I started this post in January of this year with the intention of trying to help the average amateur golfer deal with the new rule changes. Unfortunately, I came to an impasse. Not really a writers block, but a realization of how the rules are applied or ignored my the average golfer and not sure how I wanted to deal with that. However, I decided to publish this as a guide to the revised rules and hope this may help to clarify some of the changes. I hope you find this useful. I added more about following rules in another posting which I hope will follow soon

Original Post (unpublished)

Golf is a great game and most of us who play it, love it. There are a lot of people, my oldest son for one, who love the game but just don’t have the time. That makes it harder to grow the game. Men and women with families can’t seem to find the time on a regular basis. 18 holes of golf can take between 4 and 4 1/2 hours from the time you tee off to the time get back to the clubhouse. If you play at a private course, you may be able to play faster but at most public venues they tend to squeeze in as many players s they can and the round can stretch to 5 or 5 1/2 hours. Even the most ardent golfers hate to have a round last that long. There must be a way to speed up the game. You can just play 9 holes, which takes 1/2 the time, but is that the best solution.

New Rules under the R&A and USGA

Beginning January 1, 2019 rule changes were put into effect to both simplify the game and hopefully speed it up. The rules effect the Professional Golfers Amateur golfers playing in true tournaments. It effects most amateur golfers to a lesser extent , since in all honesty, they don’t strictly follow all the rules. However, this is a topic for another blog. I’ve included a Summary below of the 2019 Rule changes which I obtained from the USGA website as a reference.

In my opinion, the rule changes that most of us amateur golfers will be effected by are the following:

• There is no penalty for the ball hitting the flag stick on a putt. You can putt with the flag in the hole if you choose to do so.
• Your ball accidentally moves on the green or fairway, you can replace it without penalty. You do have to replace the ball to its original position.
• There is no penalty for a double hit.
• A ball is considered lost if not found within 3 minutes.
• A player may take relief if a ball is embedded in its own pitch-mark through the green.

The rules below are reprinted from the

Discovery Bay Senior Men’s Golf Club website.