The Rules of Golf are to undergo their most radical overhaul in a generation, according to a joint announcement made yesterday by the USGA and R&A.
The Rules of Golf are to undergo their most radical overhaul in a generation, according to a joint announcement made yesterday by the USGA and R&A.
The sweeping changes, which will come into effect in 2019, will see the number of rules reduced from 34 to 24, a simplified rulebook, and will witness many of the game’s pettier rules removed altogether.
Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods were among those who praised the changes, ushered in with the intention of speeding up the game.
There will undoubtedly be some grumblings about the decision, but with many within the game having lamented the sport’s myriad of overcomplicated rules for several years, the move appears to have been greeted with the big thumbs up.
We give our verdict on some of the notable changes:
Accidentally Moving The Ball
Ruling: There will be no penalty for accidentally moving a ball on the putting green or in searching for a ball; and a player is not responsible for causing a ball to move unless it is “virtually certain” that he or she did so.
Verdict: The ridiculous ruling which nearly cost Dustin Johnson last year’s US Open will be done away with altogether. The incident, in which the now World No. 1 was penalised for accidently moving his ball mere millimetres, was exacerbated by poor officiating but, nonetheless, was dreadful PR for golf and highlighted the desperate need for the game to modernise.
Attending the Flag
Ruling: There will be no penalty if a ball played from the putting green hits an unattended flagstick in the hole; players may putt without having the flagstick attended or removed.
Verdict: We're on the fence with this one. The change has been introduced to speed up the game, something golf desperately needs. On the other hand, attending the flag seems a fundamental part of golf's etiquette. It will be interesting to see if this rule changes golfers’ behaviour on the green.
Spike Marks
Ruling: Players may repair spike marks and other damage made by shoes, animals and other damage on the putting green and there is no penalty for merely touching the line of putt.
Verdict: Tour players have been calling to change the spike mark rule for decades. While David Rickman, the R&A director of rules, expressed his concern that this rule might lead to corruption, allowing players to repair spike marks seems like good old common sense. Many will remember the incident at the 1991 Ryder Cup when, with a six-footer to retain the Cup for Europe, Bernhard Langer was forced to putt off-line to avoid a spike mark. Luckily, by the 2020 staging of the event, that incident won’t be repeated.
Water Hazards
Ruling: Red and yellow-marked penalty areas may cover areas of desert, jungle, lava rock, etc., in addition to areas of water; expanded use of red penalty areas where lateral relief is allowed; and there will be no penalty for moving loose impediments or touching the ground or water in a penalty area.
Verdict: Expanding the use of red penalty areas will undoubtedly speed up the game and seems like a sensible move. Removing the penalty for touching the ground in a hazard however is a far more controversial decision. While being penalised for accidently clipping something on your backswing in a hazard has always seemed a little unfair, the current rule ensures that those who find their ball is playable in a hazard are still penalised to a certain extent.
Pace-of-Play
Ruling: Reduced time for searching for a lost ball (from five minutes to three); affirmative encouragement of “ready golf” in stroke play; recommending that players take no more than 40 seconds to play a stroke and other changes intended to help with pace of play.
Verdict: We’re giving this a big nod of approval. Almost everybody in the game is in agreement that the sport has to be speeded up and reducing the time it takes both to play a stroke and search for a ball seems a sensible way to do that.
Simplified way of taking relief
Ruling: A new procedure for taking relief by dropping a ball in and playing it from a specific relief area; relaxed procedures for dropping a ball, allowing the ball to be dropped from just above the ground or any growing thing or other object on the ground.
Verdict: Players will now have a fixed distance rather than a club length in which to drop the ball. With golfers having different length clubs, and with the process of measuring out a drop always seeming to take forever, this seems yet another sensible decision.
A series of materials have also been prepared to explain the proposed Rule changes and provide background on the initiative. Found on www.randa.org and www.usga.org/rules.
R&A Announce Changes To Rules Of Golf. Read More
