say fudge the rules of golf . If you know golf etiquette the rules will apply themselves Gentleman

taking away the stroke from the stroke and distance would be nice, it was a rule in rcga in cananda for a while. Called the "rebel rules." It would save me alot of strokes. the other day I was 8 over with 7 penatly strokes...

doesn't affect me but... that tour players have to keep a scorecard when multiple people are already keeping your score (standard bearer, shotlink, etc...) then having a chance to sign a wrong one. the fact that an official can tell you your scorecard is wrong means they already have the authoritative score. all they're doing is matching information they already have. yes this is a unique situation they're in and can't apply to 99.9% of golfers but can't stand that people can be dq'ed for signing a wrong scorecard.

Not being able to test bunkers. It makes no sense to me why you can not ground your club in the sand and take a practice swing. Every bunker I play in always seems to have 1500 rakes around it. I'm sort of an authority on bunker play

Being able to putt with the flagstick in - it may speed up play.

14 club rule, needs to be increased to 15.

Ban belly putters.

The only rule that I really disagree with is when the ball on the green moves due to wind (once addressed) you're assessed a penalty.

IMO- you should be able to replace w/o incurring any penalty strokes.

I like that idea,
I would change the ball moving at address rule,
especially on windy fast greens



I think it's 18-2

I see you beat me to it....

Divots in the fairway should be ground under repair. In the rough play everything down of course.

I would add a 1 stroke penalty for every minute over 3.5 hours it takes you to play your round. I love golf but I do not have 5 hours to play 18 holes. My buddies & I can play 18 on a very walker unfriendly course in 3.5 hours easy so why does it take 4.5 when you have carts? Alone I play 18 in less than two hours & I love it. My score is not affected by playing fast but waiting around & letting my mind wander really upsets me as the next shot is almost impossible.

What he said

Throwing the club and any unsportsmanlike conduct will result in a STROKE penalty AND a fine.. not jsut a fine.. (this really jsut applies to the PGA). Cause lets face it a fine isnt going to solve anything and m sick of some of the pro golfers antics. I'm not saying who but I think this would somewhat solve it or slow it down.

Lateral Water Hazards?

get rid of those b******s

Mee-ow! I think we can guess who.
On topic - stroke and distance for OOB always seemed strange to me. Hitting into an equally unrecoverable water hazard can be dropped at point of entry etc., with a similar amount of estimation - why not for OOB?

Maximum loft of 56 degrees. Would solve the ball/groove/distance problems in a heartbeat. And my shortgame would murder everyone.

i agree with the divots in fairways being a free drop. i was in a tournment and bombed a drive right in the front of a HUGE divot. and of course, i never layup, i had to hit a 2 iron out of it, i jammed the club into the front of it and hurt my wrist. i had to withdraw ( i was playing good too).

also, i think you should be able to fix spike marks on the greens.

(ooooohhh...right in the flopodopolis!!)

Caddies helping tour players with alignment and reading putts. Yardages and clubs are one thing but... come on!

I can't select just one. There are three rules I would like to see changed and all have already been mentioned.

- Free drop from fairway divot.
- Replace ball after address if ball on the green moves due to wind or other outside influence other than the golfer and his equipment.
- Fixing spike marks on greens.

But if I had to narrow it down to one, I would remove the penalty stroke for ball moving after address on putting green.

+1

Hmmmm.... let's see.... not being able to play out of OB.

Just wanted to say nice Grammar in your title.

With you on the lining the player up bit. Makes tour pros look like schoolgirls who need stabilisers on their bikes or water wings in the pool.

A rule from over here I'd like nixed is the one that says all ten handicappers claim to be a 5 until tourney day when they say they're good for a 15. Same guys you see playing lift, clean and place when it hasn't rained enough to dampen a tampon since 1927.

Change the maximum number of clubs to 12, ban hybrids and role the golf ball back 15 years

+1

I forget exactly how the ruling goes, but one of the goofier rules relates to knocking down a leaf when you swing a golf club....appears to depend on whether the area of the intended swing is "improved." In some cases, the knocking down of a number of leaves would not improve the area of the intended swing, as the player still has to swing through a number of remaining leaves when making his stroke. In such circumstances, there would be no breach of the Rule. In other cases, the knocking down of a single leaf might improve the area of the intended swing, incurring a penalty of two strokes in stroke play. I just don't get how you or any of your playing partners can tell the difference between the two, but I've been called on it in the past and the problem is that it's always going to be a subjective call.

Decision 13-2/22.

I don't mind rules, as long as they are clearly understood.

I hate the stroke and distance rule for OB. Make it like hazards where it is just a stroke and not distance too.

Would also improve speed of play which everyone is obsessed with.

Thats crazy.
Do you know what golf manufactures have figured out ????
That the game of golf is very difficult and unless you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth or have Donald Trump size trust fund, you cant spend all your day practacing and taking lessons.
If you want to grow the sport you must allow people of all walks of life to at least enjoy themselves once in a blue moon so they'll come back.

I absolutley hate these golf courses that are open to the public and have a 4 inch rough and ob stakes every where.Looking for golf balls for a half a day or being penalized every two seconds isnt fun and doesnt allow people to enjoy themselves.
Hybrids and descent balls are making the game "easier, although its still hell" and perhaps makes people come back.

If you still want to practice hitting 2 irons all day with old feather balls, thats OK.
But allowing Joe the plummer that works 60-70 hours a week to get a par once in a blue moon by using his pro v and hybrids isnt too much to ask for.

There are more of those guys then there are billionaires that might visit your golf course.

+1 most weekend golfers never follow this rule anyway, so just do away with it.

You can add Lost ball to this as well. you search for 5 mins, then have to walk back to previous spot. Just make it a penalty with option to drop in the area it is thought to be lost.

Only hypothetical don't worry it wont happen, but I want golf to be harder

well the good thing freddie is that you're allowed to carry 12 clubs and no hybrids to make it harder on yourself and be within the rules. not sure what you have against hybrids though as opposed to woods. in broad terms they're pretty much the same technology just reshaped. so much so that many clubs blur the lines between hybrid and wood. i think you'd have to extend it to no hybrid and woods. 12 probably still too high to make a big impact. it'd be cool to see tourneys with 7 or 8. i know they do one club tournaments but a little extreme for the short game imo.

i think the ball will have to get shorter and spinnier eventually. courses can't lengthen forever. maybe the groove rule will prompt a ball with more spin and less distance to be popular already.

I would eliminate all rules that allow you to touch your ball between the time you tee off and when you pick the ball out of the cup.

Nothing personal but do you think your s... dont stink ?? what is it with the purists that think that unless everyone else plays like them with blades , persimmon woods , blade putters , and a ball that is a relic , then they are to the point of cheating , how hard do you want the game to be ?? , the game is frustrating enough at times without regressing 25 years , sorry i just do not see the point

What they said

+1, and I don't like the fact that it is a 2 stroke penalty.

Being penalized for bombing a drive down the fairway and finding your ball in a divot....... Free drops for evreyone!

I think the spike mark on the green rule is the number one rule that needs to be changed. Why should I be penalized because some oaf couldnt pick up his feet when walking on the green? I played a local course several hours after a senior tournament finished, and I have to say I was shocked at some of the greens. There were literally hundreds of spike marks on several of the greens, most of which were within a 10' radius of the hole. It was quite disturbing to see. If I would have been playing in a tournament, I would have been that guy that called the pro-shop and the tourney director out to have a look and fix it.

Make the pros find their own balls! 5 minutes to search. Caddies can spot, but no on course spotters! Bet you scores would rocket up.

i have 3 main ones

if i address the ball in wind and it moves i get penalised ??! why, as long as you dont touch the ball it shouldnt be a penalty

if i stripe a drive down the middle and find im in a divot i have to play it, where is the fairness in that ?! i would rather have sliced it into some bunker where i could actually get a clean striker on the ball

which brings me onto another thing...

you should get a free drop if you end up in someones shoe print in a bunker, this society played at a course i went to for a weekend away this weekend, and the majority of bunkers were unraked, and i happened to land in 2 shoe prints, yes it is a hazard but that really does suck and gives me no shot at all, either a drop or a way of marking your ball, raking the sand, then replacing would help

I'm just the opposite. I think they should do away with bunker rakes all together, or have 1 tooth, break off 2, have 1, break off 2, so forth and so on. You are supposed to be penalized when you hit into a bunker. It's a sad state when you would rather bail out into a hazard than the greenside rough.

what do you mean by have 1 tooth, break off 2

i for one dont have any problems hitting out of primary rough and on most occasions semi rough, and proper thick rough is worse than a bunker anyway, but if i find a ball in a shoe print i would have rather stuck it in a brook, taken a drop, and had a decent lie for my third shot whereas in a shoe print it might not even get out or could fly absolutely anywhere

If a rake has 7 teeth, you would keep the 1st, break off the next 2, keep the 4th, break off the next 2, and keep the last. Though thinking about it, it would probably create such a large gap between teeth on the rake that it would defeat the purpose. Removing every other tooth would probably be sufficient.

The point of a bunker should not be to get a perfect lie every time you hit one into it. A bunker is supposed to be a hazard, and you should be penalized when you end up in one. If you dont like hitting out of shoe prints in the sand, try not to hit the ball into the bunker.

+1 in all respects.

obviously i agree about this point, but if im being honest on the one occasion, i smoked a drive on a dogleg, which took a pretty hefty bounce, and rolled into a shoe print in a bunker, all of a sudden i go from looking at getting on in 2
to having to make an up and down for par

and about the tooth argument, i guess you could just rake the bunker for longer if you could be bothered lol

Golf is a game of precision. While you hit your drive well, you obviously overdid it, no different to hitting on through a fairway into a creek. It is unfortunate that it ended up in a bunker, but I'm sure no dunks one in the drink on purpose either.

Regardless, I'm sure doing away with a rake will never happen. I do like Jack's idea of removing every other tooth though. That way, you still get relief from the foot prints, but when you rake, you dont leave a perfect surface for the perfect lie. You leave big valleys between big mounds.

Brilliant idea. Let's make the game more difficult (and thus, less possible to enjoy) for more players with limited ability. I'm sure courses that rely on...you know...PEOPLE PLAYING to make revenue would be on board with that.

While we're at it, let's raise basketball hoops to 11 feet for junior high players and make high school football teams gain 20 yards with only 3 downs to make a first down. Those ideas make about as much sense as banning hybrids and stifling ball technology.