Pacing distance of putts

[deauxrite]

I have paced off my putts for years to determine the approximate distance. Today a fellow golfer informed me that it is a one stroke penalty for each occurrence.  Have I missed something in the rules..or is the fellow incorrect.

[cnosil]

29 minutes ago, deauxrite said:

I have paced off my putts for years to determine the approximate distance. Today a fellow golfer informed me that it is a one stroke penalty for each occurrence.  Have I missed something in the rules..or is the fellow incorrect.

I pace off my putts and don't know of any rules that prohibit stepping off the distance of a putt. 

He may be thinking of the old rules and even then it would depend on how close you were to the line of the putt.  This was from 2015:

The R&A and the USGA have recently been asked about methods of reading a putting green where players stand astride or stand or walk alongside their estimated line of putt to assess the slope of the green and the break of the putt. The question is whether such actions have the potential to breach Rule 16-1a. 

Under Rule 16-1a, the player must not touch the line of putt. (There are exceptions to Rule 16-1a, but none of them relate to methods of reading the putting green or determining a line of putt.) The “line of putt” is defined in the Rules as “the line that the player wishes his ball to take after a stroke on the putting green” including “a reasonable distance on either side of the intended line”. The penalty for a breach of Rule 16-1a is loss of hole in match play or two strokes in stroke play. Consequently, players who use such green-reading methods should take care to avoid walking on their line of putt in order to avoid the risk of penalty under Rule 16-1a.

The same is true of any other practices used by players to gain information when their ball is on the putting green, such as walking alongside the line of putt to measure the distance to the hole or standing at a midpoint to the hole and hovering the putter over the line of putt. To avoid the risk of penalty, players or their caddies who take any such actions should take care to avoid touching the line of putt, which includes a reasonable distance on either side of the intended line, with their feet, the club, or anything else.

 

 

Under the new rules there is no rule against touching the line of the putt:

https://www.usga.org/content/usga/home-page/rules-hub/rules-modernization/major-changes/touching-the-line-of-play-on-a-putting-green.html

The previous prohibition of touching the line of play on the putting green is eliminated:

• There is no longer a penalty for merely touching the line of play on the putting green (the term “line of play” applies everywhere on the course including the putting green, and the term “line of putt” is no longer used).
• But the player is still subject to the prohibition on improving his or her line of play on the putting green (see Rule 8.1a, as limited by 8.1b).

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, deauxrite said:

I have paced off my putts for years to determine the approximate distance. Today a fellow golfer informed me that it is a one stroke penalty for each occurrence.  Have I missed something in the rules..or is the fellow incorrect.

Your first response whenever anyone tells you that something is against the rules is to ask to be shown the Rule.  Download the (free) Rules of Golf app to your phone, so the person has no excuse for not being able to find the rule.  With this method, one of you is definitely going to learn the correct rule.

In this particular case, your buddy will be looking for a really long time before he finds any prohibition against walking the length of your putt.  As @cnosil has pointed out, before 2019 you weren't allowed to touch the line of your putt except for a few specific reasons, and you shouldn't unreasonably delay play to do it, but there's nothing saying you can't pace the distance.  Heck, you can laser the distance, its even more accurate than pacing it, faster too.

[deauxrite]

Thanks for the responses.  I did, in fact ask to see that rule in writing.  I am still waiting