Rules, what rules?

[viscount17]

Listening to the guy from the R&A 'explaining' the rules during the bbc coverage.

Do they listen to themselves? If his explanations are correct then what happened to 'do what is fair'?

His interpretation of Lost Ball

- you don't need to search for 5 mins (good but please tell all the plonkers hunting for lost donnays),

- if you hit in the bundu and really don't want any helpful soul to find it, <u>hit another quickly from the original position without declaring it a Provisional</u>

- he was asked to quantify the 'doubt' issue, as in entitlement to play a provisional if unsure if it went into a hazard, all he could come up with was 'some'.

and this is a Rules Official?

No wonder Tiger got his moveable mountain!

All goes to show, they do need re-writing.

 

[muttleee]

The problem is that there are basically an infinitely large number of permutations of what can happen on a golf course and the rules have to deal with all of them, so there's bound to be a bit of room for interpretation here and there. I honestly think if you sat down and tried to write a new version, you'd end up with something very similar to what we already have.

 

[Herbie]

It would be better to have far less rules and live with it, rather than an endless stream of adjustments, additions, ammendments, suplimentaries and interpritaion guidelines followed by those who make the decisions on rulings that often leave us all agog!

 

[backwoodsman]

If you don't like 'em, play a different game...

 

[Herbie]

Very good, can you pass that on to the R&A who are responsible for so many ammendments and rule changes over many years as they seem to not like them either.

 

[Imurg]

If you don't like 'em, play a different game...

It's not really a question of not liking them, its understanding them.

 

[backwoodsman]

If you don't like 'em, play a different game...

It's not really a question of not liking them, its understanding them.

If you sit down & read them, they are really not that difficult. Somewhat involved I'll admit, but because they try to be precise (and in a game like ours, precise is what you need), they have to use complex sentences. But in the end, I think they do what they intend - which is to describe what "is fair"

 

[viscount17]

If you don't like 'em, play a different game...

It's not really a question of not liking them, its understanding them.

If you sit down & read them, they are really not that difficult. Somewhat involved I'll admit, but because they try to be precise (and in a game like ours, precise is what you need), they have to use complex sentences. But in the end, I think they do what they intend - which is to describe what "is fair"

If you wish to be precise, you use simple sentences. One sentence contains one fact. This is the basis of documentation written in simplified English.
Writing complex sentences, which may contain many facts, while remaining grammatically correct, can, and do, create the very real possibility of ambiguity, which is the root cause of the necessity for the publication of 'The Decisions'; a book, more than three times the size of the Rules, whose sole purpose is to explain the very ambiguities created by the overuse of complex sentences.

One suggestion is the addition of a comprehensive index.
This would not be an onerous task.

To test the reason for this suggestion put yourself on the course. You are in a Hazard. What Rules apply? Take out your copy of the Rules and try to find them.

Now open the pdf version of the Rules, available on the R&A website. Enter Hazard in the Search Criteria and you will get 26 hits. Get the picture?

 

[RGDave]

His interpretation of Lost Ball

- you don't need to search for 5 mins (good but please tell all the plonkers hunting for lost donnays),

- if you hit in the bundu and really don't want any helpful soul to find it, <u>hit another quickly from the original position without declaring it a Provisional</u>

I saw a moment yesterday when Ogilvy stuffed it in the heather jungle. It reminded me exactly of a post/thread on here not too long ago about disagreements on the course. If you don't want to find you ball, declare it lost and hit one before some helpful person finds it for you and makes your trouble worse.
I understood the rules official clearly....as for this event, I didn't see it.

 

[Adrena1in]

Writing complex sentences, which may contain many facts, while remaining grammatically correct, can, and do, create the very real possibility of ambiguity, which is the root cause of the necessity for the publication of 'The Decisions'; a book, more than three times the size of the Rules, whose sole purpose is to explain the very ambiguities created by the overuse of complex sentences.

Huh?!

 

[muttleee]

If you don't want to find you ball, declare it lost and hit one before some helpful person finds it for you and makes your trouble worse.

You can't actually "declare" a ball lost. Just play another ball without saying it's a provisional. Then it won't matter if anyone finds the original ball or not.

 

[RGDave]

If you don't want to find you ball, declare it lost and hit one before some helpful person finds it for you and makes your trouble worse.

You can't actually "declare" a ball lost. Just play another ball without saying it's a provisional. Then it won't matter if anyone finds the original ball or not.

Whatever.

If I hit a ball to a place where I don't want to go to and know that finding it could well be 99% worse than playing my 3rd/5th whatever, then I play another presuming it to be lost.
Then, if I don't state if the next ball is provisional, I've actually done myself out of the chance of playing the first one anyway.....

I don't see the difference.

By NOT declaring my provisional my provisional it stands to reason it's lost. My understanding was that you could declare a ball lost, either in words or by deed.

Hitting another one without making it clear if it's a provisional or not is WAY too dodgy.

 

[Dodger]

If you hit a provisional WITHOUT stating it is a provisional the ball is then in play.....end of.

 

[Herbie]

If you don't like 'em, play a different game...

It's not really a question of not liking them, its understanding them.

If you sit down & read them, they are really not that difficult. Somewhat involved I'll admit, but because they try to be precise (and in a game like ours, precise is what you need), they have to use complex sentences. But in the end, I think they do what they intend - which is to describe what "is fair"

If you wish to be precise, you use simple sentences. One sentence contains one fact. This is the basis of documentation written in simplified English.
Writing complex sentences, which may contain many facts, while remaining grammatically correct, can, and do, create the very real possibility of ambiguity, which is the root cause of the necessity for the publication of 'The Decisions'; a book, more than three times the size of the Rules, whose sole purpose is to explain the very ambiguities created by the overuse of complex sentences.

One suggestion is the addition of a comprehensive index.
This would not be an onerous task.

To test the reason for this suggestion put yourself on the course. You are in a Hazard. What Rules apply? Take out your copy of the Rules and try to find them.

Now open the pdf version of the Rules, available on the R&A website. Enter Hazard in the Search Criteria and you will get 26 hits. Get the picture?

Viscount, nail on the head champion 2009.
But in addition to this problem I would add that there are one or two areas within the rules that are simply unreasonable or nonsense, where application of the rule punishes the player where fairness would not. A good example was harrington and ball moving on the green caused by excessive wind, but there are many more, likewise with rules that benefit a players poor shot that crop up from time to time.