Golf Rules

Le Golf National, the host course for the 2024 Olympics, presents in itself a unique set of challenges and responsibilities for rules officials. Here’s an inside look at what it means to be a rules official at this prestigious event.

As an intern at Pebble Beach, I got an opportunity to work as a volunteer for 6 weeks building up to the 1997 Masters (who could forget this year – Tiger’s 1st win).

In this article I want to get more practical and discuss some rulings that occurred at the recent Investec SA Womens’ Open that was played at Erinvale in Somerset West. This gives us an opportunity to see how the rules are applied and how players are guided by Rules Officials to proceed in a given situation.

You may only have a maximum of 14 clubs in your bag when playing golf. Count your clubs before you start playing.

Apparently, this was one of the wettest winters in quite a few years, especially in the Cape. We have seen pictures and videos of golf courses being flooded and becoming quite unplayable.

Even now, after some sun and wind that should dry out a course, we still find areas of water patches and due to the wetness, there are many areas, especially in the rough, where tractors cannot mow and these areas are muddy and overgrown.

These circumstances lead to a higher number of balls being searched for and players having to spend a lot of time looking for their balls.

In this article I want to touch on something that can cause a lot of frustration on the course – Pace of Play, or rather, how to avoid slow play!

The 2 major changes, that may happen when we are playing a round of golf, deal with the procedure when dropping Back-on-the-Line (must drop on the line and ball may roll one club-length in any direction) and when a ball may be embedded right at the bottom of the lip of a bunker (may now take the nearest point as reference point, and not necessarily right behind the ball – as is the case in all other situations when ball is embedded in the general area).

Welcome to 2023 and what we trust will be a very happy golfing year! A QUICK RECAP During 2022 we started to look at the various relief options available to a player when finding the ball in a difficult situation and we especially touched on all the free relief options. These relief situations are contained mainly in Rules 15 – 19 and in our last article we began to dissect Rule 16, which gives free relief when confronted by any Abnormal Course Condition. January changes We have looked at all the different scenarios (Animal Hole, Ground Under Repair, Immovable Obstruction, Temporary Water) and now need to emphasise the finding of the Nearest Point of Complete Relief, the measurement of the relief area and how to drop within that area (all described in Rule 14), but we will take a break from this discussion to look at the changes that were made to the Rules of Golf with effect from 1 January this year. Why are there suddenly changes to the (new) Rules of Golf And how does it affect me when playing a round at my local club? The last huge changes to the Rules of Golf were made in 2019 and it resulted in simplified actions (all relief areas standardised) and also brought about situations where there are no penalties to a player for accidentally moving a ball (on putting green – just replace it on the spot; when searching for a ball, etc). Too many possibilitiesI have enjoyed playing under and refereeing the new Rules as it definitely speeds up the game and also help to get rid of bizarre situations (remember the tv replays to establish what happened). However, although it took 5 years to completely rewrite the Rules, it was soon evident that the authors could not think of every singly practical possibility that can occur on a course. That is why we saw “Clarifications” issued each term (to explain what is meant by a Rule and how it should be applied) and the introduction of additional Model Local Rules to address situations. Examples were the whole debate on when is a caddy standing behind a player when she addresses her ball; the replacement of a broken club brought in with a local rule; when ball played on putting green hits an object; etc. The changes to the Rules of Golf with effect 1 January 2023 thus had one main objective, namely to incorporate many of the clarifications and additional model local rules into the rules itself so that it is now part of the rules applicable to everyone without a committee needing to add it as model local rules at the club. However, the R&A and USGA, as writers of the Rules, also used the opportunity to make a few significant changes to the Rules. I urge you to take a look at all the changes (go to Rules at www.randa.org), but I want to highlight those changes here which may affect the club player the most.