D
Deleted member 16999
Guest
Robin, there’s a very good video on the R&A site showing this rule, I believe the distance depends on how far your fairway is from the oob’s, ie, no set distance,
Wow, so if I drive OOB and there’s 5, 10 or 15 metres between the OOB and the fairway, I can come right out onto the fairway ( no nearer) and drop on the short stuff!
I’ll go look for that video.
clubchamp98
Journeyman Pro
This just dosnt sound right , lose ball drop on fairway think it’s going a bit to far to make the game easier.
D
Deleted member 16999
Guest
Don’t forget this is one of the optional local rules, you’re Club could decide not to adopt it.
clubchamp98
Journeyman Pro
My club seems to implement everything .
This to me is making the game easier for lots of players .
But it is a reason not to practice and get better at the game.
Part of the game is the pressure you feel on a hole with oob this just lets you have a go if you mess it up you get a get out of jail card , March down the fairway and just drop, that’s not golf as I know it.
jim8flog
Journeyman Pro
The easiest way to understand the options of this new local rule is to look at the diagrams on either the R&A or the USGA website.
however in answer to your question the point on the fairway is the nearest point that is no closer to the hole than where the ball last crossed the OB line or point where the ball is believed to be when it could not be found.
rulefan
Tour Winner
But it will cost 2 extra stokes
clubchamp98
Journeyman Pro
So does stroke and distance but you still have to hit the second ball.
Your playing 4 either way.
You would be an idiot to not take advantage of this , I just don’t think it’s right imo.
backwoodsman
Tour Winner
This is the very reason l hope our club chooses not to implement it as a local rule. The "get out of jail card" is too easy an option. To me, if you put your tee shot OOB, being on the fairway playing, say, a short iron onto the green as your 4th shot - is far easier than being back on the tee playing 3. (Regardless of whether that 3rd shot is a "provisional" or a "walk back".)
I'm generally all for initiatives which help reduce slow play, but to me, this local rule is too high a price in respect of the principle of the game.
atticusfinch
Challenge Tour Pro
Exactly.
atticusfinch
Challenge Tour Pro
ColinL, let me try one other approach to explain my thought.
Forget the new local rule and consider these two scenarios. 1) you hit a ball into the middle of a dried out water hazard. The rules permit you to play it if you chose to but the rules give you the option of a drop if desired. 2) You hit the ball OOB. You find it and decide it could be easily played from there back to the course. But you are not allowed to play it. Why is there no drop option for an OOB ball?
Richard Tufts explained the rationale behind dropping from a hazard.
When a ball cannot be played from a water hazard and the player elects to drop behind the hazard, the penalty
of one stroke is the equivalent of the recovery stroke which the player might otherwise have played [Rule 26-1].
There is no drop option because there is no recovery stroke from OOB that might have otherwise been played. A drop from OOB would be the "equivalent" of a stroke that is not allowed. A ball submerged in a WH is obviously not playable, but the rules don't prohibit trying. An OOB ball might be playable but the rules prohibit it.
The proposed LR makes dropping from OOB more costly than normal but it violates the above principle because it approximates a stroke from OOB....a prohibited stroke.
(Wheeew...that took an hour to write. If it does not explain my position then I'll have to give up.)
Forget the new local rule and consider these two scenarios. 1) you hit a ball into the middle of a dried out water hazard. The rules permit you to play it if you chose to but the rules give you the option of a drop if desired. 2) You hit the ball OOB. You find it and decide it could be easily played from there back to the course. But you are not allowed to play it. Why is there no drop option for an OOB ball?
Richard Tufts explained the rationale behind dropping from a hazard.
When a ball cannot be played from a water hazard and the player elects to drop behind the hazard, the penalty
of one stroke is the equivalent of the recovery stroke which the player might otherwise have played [Rule 26-1].
There is no drop option because there is no recovery stroke from OOB that might have otherwise been played. A drop from OOB would be the "equivalent" of a stroke that is not allowed. A ball submerged in a WH is obviously not playable, but the rules don't prohibit trying. An OOB ball might be playable but the rules prohibit it.
The proposed LR makes dropping from OOB more costly than normal but it violates the above principle because it approximates a stroke from OOB....a prohibited stroke.
(Wheeew...that took an hour to write. If it does not explain my position then I'll have to give up.)
Colin L
Tour Winner
Atticus, I am so sorry you have taken al that time over this - I was too busy yesterday to respond and say that I understand clearly what you are saying. I understand the distinction you are making but what I don't get is why you are making so much of the difference between an out of bounds ball that you cannot play and a ball you cannot play in a penalty area, up aganst a wall, in a bush, in an AGC, near the green with a sprinkler head on the line of play ........etc. In each and all other equivalent situations, there is a rule which allows you to get out of the difficulty/impossibility - sometimes without penalty and sometimes with a penalty. I don't get the idea that a balll out of bounds is uniquely different because your ball is off the course. It is, to me, exactly the same as all the other situations - you can't carry on playing without the help of a rule permitting you to lift your ball or substitute another one and play from another spot from where your ball is lying.
If you took your principle about a ball lying off the course to its extreme, you would not permit any rule that allowed you to get out of that. Hit a ball of the course? Game over and head for the bar.
The stroke and distance rule already applies the principle of putting another ball into play to let you get out of the problem of hitting your ball not found or out of bounds. This new local rule does not introduce a new principle or breach an old one: it just adds an option to the current relief. We might of course argue about whether the place from which you are allowed to play is too advantageous and/or that the penalty is too lenient, but the principle applied has been well established in the game from the first codification of its rules. Things happen on a golf course that leave you stuck - here's a rule that gets you out of it.
I can understand the "old school" reaction. I've been playing golf for over 60 years and stroke and distance is ingrained. I wasn't outraged when the lcoal rule was proposed (some undoubtedly were and I fear the effect it has had on the average blood pressure in every club bar throughout the country) but I was certainly taken aback and had to think it through.
At my club, we propose introducing it for all golf on the course but it may all come to nothing. If CONGU tells us it cannot be used in qualifying rounds, that's an end of it except for social golf.
If you took your principle about a ball lying off the course to its extreme, you would not permit any rule that allowed you to get out of that. Hit a ball of the course? Game over and head for the bar.
The stroke and distance rule already applies the principle of putting another ball into play to let you get out of the problem of hitting your ball not found or out of bounds. This new local rule does not introduce a new principle or breach an old one: it just adds an option to the current relief. We might of course argue about whether the place from which you are allowed to play is too advantageous and/or that the penalty is too lenient, but the principle applied has been well established in the game from the first codification of its rules. Things happen on a golf course that leave you stuck - here's a rule that gets you out of it.
I can understand the "old school" reaction. I've been playing golf for over 60 years and stroke and distance is ingrained. I wasn't outraged when the lcoal rule was proposed (some undoubtedly were and I fear the effect it has had on the average blood pressure in every club bar throughout the country) but I was certainly taken aback and had to think it through.
At my club, we propose introducing it for all golf on the course but it may all come to nothing. If CONGU tells us it cannot be used in qualifying rounds, that's an end of it except for social golf.
atticusfinch
Challenge Tour Pro
The difference is that one type of shot is allowed by the rules (even if impossible) and the other is not allowed (even if possible).
The new LR will fundamentally change the 400 year old principle that a ball not on the course cannot be played ("played" includes taking relief) and you must keep trying till you get it on the course (with a stroke) before proceeding.
(I know I am like King Canute trying to hold back the tides, but somebody has to do it.
)
The new LR will fundamentally change the 400 year old principle that a ball not on the course cannot be played ("played" includes taking relief) and you must keep trying till you get it on the course (with a stroke) before proceeding.
(I know I am like King Canute trying to hold back the tides, but somebody has to do it.
)
atticusfinch
Challenge Tour Pro
Social golfers have played by their versions of the new LR for decades. Hope fully GONGU will enforce the "real rules."
D
Deleted member 16999
Guest
Why would CONGU tell us it can’t be used in qualifying rounds?
Surely that would put them at loggerheads with the R&A?
Colin L
Tour Winner
The difference is that one type of shot is allowed by the rules (even if impossible) and the other is not allowed (even if possible).
The new LR will fundamentally change the 400 year old principle that a ball not on the course cannot be played ("played" includes taking relief) and you must keep trying till you get it on the course (with a stroke) before proceeding.
(I know I am like King Canute trying to hold back the tides, but somebody has to do it.
Is it a 400 year old principle or just a 400 year old habit?
Our difference is largely that I don't see hitting a ball out of bounds as different in principle from putting one in a lake, losing one in impenatrable undergrowth or GUR etc. I do feel that you, with the help of history, are inflating putting a ball off the course into something it doesn't need to be. When I slice one off the course, it is not a sacrilegious outrage; it's just a bad shot like any other and I pay a price for being allowed to get on with my game.
I'm not, for the ordinary club golfer, keen on the notion that we are morally improved by having to suffer the nerve-wracking process of playing a provisional or worse a provisional for that provisional - and I've heard that implied. I've had to suffer for 60 years from playing provisionals and I don't see why golfers should get it easy nowadays. But I exaggerate. The elite golfer appears to deal with provisional ball well - presumably because they have a confidence denied to the likes of me. I'll ask the question again. Would you not agree that this local rule will make the game more enjoyable for many?
jim8flog
Journeyman Pro
AS Pauldj42 says
CONGU simply states that the round must be played to the R&A rules of golf and that includes any allowable LRs.
The new rule will be an allowable LR
Colin L
Tour Winner
Not necessarily. Preferred lies is an allowable local rule but CONGU limits the times of the year during which it can be used for qualifying rounds. It also permits the use of fairway mats in winter for qualifiers.
duncan mackie
Money List Winner
Strangely, I had an example of this in Tuesdays Trophy event....
Driving off my ball headed down the right hand side, about 3yds off the fairway. There's a couple of small silver birch trees in the area but the ball was expected to pass them by about 50yds.
Long story short - the ball was eventually found 1ft OOB 35 yds right where it had gone back and right off one of the 3" trunks.
With the tee full, and a fair way back up a hill, and my playing partners clearly wishing to get on I took the opportunity to drop a ball in the appropriate place under the new rule to see what it would feel like, rather than walking back having called the next group down and generally messing everyone down.
Now, and this is the relevant part of my story as a response to your post, did I gain an advantage over reloading? Absolutely not! I had lost at least 50yds on even a poor drive leaving me 190yds instead of 140 (or possibly less - we all know how easy the second attempt is!). I make 4 on that hole more often than not, and could have made a point (it's a stroke hole) relatively easily from 3 off the tee but much less easily under the new rule.
Accept that it's a single example but I would be an idiot invoking it rather than an idiot not to invoke it here!
atticusfinch
Challenge Tour Pro
I don't either, if all you consider is having hit the ball into an unplayable situation from which relief is necessary to keep playing. The rules provide different means to do it depending on which it is. As I have said, a drop is allowed from a WH because a drop approximates a stroke. S&D is required in the other because there is no legal stroke that can be approximated.
I think it is more than a habit...it is a principle that exists in all sports...play is permitted only on the specified area/field. I am unaware of any time in that 400 years when an OOB ball could be played from OOB.
Why do you think S&D has been the only option for an OOB ball? What is different from an OOB ball and one in a WH? One is on the playing area the other not.
(I'm repeating, so I'll stop.)
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