Wheyayeman
Assistant Pro
The rules of golf at times can be complicated, unjust, subjective or just plain wrong (In the eyes of individual golfers), so after reading the thread regarding hitting a tree on a practice swing and numerous other threads about rules which in the grand scheme of things won't actually alter the players score. I was wondering how stringent everyone is when applying the rules in a bounce game or medal?
For example I was playing in a comp last weekend and one of our group pulled his drive into the rough, we had a look without success and he eventually told us to just carry on (stableford comp so he was prepared to scratch the hole), on his way back to his bag he found his ball, and asked if he was within his 5 minutes, as none of us had actually checked the time and it seemed less than 5 minutes we felt he was in his rights to play on. However if we had checked the time and he found his ball after 5mins 4secs, officially his ball is lost but is that something you would pull a fellow competitor up on with such a minor infringement. Likewise if for example a ball lands in the trees and the player moves some loose impediments around his ball, which consequently move his ball a quarter role into a worse lie, the player should be given a penalty shot, but is the ball being in a worse/harder lie penalty enough?
What I'm asking is not to debate the individual rules but if when faced with a subjective rule or a minor infringement where the player receives no benefit, Would you pull them up on it in a competition?
For example I was playing in a comp last weekend and one of our group pulled his drive into the rough, we had a look without success and he eventually told us to just carry on (stableford comp so he was prepared to scratch the hole), on his way back to his bag he found his ball, and asked if he was within his 5 minutes, as none of us had actually checked the time and it seemed less than 5 minutes we felt he was in his rights to play on. However if we had checked the time and he found his ball after 5mins 4secs, officially his ball is lost but is that something you would pull a fellow competitor up on with such a minor infringement. Likewise if for example a ball lands in the trees and the player moves some loose impediments around his ball, which consequently move his ball a quarter role into a worse lie, the player should be given a penalty shot, but is the ball being in a worse/harder lie penalty enough?
What I'm asking is not to debate the individual rules but if when faced with a subjective rule or a minor infringement where the player receives no benefit, Would you pull them up on it in a competition?
