Golf rules we let people break - what is one you know of?

[Steven Rules]

I've arrived late to this thread. It might appropriately sit on the Rules of Golf and Handicapping thread.

A few years back I wrote a little article for our club newsletter about the most commonly breached Rules at our club. They were:

*Advice

*Not correctly announcing a provisional ball

*Not marking a ball before touching or lifting it to identify it

*Dropping in a wrong place - through not determining the correct reference point and/or relief area

*Improving the conditions affecting the stroke - in this case through brushing away sand and loose soil in the general area

*Not seeking the other player's permission before marking their ball - my old soapbox favourite

FYI Known and Virtually Certainty in penalty areas is not necessarily a big problem at our club given its configuration and geography.

 

[Orikoru]

Given that the R&A do review the rules occasionally, surely it's time to scrap the advice rule altogether?* Asking someone what club they hit is completely useless anyway, recognising that one man's 7 iron might be 34° while another's is 26°. And the fact that all of us hit different distances anyway. It's little more than a point of curiosity rather than anything that can help you make a decision. AND you can just look in their bag and see which one is missing anyway. Really the most pointless rule of all.

*or at least modify it so it only covers actual advice like reading a green for somebody and so on.

 

[Swango1980]

I've arrived late to this thread. It might appropriately sit on the Rules of Golf and Handicapping thread.

A few years back I wrote a little article for our club newsletter about the most commonly breached Rules at our club. They were:

*Advice

*Not correctly announcing a provisional ball

*Not marking a ball before touching or lifting it to identify it

*Dropping in a wrong place - through not determining the correct reference point and/or relief area

*Improving the conditions affecting the stroke - in this case through brushing away sand and loose soil in the general area

*Not seeking the other player's permission before marking their ball - my old soapbox favourite

FYI Known and Virtually Certainty in penalty areas is not necessarily a big problem at our club given its configuration and geography.

No penalty areas?

Like a member of Horncastle (when it existed) saying golfers smoothing the sand before a bunker shot is not a big problem. All their bunkers were grass bunkers

 

[doublebogey7]

Given that the R&A do review the rules occasionally, surely it's time to scrap the advice rule altogether?* Asking someone what club they hit is completely useless anyway, recognising that one man's 7 iron might be 34° while another's is 26°. And the fact that all of us hit different distances anyway. It's little more than a point of curiosity rather than anything that can help you make a decision. AND you can just look in their bag and see which one is missing anyway. Really the most pointless rule of all.

*or at least modify it so it only covers actual advice like reading a green for somebody and so on.

Erm, what you say may be true of strangers but I can assure it is not of those that arte familiar with each others game. many a time I and most on here I would guess have changed clubs after asked a partner what they had hit after just hitting a shot short or long. Not a chance that the R&A/USGA are going to change this rule in any significant way as it re-inforces the requirement that all players have a duty to protect the field.

 

[Steven Rules]

No penalty areas?

We have penalty areas in play on about half a dozen holes but the nature of the surrounding terrain, vegetation, sight lines, etc, is such that uncertainty around KVC would not feature in the 'commonly breached' list at our club. I'm not saying it wouldn't happen, just that it would not be as common as the others on the list.

One other thing that I overlooked when I came up with the initial list, but wrote about subsequently, and similarly forgot when creating my post above, was breaches of Rule 20.1c(1) and (2). If a referee or the Committee is not available in a reasonable time to help with a Rules issue the players have no right to decide a Rules issue by agreement. I would lump in here the fallacy that markers have the power to grant or deny relief. If a player knows or believes that another player has breached or might have breached the Rules and that the other player does not recognise or is ignoring this, the player should tell the other player, the player’s marker, a referee or the Committee. If the player fails to do so, the Committee may disqualify the player.