Every four years, the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews come up with some changes to the Rules of Golf. The last set of changes were made in 2004. This is a good thing. The game evolves and during any four year period, situations arise on golf courses all over the world where people get caught up in cases where the rules appear to be unclear, unfair, or just confusing. The USGA and the R&A spend more time in Committee meetings than you can imagine, trying to sort out ways which will improve the Rules of the Game without sacrificing its basic strengths and principles. It is also a good thing that this only happens every 4 years so we don't have to get familiar with the changes on a yearly basis.

But this is 2006. And even after only two years, the ruling bodies of golf have come up with an update to "Decisions on The Rules of Golf". And while there were many of these decision changes which would almost never come in in our club's competitions, the following ones need to be understood by all members if they want to avoid trouble. (Note: some players might also want to go back and review the changes made 2004).

The most significant change was the decision to allow the use of distance measuring devices in tournament play. Actually, the new rules allow the committee running the tournament to pass a local rule allowing such usage and the PAGC Board has done just that.  The NCGA has also approved a local rule to allow their use in NCGA tournament play. Be careful: Read the local rule, and if you choose to purchase a distance measuring device be sure that distance is all it is capable of measuring.

Another change was a decision about standing on or astride the line of putt. This original rule was put in because Sam Snead started putting croquet style and the USGA thought it wasn't golf. Since then no players putt croquet style since they rapidly learn that a two stroke penalty would follow each putt. However, many players have been called for violating this rule when they were just tapping in a short putt or trying to avoid stepping on another player's line of putt. The new decision, 16-1e/2 states that if the act was inadvertent or done to avoid standing on another player's line of putt it is not a violation of this rule. This exception eliminates one of the hard rules violations to call in a tournament since most players, when informed, were not even aware of the rule.

A final change that is important to everyday play. Exchanging distance information of any kind is no longer an issue. Players can tell each other what any yardage is without penalty. There is also no penalty for giving false information, but you may have trouble finding people to play with if you try it. With all of the other ways to get information, it was determined that there should be no violation for sharing what is now all classified as 'public' information.

There is a whole set of new decisions centering on when a ball is lost and what to do afterward. The short definition of these rules is as follows. Do not put a new ball into play unless your are absolutely convinced your ball is lost. Once you drop a ball believing the original to be lost your are almost always going to be stuck playing the dropped ball and not going back to your original. For the rules fanatics, see Decisions 27-1/2, 26-1/16, 20-7/2.5, 25-1c/2.5, and 26-1/3.5.

There are many other changes for 2006 which will probably not affect your tournament play. It is, however, an interesting project to review the changes at www.usga.org to get an idea of how many things can come up on a golf course.

And one final point. The best way to learn more about the rules is to go to www.usga.org and shell out a few dollars for the 2006 Decisions Book. Time spent with the book will be worth the effort.

Last Updated on 01/14/2006