i’m guessing there’s no rule to save me here

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, Subdiver1 said:

@DaveP043 good call thank you. I concur and good point about "After", will have to look back at my argument and other points; basically I was pointing out that any player making a course condition that negatively affects other players is violating the rules, and the spirit of fair play. Going back to Rule 1, whether you make something worse before OR aftetlr doesn't really matter to me; if you choose not to fix what you broke then you break Rule 1, and the intent of the others.

On the second point, unless I mis-stated my argument ( possible since I was a little out of breath and had hand cramps by then ) the point was that, bunkers are (supposed to be anyway) "groomed" and maintained. Failure of a player to return the condition is, consciously or unconsciously, maliciously or not, a DELIBERATE personal choice and a failure to act and therefore, a DELIBERATE worsening of the conditions for other players. (Kind of like seeing a person bleeding out on the sidewalk and not at least calling 911 which could lead to criminal charges for FAILURE to positively "help" those conditions. Of course someone has to catch you walkkng by and not helping, but...). (Sorry for the caps, no italics using my phone). 

Anyway, another angle to the point of argument is that choosing not to fix something that you caused (ball mark, divot, bunker scars) is just as bad as slamming your putter head into the green or grabbing a shovel and digging a hole. And all of that violates Rule 1.

No the USGA hasn't yet accepted that (realistically if we think about it, a lot of recent rule changes/decisions have been around "increasing pace of play. With that in mind the only decision here would be, remove rakes from bunkers, don't have people replace or fill divots, and leave ball marks alone, because returning the course to the maintained (or should be maintained) condition, slows play

Last point, most of the rules are fairly easy to read and "interpret." However, going back to the rules courses etc., without Rule 1, there are no other rules; Rule 1 was the original rule and provides the foundation for all others. Failing to consider Rule 1 in interpreting the application of the others we miss the point of the game and our conduct. Be the guy, or gal, who holds the game together by holding your playing mates accountable for their actions, regardless of the letter of the law. If we all work together and know that someone will call us our politely, for our transgressions, we will have better course conditions, better play, better manners, and a better time overall.  We can pass on the ground crew for not grooming the bunkers every day, or ****** about the group in front not fixing 1 ball mark, but what about the dozens of other players who could have been fixing their own ahead of that group who helped turn that OKAY course into a cabbage patch?  And what of all those playing with them that may have fixed their own while silently watching their playing partners leave a path of destruction in their wake?  Maybe I can't "force" you to rake a bunker or fix ball marks () but if you won't take suggestion, I can at least refuse to participate, and I do; look, I am human; I miss stuff and I make mistakes and I appreciate that others do, and will, also. But I offer no apologies or "sorry" for being willing to call others out or for refusing to partner with people who cannot have or find some consideration for others. If I don't fix my s***, call me out, maybe I forgot in my frustration or elation, but I am human and I should be humble enough to accept my misstep and correct myself, realizing that the other Rule 1 applies, "Do unto others" and if I cannot follow that, then I deserve every raw break I get and maybe I belong under that bus that the guy who just landed in the trench and 8" deep, size 12 footprints I left behind in the bunker on 14 is wanting to run me over with as he/she contemplates the 4 strokes it will take to get out, going backwards, toward the pond.

Cheers, and may you all be blessed, or cursed, to play the course as you find it, because THAT, is the way YOU left it

For the first bit, 8.1d, you did what I've done, and what many others have done, find a specific part of a rule that seems to back up my initial opinion, and neglect to read the remainder of that same rule.  

For 8.3, that addresses a players intentional actions to impact a specific other player's specific shot.  Its not a scattershot prohibition against taking those actions.  Also, if you read the things that are not allowed (8.3 references the list in 8.1), it says the player is NOT allowed to do some things, but makes no requirement to CORRECT anything he's done before moving on.  Also note that the Player (the guy who made the footprint) is the one who might be penalized under this rule, but the rule doesn't do anything to help the guy whose ball found the footprint.  This is consistent when another guy plays your ball, your ball is Lost if you can't become certain that's what happened within 3 minutes of search time.  The 'innocent" guy still has no way to fix the problem.  That leaves Rule 1.2.

I've read all of Rule 1.2, and I simply don't accept that NOT raking footprints constitutes "serious misconduct", which is defined in the rule as "player behaviour that is so far removed from what is expected in golf that the most severe sanction of removing a player from the competition is justified."  Remember that the only potential penalty for Serious Misconduct is DQ, nobody will ever be DQ for failing to rake a bunker.

I'm happy to refer to Rule 1, in the Purpose Statement it says:

"Play the course as you find it and play the ball as it lies."

And like you, I enjoy these discussions.  Like you, I played for decades, but only began to truly study the Rules after the 2019 edition came out.  Since then I've attended the USGA 3-day Rules Workshop 3 times (once was the virtual version), and taken the 100-question exam, scoring in the Expert range each time.   Still I have tons to learn, and working through these discussions is a great way to continue my education.  

 

[Subdiver1]

13 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

if a drunken fan had stomped through the bunker in this way, and then tigers ball found itself 5 inches below sand level directly after.

 

13 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

 

 

I am certainly fallible, every human is.  However, the Rule that @Subdiver1 quotes is titled "Restoring Conditions Worsened After Ball Came to Rest".  After.  The footprint occurred well before the ball came to rest, so 8.1d doesn't apply.  8.3 discusses a player deliberately taking actions to impact the area where another player's ball might end up.  Making a footprint in the sand 10 yards or 100 yards away from the current location of the ball, is NOT deliberately altering conditions where the ball might come to rest.  Making the footprint might be deliberate, but that Player didn't intend to impact the area where another player's ball might come to rest

 

If the fan made footprints AFTER Tiger's ball came to rest, he would be allowed to restore the conditions.  If the footprint occurred before the ball got there, no such luck.  The Loose Impediment ruling was correct, and would still be correct.  Now it COULD have been a concern with unreasonable delay (5.6), but that's not exactly a hard and fast rule, and would probably never been enforced.

@DaveP043 @ryan.mzzz @ et. al. 

These points paint another part of the picture that points to a ... "bifurcation" (for lack of a better term) to "The Rules." WE, play under a different set of "rules" (conditions) than THEY do. How many strokes could you shave if you had someone standing by the 6", wet rough or near the tree line or hazard, to mark where your ball landed/ rolled to, vs. everyone searching 15 yards short or long? Granted, you/we, aren't supposed to be there anyway. But, the cumulative difference of that one, or two shots every couple of rounds contributes to separation in the game (us and them, Amateurs vs. Pros). It means WE don't play "on THIER level" in more ways than one. There is an "unfair" advantage when playing for the big $$$.  Reading The Rules:

10.2 (5) Physical Help, Eliminating Distractions, and Protection from Elements. A player must not make a stroke:

With their caddie or any other person or object deliberately positioned to:

Eliminate distractions, or

Yes, the rule allows THE PLAYER to interact but, Pros have marshals standing about silencing the crowd.

10.3.a, A player may have a caddie to carry, transport and handle their clubs, give advice and help them in other ways allowed during a round, but with these limitations:

Must not have more than one caddie at any one time. is finding a ball for someone else "assistance?"

Funny thay the definition of "advice" includes location another player's ball as "public information" and allowed; I'd like to watch Johnny Cochran argue both sides if that one

Well, Rule 7.1 puts onus on The Player for finding their ball, BUT 7.2 allows for a ball to be identified by The Player OR anyone else seeing a ball come to rest...

Regarless of all this babble, we have to face it, having spectators spot our ball in the mangroves and someone standing bybtk rake the trap as our ball flies toward it is not going to put us "in competition" with THEM.

We only occasionally have "someone else" (e.g. that guy walking his dog in the woods ) to help us find that errant shot and save the walk of shame (or playing that provisional shot one was wise, and skeptical enough, to have played ahead of time).

However we need a fair, level playing field at our own levels. Whether WE determine that a "local rule" allowing player to "fix" a bunker or move from a divot is prudent or not is one manner of making the game "fairer" to allow for those with less "self-awareness" of the impact their ...less than optimal behavior maybhave on others. Whether the Rule specifically calls it out or not is somewhat debatable, depending on creative application and interpretation. What I don't believe is debatable is that actions, or choice of inaction, that makes the conditions worse for one, than it was for another, diminishes the fairness of the competition. 

IMO, this all goes back to the essence of this discussion; Fair play.

Course condition, absent outside activity (player's, teenagers doing donuts on the 14th fairway, interesting term, "FAIRway"), should provide a level playing field, similar conditions, for all. The Course does not create ditches in the bunkers and bomb craters on the greens. The grounds crew tries to keep up with the daily destruction that occurs. THE COURSE lacks an inate ability to rake its own bunkers or fill divots in the pristine carpet of the fairway ( interesting term "fairway") to compensate others for our damage, to repair ball marks in our line.  Your swing and the direction/quality of your strike is the variable. The weather is variable, but typically similar on the same day in the same location and free from influence by poor swings or poor etiquette.  The course conditions should be something that are a relatively known quantity and fair, unimpacted by the few inconsiderates among us; or The RULES and the participants should allow for ensuring that the conditions of the field are the same for one as they are the rest, and dispensation when found disparate.

Yes, I have a letter to the governing bodies on this in draft, I have been debating the just need to finalize and hit send. I have been debating whether to include, "or just remove provision for rakes and allowance to repair bunkers at all" from the much shorter diatribe. Thoughts on that? Constructive? Not so much?

I'll step down off my soapbox for a much needed breath and provide relief to weary eyes and ears.

Good day to all, and best wishes for a happy, filling (spiritually and appetite oriented) Thanksgiving holiday.

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, Subdiver1 said:

 The RULES and the participants should allow for ensuring that the conditions of the field are the same for one as they are the rest, and dispensation when found disparate.

We've certainly come a long way from the original topic.  I think the Rules are trying to be equitable, as opposed to fair.  They try to treat similar situations similarly.  Its not "fair" for a ball struck down the middle to bounce into a bunker, yet it happens.  Its not fair for a ball hit deep into the woods to bounce into the fairway.  In neither case do you get what you "deserve" you don't get a "fair" result.  Golf isn't fair, and isn't intended to be.  Hitting a fairway, in general, offers a better lie and a less obstructed line for the following shot than a ball off the fairway.  I'd much rather be in a divot, or an uneven lie, in the fairway than in long grass or in the middle of the woods.  

I can accept that I play at a mid-level private club, my conditions are better than many public-course players, and much worse than the top-line private clubs.  I can accept that I have to find my own ball without help from a gallery, that I'm more likely to end up in an unrepaired divot than a top-level pro, that's just life.  If I want a perfect lie, I can go to an indoor sim-golf facility.  I'll stick with the variability and occasional unfairness of real golf.

[Stuka44]

5 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

I've read all of Rule 1.2, and I simply don't accept that NOT raking footprints constitutes "serious misconduct", which is defined in the rule as "player behaviour that is so far removed from what is expected in golf that the most severe sanction of removing a player from the competition is justified."  Remember that the only potential penalty for Serious Misconduct is DQ, nobody will ever be DQ for failing to rake a bunker.

 

5 hours ago, Subdiver1 said:

Course condition, absent outside activity (player's, teenagers doing donuts on the 14th fairway,

Subdiver1, as my post from earlier eluded too.  And this is not meant to single anyone out.  This devolves into the rules "aren't meant to be fair",    "golf isn't fair", just live with it. etc. etc. I agree with you 100%.  Rules are enacted to make things "fair".  I'm sure DaveP can share with me, and I just don't know I'm not being sarcastic, but aside from the "serious misconduct" of possibly screaming at the top of your lungs during your opponents downswing, watching him shank the ball, and then not giving him a do-over, or literally shoving him, or poking him in the ass with a club,  when he goes to make a stroke what is serious misconduct.   If its not raking a huge footprint in a bunker, then seriously what kind of serious misconduct do the rules of golf expect to occur, and it seems as though this is another example of the rules  addressing with pages, and pages, things which happen only once in a great while, and REFUSING to address simple things.  If the course is the course, if I have to play out of deep footprint left in the bunker, then people should have to putt across ball marks on the green, and only be allowed to fix them after you putt.  That is if you feel like it, after all, what are the "REAL" CHANCES  that a ball mark will interfere with a putt.  This should be considered a "bad break" shouldn't it. 

[DaveP043]

41 minutes ago, Stuka44 said:

what is serious misconduct.

You might want to read Clarification 1.2a/1 for some examples of what is, and is not, serious misconduct.

 

43 minutes ago, Stuka44 said:

if I have to play out of deep footprint left in the bunker, then people should have to putt across ball marks on the green, and only be allowed to fix them after you putt.

Perhaps you don't know, but prior to 1960 you were not allowed to repair anything on the green, you were not allowed to lift your ball on the green unless it interfered with another player's stroke, and even then you were not allowed to clean it.  That rule was changed because a number of factors led to consistently smoother greens all over the golfing world, and greens became a kind of special place, there was a (new) reasonable expectation of a smooth roll.  You have special rights on the putting green, and those rights were expanded even further in 2019, mostly in response to continue improvements in conditioning and green speed.  There hasn't been a similar change for fairways (General Area), and especially in bunkers, you really don't have a "right" to a good lie in the General Area, and REALLY don't have a right to a good lie in a bunker.  Beyond those "reasonable expectations", how would you address some of these "fairness" issues?  Exactly what type of lie gets you free relief, and what type of lie must you play as it is?  How do you tell a footprint from a furrow left by the raking machine, or a well-intentioned but careless rake job?   How do you tell when a divot has healed well enough to no longer merit relief?  Do you propose to allow preferred lies in all fairways, and allow rake and place in the bunkers all the time?  I challenge you to try to write an effective and enforceable rule that stops short of full time relief.

52 minutes ago, Stuka44 said:

and REFUSING to address simple things.

I don't think these are simple things at all, as you may have guessed.  The "simple" solution is the way it is now, play the course as you find it, and play your ball as it lies, with the most limited exceptions feasible.

[RickyBobby_PR]

4 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

Beyond those "reasonable expectations", how would you address some of these "fairness" issues?  Exactly what type of lie gets you free relief, and what type of lie must you play as it is?  How do you tell a footprint from a furrow left by the raking machine, or a well-intentioned but careless rake job?   How do you tell when a divot has healed well enough to no longer merit relief?  Do you propose to allow preferred lies in all fairways, and allow rake and place in the bunkers all the time?  I challenge you to try to write an effective and enforceable rule that stops short of full time relief.

Exactly. The fairness is that we all use the same set of rules no matter where we are playing. It’s not about some way to undo bad breaks 

[Subdiver1]

8 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

We've certainly come a long way from the original topic.  I think the Rules are trying to be equitable, as opposed to fair.  They try to treat similar situations similarly.  Its not "fair" for a ball struck down the middle to bounce into a bunker, yet it happens.  Its not fair for a ball hit deep into the woods to bounce into the fairway.  In neither case do you get what you "deserve" you don't get a "fair" result.  Golf isn't fair, and isn't intended to be.  Hitting a fairway, in general, offers a better lie and a less obstructed line for the following shot than a ball off the fairway.  I'd much rather be in a divot, or an uneven lie, in the fairway than in long grass or in the middle of the woods.  

I can accept that I play at a mid-level private club, my conditions are better than many public-course players, and much worse than the top-line private clubs.  I can accept that I have to find my own ball without help from a gallery, that I'm more likely to end up in an unrepaired divot than a top-level pro, that's just life.  If I want a perfect lie, I can go to an indoor sim-golf facility.  I'll stick with the variability and occasional unfairness of real golf.

Funny how everything can  morph. And there is thatbterm "fairway" again. Yeah, equitable may be a better term than fair here. I don't necessarily equate a bad bounce and people who leave destruction behind, but ainfo take your point.

[Subdiver1]

4 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

don't think these are simple

I think we probably all agree they are not really simple, and though one may see a sime solution, another may poke holes in it or point out various complications given a certain other set of circumstances.  Which is why it is great discussion.

 

[Subdiver1]

@ryan.mzzz got to play a round with my son yesterday.  I'll give you 3 guesses where I found myself on the 7th hole; and #s 1 & 2 don't count.  

I also had a fried egg on #12.  What a day.  I feel your pain my friend.  What a great game!

[ryan.mzzz]

28 minutes ago, Subdiver1 said:

@ryan.mzzz got to play a round with my son yesterday.  I'll give you 3 guesses where I found myself on the 7th hole; and #s 1 & 2 don't count.  

I also had a fried egg on #12.  What a day.  I feel your pain my friend.  What a great game!

that’s unfortunate. my bunker misadventures this week included finding a temporary lake in one:

[Javs]

18 minutes ago, ryan.mzzz said:

that’s unfortunate. my bunker misadventures this week included finding a temporary lake in one:

That sucks! However, when I made it larger I could see the dog and bird tracks also

[Subdiver1]

10 hours ago, ryan.mzzz said:

my bunker misadventures this week included finding a temporary lake in one

You cannot catch a break.  Well, on the up side, at least there IS a rule to give you relief from that lie.  

Was that from all that rain we received earlier this week?

[ryan.mzzz]

9 hours ago, Subdiver1 said:

You cannot catch a break.  Well, on the up side, at least there IS a rule to give you relief from that lie.  

Was that from all that rain we received earlier this week?

where that course is (miccosukee) they probably got 9 inches of rain over 3 days for that storm. rain ended thursday morning and I was out playing friday afternoon. there was more water than i’ve ever seen in the lakes but the conditions were surprisingly good for all that water.