New rules: get ready for the changes
The rules for wave change on 1 January 2019. Image: Getty
The new rules for golf are only a few days away and golfers are encouraged to review the changes before they start their 2019 golf trips
The R & A and the USGA, which apply the rules worldwide, announced the changes in March 2018 after a consultation process dating back to 2012.
The new rules will take effect on 1 January 2019 and include a number of changes designed to modernize the rules and speed up the pace of the game.
Some of the most important changes are:
1. There is no penalty if you accidentally move your ball on the green, or move your marker. A player can simply replace it where it used to be and play. Player can also repair everything on the green, including nail markings.
2. You can endanger your club (provided you do not use it to improve your position before the battle). You can also move individual obstacles without sacrificing.
3. If you are worried that your ball is lost, you have three minutes to find it (instead of the previous five minutes) before you have to explain it.
4. If you take a drop, either with a punishment or without, this is done from the knee instead of the shoulder.
5. An accidental double stroke is not penalized.
6. You can putt with the flagstick and there is no penalty if the ball touches it.
In addition to these changes, some clubs are expected to apply a local rule stating that a player who hits a ball out of bounds can fall between the position he seems to have reached and the edge of the fairway (but not closer) hole) on a penalty of two shots.
The changes are the most important for more than 60 years, with a large part of the language simplified and the number of rules reduced from 34 to 24. Clubs should have a copy of the new Players edition of the Rules of Golf this year. distributed.
Director and director of Golf Australia, Simon Magdulski, said that it hoped that the changes would be picked up "organically" over time.
"Our aim is to have at least one player in every group on every golf course in January who violates the new rules," he said.
"We do not expect every player to know immediately and that does not even have to happen.
"But we hope that if one player knows the new rules and another player takes a wrong drop or something like that, he or she would point that out and the next time the player sees someone else try to take a wrong drop, then they would in turn prove that.
"So it works organically over time."
Magdulski said that some of the new rules, such as the new rule-of-the-knees, were quite simple. He added that a few of the changes threatened a player with fines. "There are only a few that you really need to know, but players need to know that they have to lose their knee height or that they will be punished, and the same for dropping in the right relief, know they are only looking for three minutes. to their ball, but much of it is not so complicated. & # 39;
Golfers who want to learn more can go to this section of our website to explore the new rules:
https://www.golf.org.au/newrules