RE: ShopTalk: Rules School

[Kevil, L H.]

Hi guys,   I can't resist jumping in. Since I work for a rules-dominated organization - a state university - I might have too jaundiced an attitude, but will share it with you all anyway.   IMHO the bane of current American society is legalism. We have way too many lawyers and not enough engineers. Judges are reinterpreting the laws and the Constitution daily. The goal of justice has been forgotten under a suffocating blanket of legalism.   My managment philosophy has long been a new rule: that rules should never become so complex that ordinary people cannot interpret them quickly and easily. When there become so - and the rules of golf have long been Talmudic in their complexity - they should be simplified. Are we expected to call penalties on ourselves only after consultation with a lawyer? Why do we tolertae this nonsense? Wouldn't Bobby Jones - a lawyer! - be laughing at us now?   Hunter     -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of John Kaufman Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 7:26 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: ShopTalk: Rules School Hi Graham, I don't have the answers but I think you're on the right track. In the 2004 decisions book there are a number of pages devoted to the treatment  of multiple penalties under rule 1-4 (Equity). They don't necessarily just add up. There are nine specific classes of situations and in only  two to the accumulate. For instance an guys leans on his club while bending over to pick up a leave in a bunker. Touching the sand and picking up the loose impediment are both two shot penalties. In this case they are part of the same act and he would only get two stokes not four.   Here's one I knew the answer to and in my altered state still got it wrong. A guy chips from off the green and the ball lodges between the lip and the flag. In removing the flag (the guy's a real klutz) the ball dislodges and moves six inches from the hole. What's the rule? Here's an easy on.e A guy starts with 13 clubs and hits a root with his wedge during a shot and brakes the shaft on the 6th hole. At the turn he grabs a new wedge and another putter from the pro shop. Penalty? Here's one that actually happen to me two years ago. I chip from the back of the green and my third shot on a par four lodges against the pin and the edge of the cup. My opponent in match plays say great shot picks up my ball and tosses it back to me. He then sinks his putt for a 3. What do I do. Did we halve the hole?   It was obvious to me that one of the key ingredients to being a good rules official is to be able to find the answers quickly.  Nobody can know all the subtleties in the rules but must be able to find the answer quickly. The Decisions book for 2004 has about 1200 decisions and about 700 to 800 pages of indexes, appendixes, rules, decisions, definitions and what have you. My big problem in the exam was finding what I was looking for in the book. When you have two hours to answer 50 questions and you spend 20 minutes looking for the answer to one question you know you're in trouble. The question about the caddie and player having the bunker adventure is in the book but I'll be damned if I could find it.   It was really strange coincidence that while driving to the hotel for the final exam a couple of morning talk show characters had their annual golf rules quiz. They had about 8 or 10 questions that  the audience was supposed to call in with the answers to get a  prize of something. They were in hysterics thinking everyone of the rules was absolutely ridiculous and the listeners only got a couple right.  I was hoping against hope the exam would be that easy. It wasn't.   Cheers, John ----- Original Message ----- From: Graham Little To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2004 1:44 AM Subject: RE: ShopTalk: Rules School Great post John.   I’d love to go to one of these. The real question is what is the penalty? My guess is it’s either two strokes or no penalty and if pressed I’d go with the two strokes. My memory of this rule is that you can rake a bunker after the stroke is played even if the ball stays in the bunker providing it doesn’t do anything to improve the present lie.      The case for no penalty is that the caddy raked the bunker and the rule talks about the player not allowed to test or ground his club. It’s an interesting twist. You would assume the actions of the caddy are the same as the actions of the player but something tells me this might be different.   As I said earlier I’d go with the two strokes but I wouldn’t put money on it.   Cheers Graham   -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Kaufman Sent: Thursday, 1 April 2004 9:12 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: ShopTalk: Rules School   Hi Guys, Did you ever do something and say "what was I thinking"?   I guess when you get older you do some weird things. At least that's what my wife keeps telling me. Of course I reminded her that she's eligible for social security in three weeks. She hasn't talked to me a in a few days.   Last summer I noted on the USGA web site that they were holding one of their two dozen or so four day rules schools in the area so I signed up. I thought it might be interesting to learn something although I thought I had a reasonable knowledge of the rules. The school started last Sunday. Four days, eight or nine hours a day with a 100 question 3 1/2 hour exam at the at the end. Half closed book , and half open.   My first impression Sunday when I arrived was the size of the group. About 115 people with 16 on the waiting list. The group included about two dozen women which also surprised me. We went around the room introducing ourselves and indicating how many of these schools we'd attended. Of course I was a virgin this being my first. The vast majority ranged from 5 to 12! I was amazed.   We started with the definitions and then went through all 34 rules. Anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half or more on each. There were two instructors, a USGA rules official and a PGA rules a official. They were both very good of course but I was really impressed by the USGA guy. Somebody would ask a question and he'd recite off the top of his head "well in accordance with Decision 12-6b2 such and such.". The presentation was a PowerPoint computer animated slide show intermixed with many videos right off the PGA tour. Just about every screw up you ever saw from Love hitting his putt during a practice stroke at the TPC (an $80,000 screw up) to Stadler kneeling on his towel at San Diego was shown. (DQ'd).  The one that got the most laughs was Els taking some practice swings in the rough near an over hanging limb. Some leaves came down. They broke for commercial but they still had the audio and Venturi was going on and on about how he was obviously guilty of a two stroke violation. When they returned from commercial it was found the official had declared no penalty (definitely a correct ruling) to which Venturi commented "I full agree"! They indicated that they had offered the course to various TV anouncers and nobody has taken them up on it yet.   By the second afternoon my mind had turned to mush. The third day I recovered somewhat and it wasn't too bad. The fourth day of course was the exam. After about two hours my mind was like scrambled eggs. After three hours I actually could not focus my eyes on the fine print in the decisions book anymore and had could no longer use it.  Here's a typical example. Guys in a horseshoe shaped bunker. Caddie goes over to the other side of the green to get a rake and rakes some foot prints he finds there. Player skulls ball over green  near just raked area. Caddie rakes area the player just hit from. Player again skulls the ball over into the other side of the trap (sorry bunker, there is no such thing as a trap) to where the caddie has just raked. Caddie goes over and again rakes  bunker on the other side. Player again skulls ball. This is repeated four times. What did the player score? I have no clue. I will be getting my score from the USGA in a few weeks but if I got 50% I'd be surprised. Interesting experience. Now that that's over I can relax and start on my 1040. Piece of cake.   Cheers, John