes it's OUT. It's the boundary markers/lines that count.

 

What Local Rule is "obvious mowed lines" ?

 Really weird rule, but is there anything that does not allow in the rule books? From what I have seen courses have lots of options of what defines there OB in additional to stakes and lines - roads, fences, walls, train tracks etc. 

[nsxguy]

2 minutes ago, 2bGood said:

 Really weird rule, but is there anything that does not allow in the rule books? From what I have seen courses have lots of options of what defines there OB in additional to stakes and lines - roads, fences, walls, train tracks etc. 

 

AFAIK the Rules of Golf and the permissible Local Rules cover everything that's allowed. The poster said there were OB markers there. Those markers define the boundaries of the course. Not sure if a local rule allows overriding that.

 

I didn't go looking for that local rule, that's why I asked the poster which local rule it was covered under.

[2bGood]

39 minutes ago, nsxguy said:

 

AFAIK the Rules of Golf and the permissible Local Rules cover everything that's allowed. The poster said there were OB markers there. Those markers define the boundaries of the course. Not sure if a local rule allows overriding that.

 

I didn't go looking for that local rule, that's why I asked the poster which local rule it was covered under.

 

I did look it up  just now. Committee procedure 8a. Basically says you can do anything, as long as you are clear and specific. Not sure 'mowed grass' is clear  and specific enough.

 

"There are many ways in which a Committee may define the boundaries of the course and it is not appropriate or possible to provide a complete list of Model Local Rules that can be used for this purpose.The key is to be clear and specific when defining boundaries in the Local Rules."

[Augster]

Most of our groups do E5 in casual play, and no E5 in our competitions. It’s pretty simple. I’m not sure who would be confused. 
 

Is this an event? Yes? Hit a provisional. No? Either hit a provisional or take E5 after search. It’s a pretty easy flow chart to figure out. 

[Halebopp]

4 hours ago, 2bGood said:

 Really weird rule, but is there anything that does not allow in the rule books? From what I have seen courses have lots of options of what defines there OB in additional to stakes and lines - roads, fences, walls, train tracks etc. 

 

One on the local courses has a local rule that defines the fairway of the adjacent hole as OB (or to be precise the areas cut to fairway height or less in the General Area, so the teeing grounds would also be OB). It's a dogleg par 5 and the other fairway would cut the corner. It used to have OB stakes in the woods between the two holes but when our pro tour came to visit, the tournament director changed it for the tournament and the club stuck with it.

 

As for the model local rule, there's one club (from about a hundred) in the whole country that put it into use. We didn't because others in the rules committee considered it to be difficult to understand for the average golfer and it would cause a lot of confusion if it wasn't in use in competitions. Playing a provisional was considered to be the faster and easier way to do things. When presenting the rule I also discussed the possibility of people using longer clubs and taking on riskier shots which could lead to longer waits on the tee and more searches for wayward shots.

 

If we skip the whole idea of golf being about hitting the ball from point A to point B to point C until it's holed and trying again from the same spot if you don't know where your ball went or you hit it OB, the biggest problem with the rule is that it's unfair to everyone who finds their ball in unplayable lies. They might be forced to return to the tee or take more than two strokes to get back onto the fairway, which is guaranteed for those who hit even worse shots and can't find their balls or find it OB.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Halebopp

[Newby]

CONGU has declared E-5 cannot be used for handicap qualifying scores. Virtually every club I know has decided not to use it to save confusing players.

[antip]

8 minutes ago, Newby said:

CONGU has declared E-5 cannot be used for handicap qualifying scores. Virtually every club I know has decided not to use it to save confusing players.

That's about as significant an "up yours" as can be managed, when a handicap authority bans a permitted local rule.

[Hawkeye77]

5 hours ago, Newby said:

CONGU has declared E-5 cannot be used for handicap qualifying scores. Virtually every club I know has decided not to use it to save confusing players.

 

Very interesting piece of info.

[sui generis]

24 minutes ago, Hawkeye77 said:

 

Very interesting piece of info.

 

It's a reflection of a different culture . . . not better or worse than this side of the pond, just different. (I lived there for 20+ years.)

[2bGood]

6 hours ago, Augster said:

Most of our groups do E5 in casual play, and no E5 in our competitions. It’s pretty simple. I’m not sure who would be confused. 
 

Is this an event? Yes? Hit a provisional. No? Either hit a provisional or take E5 after search. It’s a pretty easy flow chart to figure out. 

 

Maybe we underestimate the rules knowledge of our membership, but my experience is the majority of our members have a pretty loose understanding of the rules. Most have never read them. Expecting them to learn E5 and then understand they can never use it when it matters, seemed a bit much for us to expect of them. 

[Hawkeye77]

Our course just ducked and said it was too hard to understand.  I figure other than real comps, of which we have one, why not just post it and provide the option? I don’t like the rule but it does provide an option that will speed up play for some and allow them to avoid multiple OBs, lol. 

[sui generis]

My experience with E-5 has been that in its raw form it's unintelligible to most. Two big challenges await any club wishing to implement it. The first is presenting the Local Rule in a sentence or two and the second is course marking. 

 

I've seen places where it would be quite tricky to implement because of holes with sharp doglegs and bad stuff over the back of the greens. The bad stuff over the backs of greens sometimes can be fixed with red stakes. Ninety degree dogleg holes are tougher. 

[Hawkeye77]

1 hour ago, sui generis said:

My experience with E-5 has been that in its raw form it's unintelligible to most. Two big challenges await any club wishing to implement it. The first is presenting the Local Rule in a sentence or two and the second is course marking. 

 

I've seen places where it would be quite tricky to implement because of holes with sharp doglegs and bad stuff over the back of the greens. The bad stuff over the backs of greens sometimes can be fixed with red stakes. Ninety degree dogleg holes are tougher. 

 

True and we have a such sharp dogleg left off the tee with OB the whole way left of the rough, but hitting a second tee shot is still an option even with the local rule (as you know).  

[Kossuvissy]

11 hours ago, antip said:

That's about as significant an "up yours" as can be managed, when a handicap authority bans a permitted local rule.

 

Did they ban it or just said you cannot post your score if you use it? I guess there is a difference and leaves the player with a choice.

[Newby]

On 9/6/2020 at 8:25 PM, Kossuvissy said:

 

Did they ban it or just said you cannot post your score if you use it? I guess there is a difference and leaves the player with a choice.

CONGU have stated (pre WHS) that the LR cannot be used in handicap qualifying competitions or supplementary score rounds. 

Note that CONGU does not allow for 'casual' scores.

 

It is not yet clear what line CONGU will take post WHS introduction.

I would be interested to know if any other national authority has made a ruling.

 

Edit: I am told that Scottish Golf has barred the LR for handicap competitions. Presumably this will apply to all of the CONGU affiliates.

Edited September 8, 2020 by Newby

[Augster]

On 9/6/2020 at 10:25 AM, sui generis said:

My experience with E-5 has been that in its raw form it's unintelligible to most. Two big challenges await any club wishing to implement it. The first is presenting the Local Rule in a sentence or two and the second is course marking. 

 

I've seen places where it would be quite tricky to implement because of holes with sharp doglegs and bad stuff over the back of the greens. The bad stuff over the backs of greens sometimes can be fixed with red stakes. Ninety degree dogleg holes are tougher. 

Doglegs can be tricky, correct. 
 

But if a player can reach a green, the better play is nearly always the provisional. 

[Newby]

1 hour ago, Augster said:

Doglegs can be tricky, correct. 
 

But if a player can reach a green, the better play is nearly always the provisional. 

Sensible use of a provisional is always quicker than faffing around with E-5.

[Mudguard]

I actually thought the local rule was a good idea. I used an example in another thread where there is one particular hole that off the back tee and into a strong headwind, it's often very difficult to get it tee shot in play. 

 

During an annual Strokeplay event there, if that wind was blowing you'd have multiple groups backed up hitting multiple balls trying to get one in play. 

 

[rogolf]

5 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I actually thought the local rule was a good idea. I used an example in another thread where there is one particular hole that off the back tee and into a strong headwind, it's often very difficult to get it tee shot in play. 

 

During an annual Strokeplay event there, if that wind was blowing you'd have multiple groups backed up hitting multiple balls trying to get one in play. 

 

Sounds like a poor setup by the Committee?  Didn't consider the weather forecasts when setting up?