Q Golf - Official online magazine for Golf Queensland Spring / Summer 2011 | Page 18

The ‘little white book’
By Rod Morri
Towards the end of this year or early next,
golf club members around Australia will
receive their updated “Rules of Golf”
book. It’s a process that takes place every
four years and to the final recipient, the
innocuous looking pocket-sized booklet
appears straightforward enough.
But the reality of this quadrennial ritual is
somewhat more complicated than those
of us in receipt of the “little white book”
are ever likely to contemplate.
First, there’s the simple logistics of
printing and distributing the more than
700,000 books to golfers across the
country. Surprisingly, until this year, the
printing was done entirely in the UK
before the pallets of books were put on a
plane and sent to the antipodes.
This year, thanks to the brave new digital
world we live in, the printing will actually
be done in Australia (though organised
and overseen by the Royal and Ancient)
before the books are sent to Golf Australia
for distribution to the various state
associations and onwards to the clubs
and members themselves. (There was
one experimental year in the early 1990’s
when the printing was handled locally by
the then AGU but for unknown reasons
was never done again).

While it might come as a surprise to
many that 2011 is essentially the first
time the books have been printed locally,
Golf Australia’s Manager of Rules and
Handicapping, Simon Magdulski, has an
explanation.
“With something like a rule book, where
every word and piece of syntax is crucial,
you really need to maintain absolute
control over every detail right up until the
final printing,” he says.

The joint committee’s
job is really to play
devil’s advocate and
test every suggestion in
every possible way

“If you allow the books to be printed off
shore you give up some of that control
and while most of the time things would
be fine, it’s easy to see the potential for
enough minor issues eventuating to make
it a problem.
“I think that’s why the R&A has
traditionally preferred to take care of

18 Q Golf Online Spring / Summer 2011

www.golfqueensland.org.au

everything except the final distribution inhouse so to speak. And there is probably
also an economies of scale argument.
“If you think about the number of rule
books they would be printing, enough to
cover the whole world outside the US and
Mexico, you can see that that would put
you in a good position for negotiating a
price with a printer.”
While the books for both New Zealand
and Australia will be printed here this year
the final control still rests with the R&A
who have engaged the printers directly
and will oversee the final proof.
“The books are being printed here this
year but not by Golf Australia,” says
Magdulski. “The R&A have engaged
the local printers directly and our main
role will be, as it always has been, the
distribution of the books once we take
possession.”
While the logistics of printing and
distributing more than 700,000 rule
books from across the other side of the
planet might seem daunting enough, that
process is nothing when compared with
the actual finalising of the rules contained
therein.
There are only 34 actual rules of the
game but the appendices and sub-clauses
(not to mention the truly frightening
companion tome “Decisions on the Rules