New Rules 2019 - Out of Bounds

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When the new rules were mentioned back in March they mentioned having a new Local Rule being available to clubs that permitted committees to allow golfers FJ drop in the vicinity of where the ball went OB or indeed lost

Now I have had a look through all the new online rule books etc and I’m going to guess because it’s an “optional local rule” that it won’t appear in then ?

So first do I have that right and secondly are the R&A going to release the wording to be used and also state that the Local Rule doesn’t have to be applied
 
Duncan,

The Official Guide which will include the Committee Procedures should be online tomorrow and the print version available from 1 November. You can pre-order it from Amazon for delivery on the 1st.
 
Colin L said:
Duncan,

The Official Guide which will include the Committee Procedures should be online tomorrow and the print version available from 1 November. You can pre-order it from Amazon for delivery on the 1st.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, nice to hear that. I can get on with the new local rules now.
 
On Sat I was talking about this rule with our Chairman - and he's usually hot on the rules. He was 100% certain that the new OoB rule was an 'across-the-board' rule change and not requiring to be subject of a LR. Clearly there is work to be done at my club.

His logic? As the rule changes are all designed to speed up play, why would this new OoB option be a local rule...
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
On Sat I was talking about this rule with our Chairman - and he's usually hot on the rules. He was 100% certain that the new OoB rule was an 'across-the-board' rule change and not requiring to be subject of a LR. Clearly there is work to be done at my club.

His logic? As the rule changes are all designed to speed up play, why would this new OoB option be a local rule...
Click to expand...

You could point out to him that it is explicitly not intended for "elite" golf. You can only introduce a procedure which is not meant to be applied at all levels of golf by making it a local rule. If it were fixed in the Rule Book, it would apply to everyone, hacker, elite amateur, and all professionals.
 
Crazyface said:
Golf is golf. Rules is rules. You can't decide when to apply a rule surely? And free drop for OOB's! Bonkers!
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Hardly free!
Given that a scratch golfer utilising the rule on every hole would suddenly become a 36 I don't really see any issues with it at all
Now you might argue that on a partickler hole with tight OOB the player might hit his second tee shot OOB as well...but for handicapping that probably won't matter as he will be pushing his net double bogey limit already, and for winning he's already given up 2 shots to the field, do they need blood?
With the move from 5 min to search to 3 min there are going to be a lot of people walking otherwise as they get used to what's likely to be lost in that time as well, or everyone is going to be hitting provisional all the time (and looking for them as they don't like to leave them out there!).
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out anyway
 
I'm quite amused by the "over my dead body will it happen at my club" reaction that is around. The LR is only an alternative way of making sure you can get on with your game when you go out of bounds or lose your ball. It's really no different from being allowed to play from outside a water hazard [penalty area to be] other than being more punitive. You have to have a way to carry on when your ball is in the middle of a lake; you have to have a way to carry on when your ball is out of bounds or not found. I don't hear the same people reacting to being allowed to drop a ball outside a bunker with a 2 stroke penalty, but it's just the same - a way of allowing you to carry on when otherwise you are stuck. Maybe they all died before they reached that page.
:)

By the way, how far back do diehards want to go in protecting the rules as they were. This from the Rules in 1904, for example:

32 If a ball be driven out of bounds, a ball shall be dropped at the spot from which the stroke was played, under penalty of loss of the distance.
 
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I'm slightly confused by this one having to be a local rule. I could swear I read somewhere that the intention of the OOB/LB change was that it apply to all golfers, except elite amateur and professional (surely less than 1% of golfers). If that is the case why couldn't they have made it a substantive rule, with a local rule to not apply it? That way the intention of the rule is made explicit; that clubs should be applying it, and have to go out of their way to not apply it.
 
rulefan said:
Perhaps it is 'suck it and see'.
If it proves popular then they can make it a substantive rule......
Click to expand...

...... in the same way as distance measuring devices have moved from a local rule permitting them to the rules permitting them with a Local Rule option to prohibit?
 
rulefan said:
Perhaps it is 'suck it and see'.
If it proves popular then they can make it a substantive rule.
Click to expand...
Colin L said:
...... in the same way as distance measuring devices have moved from a local rule permitting them to the rules permitting them with a Local Rule option to prohibit?
Click to expand...

Ah, good point. I must admit I'm a fan of the new rule so I hope my club adopts it.
 
Colin L said:
It's really no different from being allowed to play from outside a water hazard.
Click to expand...

There is a difference. A ball in a water hazard is on the course so a recovery shot could be made. Dropping outside the hazard needs only a stroke to approximate a recovery shot. A ball OOB is not on the course and could not be played to recover, so a re-do is necessary to keep things in balance. This new rule presumes two penalty strokes approximates a re-do...but I'm old school and don't buy it. If this penalty is allowed, then a player should be allowed to play an OOB ball back to the course if he can and save the penalty. That of course is pretty silly. But why not?
 
rulefan said:
I think that the RBs have recognised that in a certain part of the world, the horse has already bolted but they couldn't accept 1 stroke as the norm.
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Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that a lot of people when playing informal games just drop a ball back in play after they've gone OB, and so it was decided to put it in the rules so as to be in line with how players behave? If that's what you mean, it doesn't make sense to me. There are plenty of other things that routinely happen in bounce games - gimmes for example. Why not add them to the rules?

My own reading of the OB local rule is that it effectively gives the player a risk-free provisional/reload. Why hit another off the tee (which could also go OB) if you can just walk up and drop a ball on the side of the fairway? (Maybe that's the point - to save time by not playing another ball off the tee?)
 
cliveb said:
Not sure I understand your point. Are you saying that a lot of people when playing informal games just drop a ball back in play after they've gone OB, and so it was decided to put it in the rules so as to be in line with how players behave? If that's what you mean, it doesn't make sense to me. There are plenty of other things that routinely happen in bounce games - gimmes for example. Why not add them to the rules?

My own reading of the OB local rule is that it effectively gives the player a risk-free provisional/reload. Why hit another off the tee (which could also go OB) if you can just walk up and drop a ball on the side of the fairway? (Maybe that's the point - to save time by not playing another ball off the tee?)
Click to expand...
I'm afraid the former is very prevalent where 'all scores' count for handicap. But they take 1 stoke rather than 2.
Of course with the new LR it costs them the 2 stroke equivalent of S&D
 
rulefan said:
I'm afraid the former is very prevalent where 'all scores' count for handicap. But they take 1 stoke rather than 2.
Of course with the new LR it costs them the 2 stroke equivalent of S&D
Click to expand...
Sorry, do I understand this right: there are players who take a drop from OB in qualifiers?
Who are these people and why do the handicapping authorities let them get away with it?
 
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