#rulesofgolf

When it comes to sports and rulings, you would be hard pressed to find a game with more rules and regulations than golf. So many things you are not allowed to do and so many penalties to be applied for a range of actions. The rules are designed to add clarity and boundaries to a game where such a wide range of occurrences can take place. While it is always going to be prevalent in the game, the rules should be in place to minimize the impact of luck on the results of a round of golf. After all, the sport is designed to identify the best player, not to see who can get luckiest on the course. While a ball bounding back to the fairway off a tree or a fortuitous gust of wind can’t be controlled by the rules, perhaps the lie a player gets in the fairway, to a certain extent, can.

Every golfer knows the feeling. You hit your best drive of the day, smoked down the middle, splitting the fairway without even a glance at the trouble on either side.You stride up confidently to your ball only to find it sitting two inches in the ground in the divot some jackass before you decided not to replace. You can’t believe your luck. You splash out the shot as the rules say you must and, as expected, the ball sails out of control without any predictable spin leaving you in the green side bunker. You had played the hole exactly how it was designed, and now you are envying your competitor who has a nice lie in the fairway bunker to your right. What part of this scenario helps to identify him as the better golfer? Bad breaks happen, I get that. “Life isn’t fair” you may say or “just make the best of it, chunk it out and try to escape with your par”. Players are taught how to hit out of divots and make the best of the situation, but it is still a massive disadvantage and one you did nothing to deserve.

Golf, at least in its original form, is built around the idea that you play the ball as it lies. If this were really still the case, I would say divots are just another part of the terrain and to man up and play through. In any round of golf played today though, it is quite common to see a free drop taken from any number of positions. Your ball could end up near a cart path, in beauty bark, or in standing water and you will get a free drop. With this luxury afforded to balls that end up in these typically wayward positions, why isn’t the same provided for a ball hit precisely where the hole designed it to be?

The most prevalent example of divots actually affecting the outcome of a golf tournament is the 1998 US Open. The late great Payne Stewart ended up finishing runner up to Lee Janzen by a single stroke. This result was most likely determined due to the fact that Stewart landed in not one but two divots in the final round of the tournament that made the difference. I have included links to both clips here and here. In the first clip you can hear Johnny Miller comment on Stewart’s bad luck as his competitor hit his ball in nearly the same place in the fairway but ended up with a huge advantage for the second shot. In the second clip simply notice the disappointment of Stewart when he sees his lie which clearly had a major impact on both the follow up shot and the result of the tournament. The US Open is known as golf’s greatest test and is designed to identify the greatest golfer in the world. The fact that this one may have been determined by a few bad breaks in the fairways is just absurd!

So how do the rules of golf fix the divot problem from having an impact in the future? Does some revolutionary new rule need to be added that will shake up the game? Absolutely not! The basis for a new divot rule is already in the book with the embedded ball rule. The rule basically states that any ball embedded in its own pitch mark in closely mown areas (basically the fairway and fringe) can be lifted, cleaned, and dropped as nearly as possible to where it had stopped. This same exact ruling could be used for a new divot rule! To determine if the lie in question was actually in a divot or not a player would confer with his partner or a rules official, as is done for the embedded ball rule, to reach a decision and take the drop if deemed appropriate. Drops from divots would only be allowed in the fairway and would give golfers the lie they deserve for their accurate drive. This would eliminate this truly frustrating break from both amateur and professional golf, making the game more fun and fair!

Do you agree that there needs to be a new divot rule in golf? Do you think is the best way to implement it? Let me know down below!