The owner of a golf club in southern England has said ‘pretty much all’ golf clubs will ignore a new directive that the ‘drop where lost’ golf rule should not be permitted in club competitions.
From January 1, A new rule will allow golfers to drop in the area of where the ball is lost or out of bounds under a two-stroke penalty.
In essence, if a golfer sends their ball out of bounds right off the tee, they will walk to the point of entry where the ball went out of bounds and drop their ball – from knee height – to the nearest edge of the fairway and play their fourth shot from there.
However, this is a ‘local rule’ – so it is down to club committees to decide whether they want to use it.
According to The Scotsman, the Council of National Golf Unions (CONGU), which maintains the system that provides handicaps for all players of UK golf clubs affiliated to their national unions, is not permitting the new rule to be used in counting competitions.
‘The whole point of introducing the local rule to was to help speed up play,’ states Martin Dempster for the paper.
‘There is probably not a golf club in Scotland where the pace of play in a medal isn’t adversely affected by people having to trudge dejectedly back to a tee.
‘Yet, it is stated on the CONGU website and, consequently, is being relayed at various rules seminars taking place in preparation for January, that the new local rule is not being encouraged in club competitions.
‘The ‘stroke-and-distance relief’ is only ‘appropriate for general play where golfers are playing casual rounds or playing their own competitions’. Of course this isn’t a rule that should ever be implemented in professional or elite level amateur competitions. However, the sooner CONGU gets its head out of the sand over this one the better. Attempts to speed up the game simply have to be embraced.’
In response to the article, the owner of the golf club contacted The Golf Business and said: “My information is pretty much all clubs will turn a blind eye to CONGU’s new ‘drop where lost’ ruling. If not, there will be very confused golfers all over UK.”
This article was originally published on December 19, 2018. As can be seen from the comments below, a number of golf club managers throughout the UK disagree with the comments made by the golf club owner in this article.
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