By Jeff Ellison, Tournament Director, Pacific Northwest Section of the PGA
(first published in Pacific Northwest Golfer, September 2001)

Let’s start with the description of the game provided in Rule 1-1: All players start at the same place (teeing ground), they play one ball, negotiate the distance to the hole by striking that ball with their clubs and accept the course as they find it. You hit it, find it, hit it from there. Simple game. The Rules become involved for three reasons: 1) the ball can’t be played from where YOU hit it; 2) you don’t want to play your ball from where YOU hit it; 3) your ball moved through some means other than a stroke. If one of these happens, we just open up the Rules book, and do what it says.

Take a quick survey of the “Good Book” and you will quickly see that most penalties relate to a player proceeding incorrectly. Rule 26 (water hazards), Rule 27 (ball lost), and Rule 28 (ball unplayable) are really the only Rules where “bad golf” exposes you to penalty. Most of the time we drop incorrectly, improve our lie, strike our equipment, or commit other miscues easily avoided by players of all abilities.

Obviously, the most dreaded penalty is disqualification. Nothing gets a player grasping for straws more quickly than bringing up the possibility of a trip to the “Dairy Queen.” Believe it or not, it is actually difficult to disqualify yourself during a stroke play round. And it is even harder during match play. On the golf course, you will be disqualified if you play a game so different from the rest of the field that a remedy is not available to “guess your proper score.” In stroke play, if you fail to hole out, play a wrong ball, or are guilty of a serious breach of the Rules when you play from a wrong place and fail to correct your error before playing from the next teeing ground, then you have a problem. You don’t have a score for the hole and the Committee is powerless to apply a penalty less than disqualification (i.e. guess your score).

Except when the Committee imposes a disqualification under Rule 33-7 (a.k.a. the dirty rotten cheater rule), disqualification is not meant to imply a deliberate intent on the part of the player.

A few years ago, we were conducting a Four-Ball Stroke Play (Best-Ball) event at Royal Oaks CC in Vancouver, Washington. Unfortunately, a team failed to complete their score card correctly, returning to the Committee a score for the ninth hole that was one shot lower than actually taken. Since the team did not return an accurate report to the rest of the field (and the incorrect score was lower), under Rule 31-7a, the team was removed from the rest of the competition (i.e. disqualified). One player reacted very strongly to the news. In fact, this player went a little farther in expressing his concern with the procedure than I had ever seen. Finally, it dawned on us what was happening. The player viewed the disqualification as a statement that he was cheating, but nothing was further from truth. The team simply made an unfortunate mistake. Their affirmation to the other 190 players was for a score that was lower than they actually made. The Good Book makes no value judgement, we just can’t accept a score in such circumstances. Once we addressed this issue, the player felt a little better about his quick exit from the competition.

Have you ever heard a player complain of the complexities of the Rules? Want to make the Rules of Golf a little simpler? Easy, play your ball as it lies or go back to the previous spot and try it again (oh yeah, and add one). We should be looking for reasons to play our ball rather than looking for relief. Too many players launch their ball off into the unknown, expecting the Rules to bail them out of every misfortune. In the good ol’ days, the original Ball Unplayable Rule required that before you could lift your ball, you had to give your opponent (Match Play) the opportunity to attempt to play your ball. If he could move it to a playable position in TWO strokes, you had to accept those strokes and continue play with the ball. If he couldn’t, you could then drop your ball under the Rule. Anyone want a drop?

The next time you have a close encounter with the Rules of Golf, remember the Good Book provides you guidance on how to arrive at your score based on what YOU did. If your procedures are too far from proper, the Committee will have no method of accurately arriving at your score and they will be forced to spell it.

For a copy of the latest USGA Rules of Golf Booklet, contact the PNGA office in Seattle at 800-643-6410.