USGA Golf Rules for 2019

          The USGA came out with quite a few new rules changes for 2019, quite a few to help speed play, but several others simply to get rid of a few dumb rules from the past. One of the dumb old rules forbade players from repairing anything on the green except for old and new ball marks and old cup replacements. I remember watching a rainy tournament at Torey Pines a decade or so ago. The greens were wet and the spike marks looked like waves on a stormy sea. But the rule said you couldn’t tamp any down before your putt, but you could tamp some down after you finished the hole, as a gentlemanly favor to the players in groups behind. And now, in 2019, after nearly all professional and amateur golfers wear spikeless shoes and leave no marks in their wake, they decide to change the rule when it’s no longer necessary. Go figure.

Another rule from the past disallowed touching or moving anything in a hazard except for taking your stance and striking the ball. That meant you couldn’t ground your club behind the ball.  It also meant you couldn’t touch any vegetation or water on the backstroke. Now you can touch anything you want and even move loose impediments around the ball.

What rules changes will help speed play? Allowing only three minutes to hunt for a lost ball instead of five minutes; encouraging players to play “ready golf” instead of waiting for whoever is farthest away to play; simplifying how to take a drop in a relief situation, from shoulder-height to knee-height to speed up the relief process; allowing the use of distance-measuring devices to discourage caddies from pacing off long distances from ball position to pin.

But probably the most controversial rule change (or at least the most discussed) is allowing the pin to be left in the cup when putting from anywhere on the green. Both amateur and professional golfers are voicing their opinions on this one: leave it in or take it out. For years, golf telecasters have given viewers their questionable advice about chipping from off the green, always explaining that if you want to just get it close, leave it in, but if you want to make it, take it out. The grand guru of putting, Dave Pelz, has done several statistical studies as long as a decade ago showing that more chips are made by both amateurs and professionals when the flagstick is left in. And almost no one paid him any attention. One of the equipment options regarding the kind of flagsticks courses use makes the “in or out” question even more controversial. In the very old days, flagsticks were made of skinny, very light bamboo, followed in the more recent old days by Fibreglass flagsticks, also skinny and lightweight. The momentum of a ball was absorbed by these light flagsticks, allowing a ball to go in that was speeding along but hitting the stick directly. One of the main faults of such lightweight flagsticks was that strong winds could bend them almost double, either breaking them or blowing them right out of the cup. Therefore, many courses today use much heavier metal, narrow at the bottom two feet but much more substantial from there to the top, the weight making them unforgiving for absorbing excess ball speed, thus taking away some of the Pelz findings. So, the decision to leave it in or take it out will depend on what kind of flagstick the course is using. This golf season in 2019 will probably resolve the question for the pros, and we may see more and more of them choosing “in” to “out.”