wierd golf rules..

[bernie]

clarks post got me to thinking of back when i was playing golf quite a bit. i used to play in a very cutthroat skins game. no rule was safe to being used or exploited. the rule book to buy is the 'decisions' book. it has great examples that you dont need a lawyer to decipher it.

anyways, there were alot of obscure rules you can whip out. one benefit is that it can really thrown an opponent off his game a little. getting his brain away from his swing and on something else. (bobby jones was great for doing this)

i won a bet with my grandad who played for, well, ever. helped build courses, marshalled them....

it started with my dad being inept at getting out of sandtraps. (he has since overcame that). i brought up the unplayable lie rule. ever see all the aspects of this rule? you can claim an unplayable lie anywhere on the course. anywhere...even 1 inch from the hole if you really wanted to. my contention was it would save him 4 strokes getting out of the trap by taking a stroke and playing outside the trap, no closer to the hole, line of flight..blah blah...(yes, it used to take him quite a few to get out of traps with regularity so this rule would actually really save him some strokes).

grandad thought i was full of it. so when he went back to AZ, he asked his local pro and sent me a check. btw...my dad never did use the rule. choosing instead to slug it out til he got it. i have to admire that.

but there are other rules some dont realize advantages of.

anyone else think of any?

great bobby jones line said when playing in a HU match to throw off his opponent. maybe youve heard it. i used it and it worked beautifully. "Do you breathe in or out when you hit the ball?" ask it innocently.

one more..."You're really hitting well today. Did you change something in your swing?"

these 2 lines worked fantastic for additional entertainment value along with gaining some skins. watching my cutthroat opponents blow 2+ holes in a row after trying to respond to em while putting their mind on everything to do with hitting the ball. told ya it was a mean skins game. haha

cya

b

[HDPM]

Did you really like reading decisions on when a pear was an obstruction or loose impediment in a bunker? [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]


The nastiest application I was involved in was in a high school match. One guy from the other team hit his ball into this tree on a par 3. It never came out, but was visible about 15 feet up. Only ball in the tree. But you couldn't see the brand and he hadn't marked it w/ anything else. And he couldn't get in the tree to get it down. Lost ball - stroke and distance. He was furious and blew the rest of his match (not against me btw) and threatened me in the parking lot afterwards. It was sort of sad at first, but when he imploded it became hilarious.

[John Cole]

bernie,

Send the check back. The ball must be dropped in the bunker.

[John Cole]

HDPM,

Let me guess on pear rule. If the pear had fallen from a pear tree, it cannot be moved, but if it had a supermarket label or had a couple human bites taken from it, then it can be moved. Close?

[bernie]

sorry sir, but you are wrong.

however, in fairness, i screwed up the drop part. (been awhile since ive played or told the story )

here's how it works....

if youre close to the green with a trap about 10 FT in front of you. green on the other side. you dink it in the trap. you can declare an unplayable lie, take a stroke and hit it from where you last hit the ball. 10ft in front of the trap again. you do not need corroboration to declare your own ball unplayable in any spot. it's at the sole discretion of the player and his own lie.

there are 2 or 3 options on where to drop it. i'd have to look it up again for the specifics. you dont get to drop it just outside of the trap, it's not ground under repair or a water hazard. (which is what i mistakenly stated in the other post)

ask your local pro, if he disagrees, tell him to look it up. it's an interesting rule...

b

[HDPM]

Yeah, I think that's what it is. I'm really not a rules maven tho.