Improved Rules For Gold

These rules of golf are for good players whose scores would reflect their true
ability, if only they got an even break once in awhile. They were adapted from
those proposed by the Union Printers Golf Club in Baltimore and have some
appealing provisions:


1. A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the
fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled in the rough. Such
veering right or left frequently results from friction between the face of the
club and the cover of the ball, and the player should not be penalized for the
erratic behavior of the ball resulting from such uncontrollable mechanical
phenomena.


2. A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. Hitting a
tree is simply bad luck and has no place in a scientific game. The player should
estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree
and play the ball from there, preferably from atop a nice firm tuft of grass.


3. There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near
the course somewhere and eventually will be found and pocketed by someone else.
It thus becomes a stolen ball, and the player should not compound the felony by
charging himself with a penalty stroke.


4. In or near a bunker or sand trap, a ball rolling back toward the player may
be hit again on the roll without counting an extra stroke or strokes. In any
case, no more than two strokes are to be counted in playing from a bunker, since
it is reasonable to assume that if the player had time to concentrate on his
shot, instead of hurrying it so as not to delay his playing partners, he would
be out in two.


5. If a putt passed over the hole without dropping, it is deemed to have
dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a
position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of
gravity supersedes the law of golf. (Same thing goes for a ball that stops on
the brink of the hole and hangs there, defying gravity. You cannot defy the
law). (Same thing goes for a ball that rims the cup. A ball should not go
sideways. This violates the laws of physics).


6. A putt that stops close enough to the hole to inspire such comments as,
"You could blow it in" . . . may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the
ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a
travesty of the game.