The Pellucid Perspective - June 2017 - 10

RULES OF GOLF

and Leisure Research Group for some context. Especially if we
want to translate these issues from the big money world of professional sports to the recreational golf played by amateurs.
*

70% of golfers play for money, although well over 90% of
those wagers are less than $100.
*
60% of golfers admit to bending or breaking the Rules,
although most of those involve the use of "mulligans" or
relief from "lost ball" penalties.
*
About 50% are playing "stroke play" and 30% are using
"match play" formats.
*
69% of golfers think the "governing bodies" are on the
wrong track.
We can't tell from the survey whether the 60% taking mulligans are the majority of the 69% that think the USGA, PGA
Tour and other "governing bodies" are on the wrong track,
but the USGA would tell a golfer taking a mulligan that they
shouldn't post that score for handicap purposes. If all the golfers
in a foursome are accorded the same access to a mulligan, should
that round forever be consigned to a category of "score achieved
while cheating"? I guess my self esteem should take a hit when
the USGA deems me a cheater when our group takes 1st Tee
mulligans on days the range is closed. If a mulligan has any effect on my handicap, it would be to lower it - making it at least a
little harder for me to sandbag in my next tournament. I've also
given and been granted improper relief from goose poop and still
turned the score in, and I can't begin to tell you how much sleep
I've lost worrying about what the USGA thinks about those awful transgressions.
I also don't understand why the USGA doesn't communicate
the fact that the Rules are a lot more discretionary than many
golfers think, particularly in match play. If I hit a ball into a red
stake hazard and either don't see a splash or can't find it, my opponent can give me relief according to lateral hazard rules. If I
have a jerk for an opponent, he can make me follow "lost ball"
protocol. In this somewhat contradictory case within the rules,
my handicap can be impacted differently.
Having played a fair amount of golf with literally hundreds
of other golfers over the last 35 years, my encounters with other
serious golfers have been overwhelmingly positive and a lot of
fun, aided and abetted by a mutual dedication to good sportsmanship and knowing what transgressions we decide to wink at
and the limits of relief from goose poop. The real questions only
arise when encountering what we would deem more serious violations - fluffing in the rough, moving out of a divot and blatant
mis-marking of a ball on the green to name a few.
Just as rules infractions appear to be rare in professional
events, I've only witnessed real cheating on a few occasions. The
most blatant cheater I played with regularly was a Catholic priest.
Fortunately he was so bad that even his cheating wasn't enough
to impact the outcome in most of his matches. We have another
guy who routinely changes to a different ball to putt. He's arguably the best putter at our club and most of the reasoning and
humor behind winking at this bizarre behavior is attributed to
his Harvard education and being the son of a human resources
psychologist.

10 The Pellucid PersPecTive

On the other hand, at our big Member-Guest event I watched
a talented player with multiple club handicaps (of course using
the highest one) commit multiple offenses and did the polite
thing and discussed it with his host rather than report it to the
tournament chairman. The following year, they were in our flight
again and it only took the first hole to determine that the behavior had not changed. Fortunately, when I went to tell the host that
I felt obliged to report it, he informed me that someone else had
observed the same thing and the matter had been addressed -
they had been disqualified and the guest hasn't returned.
Another member who was considered a pillar of society and
played in our group once in awhile was observed breaking the
rules on multiple occasions and banned from playing for money
and all club events. To this day, many of us can't understand a
willingness to risk a lifetime of business and community service
distinction for a $2 Nassau or a chance to win a new pair of socks
in the Golf Shop. Apparently the need for some people to be
recognized as winners isn't always about the money.
As word filters out as to how the rules and handicap changes
are going to be defined and implemented, we start to get concerned. First, the course rating and handicap systems are already
a mathematical masterpiece. There are flaws and the handicap
system can be "gamed" by the small percentage of sandbaggers
seeking financial success or winners' fame, but most of those that
have a handicap report honestly and are using the system as a
measure of their ability, for better or worse.
I still don't understand the "solitary" round exclusion. As I
discussed with Dean Knuth at the PGA Show earlier this year
and have suggested previously, a simple formula that caps high
scores based on "standard deviation" would be more effective in
discouraging sandbaggers than eliminating the scores. In fact, a
golfer who plays 50 solitary rounds is much more likely to have
an inaccurate handicap than someone who reports them.
If the USGA is worried that too many handicaps will go low
enough to flood entries for their events that have a handicap limit, figure out a way to deal with it. There were about 10,000 golfers
entering the US Open qualifiers this year out of over 3,000,000
golfers who have handicaps. Is it worth revamping an entire system that basically works to fix whatever obscure problems are
related to event capacity and eligibility for a very small number
of golfers?
The real question is whether the Rules simplification and
handicap revisions are really being done to stem the drop in
handicap participation that is estimated at about 40% since 2000?
When we surveyed handicap issues for one State Golf Association a few years ago; their handicap numbers had gone down over
40%, but 90% of league participants that gave up their USGA
handicaps kept their "league handicaps." Is the USGA going to
address the relevance and cost issues that this and other SRGA
surveys have shown as the major reasons golfers give up their
USGA handicap service?
Further feedback indicates that the development of the "universal" worldwide handicap system will include enlisting the State
and Regional Golf Associations (SRGAs) in the promotion of
new software as a means of increasing their revenues. Increasing
the costs of individual and golf course participation in the new
June 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Pellucid Perspective - June 2017