New rules should clear up some bizarre rulings

THE new rules of golf came into play on Tuesday, January 1 and already we’ve seen some in action, particularly on TV, during the PGA Tour event over the weekend where several professionals putted on the green with the flagstick left in the hole and unattended.

We also witnessed the new drop from knee-height and the removal of loose impediments in a hazard without penalty. Speaking of which, I read an interesting story about the old rule recently.

An incident took place during the 1990 Irish Ladies Close at The Island Golf Club in Malahide where a player walked in to play her ball from a water hazard that happened to be dry and she picked up a stone in the spikes of her shoe. Realising what she’d done, she proceeded to remove the stone and threw it away. She then played the shot, carried on and signed for the score, but when asked afterwards if she had removed a stone from a hazard, she explained what had happened, only to be informed that she was disqualified for signing for a score that should have included a penalty.

This demonstrates the unfairness of some of golf’s older rules as she gained absolutely no advantage from it, but she had still broken a rule, so it’s good to see that rule changed at least.

Like I said last week, however, I’m still not sure about the rule involving out of bounds and it will take a while to see how this one pans out.