8 TEEING OFF:

BRENDAN JAMES

JANUARY 1 saw the modified rules changes authored by the R&A and US Golf Association come into play. It took approximately two days for one of the key changes to come under fire.

Players in the field of the year-opening Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii were the first to compete under the new rules. Criticism of the new knee-high drop rule started two days before the opening round.

The intriguing change from dropping a ball from shoulder height to knee height had players like Bryson DeChambeau and Rory McIlroy scratching their heads.

“I think the knee drop one (intrigues me most),” DeChambeau said. “That you have to drop it from knee height is a bit absurd, unfortunately. I think that you should be able to go from knee height to shoulder height.”

McIlroy questioned if the new rule was giving an advantage to shorter players.

“(With dropping from knee height), we’re saying that Brian Harman has got a big advantage, he can basically place it. Where you got someone like Tony Finau who is dropping it probably from like waist high for me. But I think that they’re trying to simplify the rules which I think is a great thing for the game.”

At the heart of the discussion is Rule 14.3 – Dropping Ball in Relief Area. The Rule states a player must drop the ball from knee height and to let go of it so that it is not thrown, spun or rolled in a way that would affect where the ball might come to rest.

In addition, the ball must not strike the player or his equipment before it strikes the ground. If the ball is not dropped in the proper manner, it must be dropped again, and failure to do so would result in a one-stroke penalty if the golfer played such an improperly dropped ball.

Original discussions about the latest changes proposed dropping the ball from any height but officials felt it would become hard to distinguish dropping the ball from placing the ball. As a result the drop point was chosen as knee height. But why the need for change? The R&A and USGA believe the lower dropping height will result in softer landing drops and fewer re-drops, which will ultimately (they say) improve the pace of play. How long does it take to re-drop a ball twice? Even in the trickiest of circumstances on a steep slope above a water hazard, it surely can’t take more than a minute.

Call me a dinosaur but was there anything seriously wrong about dropping over your shoulder, which existed from 1908 until 1983?

Of all three drop versions we’ve had in the past 110 years, one could argue the over-theshoulder-drop is more likely to result in a lie that defines the game.

It was the great Bobby Jones who said: “Golf is the closest game to the game we call life. You get bad breaks from good shots; you get good breaks from bad shots – but you have to play the ball where it lies. ... It would seem that if a person has hit a golf ball correctly a thousand times, he should be able to duplicate the performance at will.”

Dropping the ball from beside your knee is going to give you more good lies than bad … life simply isn’t like that.