GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19478, 24 December 1925, Page 4

GOLF

THE SPIRIT OF GOLF ON CLAIMING PENALTIES. (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion). (All Rights Reserved). Somebody recently put to me an interesting point about the rules. It concerns that special regulation for matchplay tournaments which says that “competitors shall not agree to exclude the operation of any rule or local rule, nor to waive any penalty incurred in the course of the match, under penalty of their disqualification.” He explains that, at one hole, his opponent used a club with which to scrape aside a leaf from the line of the putt. As every player ought to know, loose impediments which it is desired to remove from the putting green may only be lifted —not scraped away with any kind of implement. The penalty for a breach of this rule is the loss of the hole. My inquirer, mindful of the regulation which prescribes disqualification as the punishment for players who agree to exclude the operation of a rule, claimed the hole.

He was Tight in law, and he remarks that he thought his action was the only one to take in the circumstances, because .if he had condoned the breach, the committee of the club would have been compelled, he presumes, to disqualify both players. All the same, his opponent was very indignant, and obviously did not try afterwards to win the match.

“Here we have bad blood arising from a perfectly simple hard-and-fast point of law.” says my troubled friend. “I had no desire to do anything unsporting, and, in a friendly game, would not have made the claim. This being a tournament match, I thought that I had to make it. Was I right?” Probably four people out of every five who play golf observe the principle of abstaining from claiming a ‘‘pound of flesh” when a rival derives no benefit from an infraction of the rules which he commits in innocence or by accident. The situation may be different when he secures a real advantage, but it would be poor comfort to succeed by technicalities. In tournaments, however, it is common to find the strict letter of the Jaw enforced on account of the clause which prescribes disqualification as the punishment for players “who agree to exclude the operation of any rule.” Contracting Out of the Rules. I once made inquiries in authoritative quarters on this subject, and was informed that the Rules of Golf Committee does not intend the regulation to impose the drastic condition which most golfers find in it. lam informed that that sense of the order turns upon the word “agree” in the phrase:— “Competitors shall not agree tn exclude the operation of any rule.’’

This means that they shall not come to a compact in the matter. For instance, it prohibits them from arranging to exclude shyness when they are engaged in match-play tournaments. But it does not make it obligatory for a competitor to lodge a claim if, during the round his opponent commits a breach concerning which they have entered into no agreement. He is entitled to claim, but he is not compelled 'to do so. Personally I always feel rather nettled when a rival takes his putter to scrape aside leaves from the line of a putt. And there is plenty of it at this season of the year, for the players who I adopt the procedure are just about as I numerous as those who lift fallen loaves—the only method of removal allowed by the law—when they interfere with a putt. It is usually sufficient, however, to tell a delinquent on the way to the next teeing ground that he has broken a rule. Few of us would 'care to claim the hole for it. The main (point is that, even in tournaments, the ■hole need not he claimed. Only if the ■players had contracted out of the rules 110 scrape aside loaves instead of liftling them would the law come necesIsarily into operation, and then both (competitors would have to be disquali- | fied.

It might not be a bad idea for the Rules Committee to make the spirit of the special regulation for tournaments more evident. It is clear to people who study the language of the rules very closely, but that is precisely what very few people do. Consequently, claims are sometimes made unwillingly for accidental and trivial infractions which, in private games, would bo ignored. Often one hears of a player explaining to a rival: “I was sorry to have to claim the hole, but the special rule gave me no option.” Most of us like golf to be played according to law, even in (the most friendly rounds, but it is a (pity that there should exist, owing to (a misunderstanding, a widespread belief that the policy of grasp is enicouraged by one particular rule for l tournaments. Reason in Bunkers.

Tn point of fact, the whole tendency of the St. Andrew’s authorities during recent years has been to promote the sporting spirit in golf by indicating that it is not necessary to claim penalties for innocent or accidental breaches that do not improve the player’s position. Presumably this propaganda, conveyed mostly in the form of decisions on questions addressed to the Rules Committee, has been rendered necessary by the entry of so many new players, representing all sections of thecommunity, into the game, and it has undoubtedly had good effects. It has been made clear, for example, that sweet reasonableness is intended to exist in connection with the rule which begins: “ When a ball lies in or touches a hazard, nothing shall be done which can in any way improve its lie; the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball.”

Until the last few years, this was taken to mean that a golfer in a hazard dare not do anything save stand in the and swing at the ball, taking care to touch nothing in any other way. There was a notable instance of this in the

semi-final of the amateur championship at Muirfiold in 1920, when Mr G. L. Mellin met Mr C. J. H. Tolley. Mr Mellin was in a bunker and, failing to get out at the first attempt, he carefully smoothed over the marks which he had made in the sand before going father into the bunker to play his next shot. The hole was promptly given against him because he had touched the sand while his ball lay in the bunker. Everybody thought the decision correct. The Rules Committee has since explained, however, that it is only improving the lie of the ball which is a breach. Air Mellin was much too far from his ball to affect its lie when he smoothed over his marks, so that today he would not be penalised for this act of etiquette—although there is no need to perform it in quite such a burry.