HAVE YOU FALLEN FOUL OF THE RULES ? WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT CLICK HERE TO EMAIL DEREK
CUTTING UP ROUGH
bunker then you have to do so under penalty ? I mean , it ' s hardly your fault that the Big Guy has decided to deliver rain of Biblical proportions , is it ? So how can it be right that pick up a penalty ?
I also get mad ( don ' t make me angry , you wouldn ' t like me when I ' m angry ) when I end up in a bunker and get up there to find my ball nestling down in the heelprint of the guy who was in there before me and decided not to bother raking the sand .
Explain to me , please , why I can ' t get a free drop . I am not asking for a drop outside the bunker . I am just asking for a drop outside the footprint . And I tell you what – I will even rake the footprint after I have played .
I played at a course recently where a water hazard had been allowed to dry up . This meant that if you hit a ball into the so-called hazard , it would be simple to wander in and play the ball where it lay . But no . The greenkeepers had decided to leave the marker posts around the border , so even though there was no water in it , it was still classed as a water hazard . Bonkers , or what ?
And why on earth are tour professionals not allowed to repair spike marks , even though they can go to work on a pitch mark .
When a player is throwing the ball way up in the air with a lofted iron , he knows that when it lands there will be a pitchmark on the putting surface – a pitchmark that he is allowed to repair . But if he accidentally scrapes his foot across the cross and damages the surface then neither he nor the guys he is playing with are allowed to touch that . Where is the sense in that ?
But the rule that drives most golfers mad doesn ' t involve putting surfaces , bunkers or water hazards . Let me set the scene for you . You are playing in a medal and you are playing well , have been doing so for 14 holes . Then you come to the 15th , a tight par four that measures 474 yards . It has been your undoing many , many times before . But today is different . Today you absolutely nail your drive and hit a beauty , smack in the middle of the fairway .
You are chuffed to bits ... right up until the moment when you reach your ball and find it nestling in a divot hole . Not just any divot hole , but one of the biggest you have ever seen .
To make matters worse , the piece of grass that has been excavated from this particular crater lies just four feet away . How difficult would it have been to replace it ?
Of course , you shank the shot out of bounds and your dream is over for another month . But somebody , somewhere needs to explain why you didn ' t get a free drop .
Everywhere else , you accept the rub of the green , but how can it be fair to lose a shot ( or worse ) after hitting a drive that splits a fairway in two ? It can ' t .
I assure you that we will be returning to this subject and we will be putting pressure on the R & A to address the daftest of these rules . We know that Seve , for one , would approve .
HAVE YOU FALLEN FOUL OF THE RULES ? WE WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT CLICK HERE TO EMAIL DEREK
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THEZONE / ISSUE 23