The changes to the Rules of Golf for 2012 have been announced and are highlighted by a modification to Rule 18 that will exonerate a player from penalty if his or her ball moves after address–provided that it is known or virtually certain that such movement was not caused by the player. I find this change interesting and personally view it as part of the “instant replay” culture that pervades all of sports. Let me explain…
This particular rule was written to avoid the splitting of hairs that would inevitably occur if players were left to determine the cause of a ball’s movement. The old rule made it simple: if you addressed your ball (by taking your stance and grounding your club) you assumed responsibility for any subsequent movement of that ball–end of story. Now rulings will hinge on the “facts” rather than simply “deeming” the player to be the cause. It is certainly difficult to argue the logic of this thinking. Shouldn’t rulings be based on the facts rather than imposing a subjective mandate that ignores such facts? I find this thinking to be consistent with our instant replay culture where “irrefutable video evidence” overturns the subjective decisions made by officials on the field. “If we can determine that a player trapped the ball rather than making a clean catch by reviewing the instant replay, shouldn’t we use this technology to get it right?”
Well, call me old school (I was “old” when I played junior golf so I’m used to it), but I do not believe instant replay has made the game better and I have similar reservations about this change to the Rules of Golf. The only thing “irrefutable” about instant replay is it has made the games slower and subjected us to more beer and truck ads. I for one am often left more puzzled than ever after watching a player’s knee/elbow/wrist/hip/shoulder hit the turf in super-zoom, forward-reverse, stop-frame sequences over and over and over as two announcers argue the meaning of “football move.” Give me the old days when the call was made on the spot, right or wrong and we moved on–sometimes learning a very valuable lesson in fairness or, more importantly, a lack there of.
I am concerned that this latest change to the Rules of Golf reflects a larger trend that might just be a slippery slope that could ultimately undermine the most important life lesson taught by the game of golf–it is not always “fair.” As C.B. Macdonald so aptly put it: “So many people preach equity in golf. Nothing is so foreign to the truth. Does any human being receive what he conceives as equity in his life? He has got to take the bitter with the sweet, and as he forges through…he proves his metal.” This latest change to the Rules is an attempt to “get it right” and “make it fair” by attributing the right cause to a ball’s movement and ruling accordingly. There is nothing wrong with wanting to get it right, but experience has taught me that closer examination does not always bring clarity.
One way or another I somehow suspect I have more ads for aging male ailments in my future.
For a more complete explanation of this and other 2012 Rules changes click here.
