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.
Hunter, I worked for a state university for a semester. One was enough. I know precisely where you're coming from.
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?
Absolutely!
I remember in the middle '80s (when Japan was at the height of its ascendancy) hearing that Japan had 10 engineers for every lawyer, and the US had 10 lawyers for every engineer -- and that was the problem. While the numbers may have been exaggerated, the tone was probably correct.
But recognizing the problem does not solve it. The larger problem is getting from here to there. And, as long as lawyers write the law, the problem will persist. They are not going to write the law in such a way as to do themselves out of a job. (Only engineers do that -- oh, that's a different joke.)
That applies to society as a whole. Does it also apply to golf? Maybe. The Rules staff at the USGA may be as motivated by job security as the country's lawyers.
No cheers :-( DaveT
