Reply To: Lift, clean and place

[Ken Weatherford]

All great points, Ed. I am total agreement with you. There is one more that I am going to add. One year, we had a course that had a drop location that was normal for the course. However, for the tournament, using the drop was not allowed. It was clearly pointed out that the drop location as not to be used, to all players.

When my group got to the hole, two players put their tee shots into the water. Then they kind of played stupid and said, “Oh, there is a drop.” I told them, no and that the tournament admin said no drop. Eventually, they did re-tee with a little anger directed towards me.

There is always going to be anger by some SH_T that doesn’t know the rules, or claims he does but doesn’t. In such cases, there is ALWAYS one fallback rule (action)…play two balls and let the tournament admins make the decision or ruling when you finish. Personally, that is how I intend to play from now on, when there is a question about rulings and the person violating wants to argue the ruling.

For those of us failing to call someone on a rule, shame on us! I would never fear the repercussion from another player when you have two more players witnessing violations as well. What I try to do is warn a player of his violation before he does it. Just like pro tournaments, we all must (or should) know at least 90% of the rules of golf and the rest is left up to the tournament director.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 7 months ago by Ken Weatherford.