Rules tweak spares club players’ blushes

Club golfers will no longer have to endure the dreaded walk of shame back to the tee-box.

A local rule introduced by the game’s governing bodies will give players the option of taking a drop in the vicinity of where the ball was lost or went out of bounds under a two-stroke penalty.

The implementation, which will be introduced at the start of next year, will be widely welcomed, if not only for the embarrassment it might save the wayward hacker but also because it should assist in the pace-of-play battle.

However, this rule will not apply in professional or elite level competitions. This is one of the four tweaks to the new Rules of Golf that were rolled out last year in an attempt to “simplify and modernise” and so make the game easier to understand.

The majority of the proposals unveiled last year will be implemented but the USGA and R&A made four changes to their plans after a sixmonth “wide-ranging review process which has embraced the views of golfers, rules experts and administrators worldwide”.

There will no longer be a onestroke penalty for a double-hit, i.e. striking the ball more than once in the process of a swing, and, when taking a drop, balls now must be dropped from knee height or higher.

And as far as taking relief goes, instead of the 20- or 80-inch measurement proposal, it will now be one club length (for free drops) and two club lengths (for penalty drops).