Let’s face it, rules are not fun. In fact, rules are “anti-fun.” Rules are what prevent us from running with scissors, diving in the shallow end and making right turns on red when pedestrians are present. When parents leave a list of rules for the babysitter they don’t usually include, “let them stay up as long as they want, eat as much candy as possible and play football in the living room.” At best rules are perceived as a necessary evil designed to protect us from ourselves rather than something that might actually benefit us.
Long before the first rules of golf were recorded in 1744 our innate human attitude toward these pesky particulars had undoubtedly already taken a negative slant. There is, however, a different, “glass half full” perspective toward the rules of golf that might improve your attitude and even save you a few strokes.
Here as a list of a few CAN do rules that might surprise you:
Your ball lies is in the rough just off the fairway in a tough lie, but when you address the ball you are standing on a sprinkler head. In taking relief you CAN drop the ball in the fairway if it is within one club length of your nearest point of relief.
Your ball lands on the green and spins back onto the fringe. Your ball made a ball mark on the green that is on your line of play. You CAN repair the ball mark on the green.
In playing a stroke from the fringe toward a slippery hole location, you CAN leave the flagstick in the hole to help serve as a back stop.
Your ball comes to rest in a lateral water hazard. After determining where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard you discover there is a large tree impeding your next stroke if you drop within two club lengths of this point. You CAN drop a ball on the opposite margin of the hazard equidistant from the hole which might give you a clear shot at the hole.
On a very fast green you miss a 3-foot putt and the ball rolls off the green into a bunker and comes to rest in an elk footprint (hey I am sure it has happened). You CAN declare the ball unplayable and replay the stroke (under stroke and distance penalty) and try the 3-footer again.
Your ball comes to rest short of the green on a wet golf course and has a clump of mud on the back of the ball right where your club will strike the ball. Your fellow competitor’s ball is behind yours and he asks you to lift your ball as it interferes with his line of play. You CANNOT (sorry) clean off the mud, but you CAN reposition the ball when you replace it so the mud does not interfere (you CANNOT, however, “tee up” the ball by placing the mud on the underside of the ball). Okay, this one has two CANNOTs and one CAN…maybe it’s a bad example :).
These are only a few CAN DO rules that came to mind. There are hundreds of others–you just have to change your perspective. But please don’t get carried away and start running around with scissors!
