- 4 minutes ago
Almost every golfer has an opinion on The Rules of Golf, particularly the rules that they would want to change... It can seem harsh that you don’t get free relief when your perfect drive finishes in a divot, or when you have to hit three off the tee after you find your ball a yard out of bounds. In this video, Joel Tadman and Dan Parker take a lighthearted look at the 7 rules they would change in order to make the sport fairer, more fun and introduce a greater level of skill back into the game.
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00:00Joel, I actually find the rules of golf
00:01really quite confusing and a bit boring, to be honest.
00:03Yeah, they are quite complicated, actually, aren't they?
00:05I mean, is there anything that you've changed about them?
00:07I've got a few ideas, actually.
00:08Have you? I've got a few ideas as well.
00:10Shall we go talk about them?
00:10Yeah, let's do it.
00:19Right, so to kick us off,
00:20I think this is probably the most obvious rule
00:22that most golfers want to change, Dan.
00:23It's having relief from a ball in a divot.
00:25100%. If you asked 1,000 golfers now
00:28what rule would you want to change tomorrow,
00:29I think 999 would say,
00:31I want relief from divots in the fair way.
00:34We'll come on to that in a second.
00:35But, you know, I've hit a perfect drive down here,
00:37got a flick with a wedge in,
00:39I've got to play out of this putrid divot here
00:41that someone's had a right hack at in a previous life.
00:44So, yeah, simple as that, right, Joel?
00:46Are you in agreement with me here?
00:48No, I'm not in agreement.
00:49I'm the one out of 1,000 that don't agree
00:52you should get relief from a divot.
00:53I think there's far too many grey areas here.
00:57Obviously, you can see your ball is obviously in a divot,
00:58but there'll be other situations
01:00where you've got old divots
01:01where they've been mostly kind of recovered,
01:03but there's still a slight indentation.
01:06You could argue that pretty much everywhere on the fairway,
01:08there's been a divot at some point,
01:10so how do you categorise a different age of divot?
01:12You know, if you've got a bad line in the fairway,
01:13it doesn't look like a divot.
01:15Could you claim there's a divot?
01:16I think there's just too many grey areas
01:17for you to actually define what a divot is,
01:20and therefore apply a consistent rule.
01:22So you think it'd be too much of a slippery slope
01:24if this actually came into effect.
01:25Yeah, and you could argue that obviously
01:27it's unfair that you get relief from animal holes,
01:31rabbit scrapings, that sort of thing.
01:33You get free relief from those,
01:34so why not just extend it to a divot?
01:36But for me personally, I just think it's too messy.
01:39I think it'll slow down play as well.
01:40I think there'll be an awful lot of players
01:42calling over their playing partners,
01:43can you check if this is a divot, is it not a divot?
01:46You know, what is it?
01:47Is it just a bad lie in the fairway?
01:48And then, you know, what happens if you get
01:50in a divot in the rough or the semi-rough?
01:52That is a bit of a muddy area,
01:54even I think people who want this rule to come into place.
01:57Especially if it's not clear
01:58if you're quite in the fairway or not.
02:00Yeah, yeah, it's even more.
02:02It gets very muddy.
02:03I still think it should come into place somehow.
02:05The rules makers in the world need to figure that out,
02:06figure out those grey areas.
02:08Let us know what you think.
02:09Are you one of the 999, or are you one of Joel's mates?
02:16Right, so another rule of golf
02:17we would like to change refers to the number of clubs
02:20you are allowed to carry in your bag.
02:22Dan, talk us through exactly how you would change it.
02:25Yeah, quite passionate about this one, actually.
02:26I think 14 is way too many golf clubs.
02:28A, it's heavy, right, it's expensive.
02:31I think it takes a little bit of skill out of the game as well,
02:33when you've got a club that does these sort of
02:35very minute things you might get out once or twice.
02:37So, no one knows why it's 14 clubs, by the way.
02:40It came into effect in about the 1930s,
02:42when steel shafts started getting used instead of hickories.
02:45But it's the rule now, I think it's rule four,
02:47no more than 14 golf clubs.
02:48I would reduce it to 10.
02:50Nice round number.
02:51Let's take four clubs out of the bag,
02:53make it a bit lighter, make it a bit cheaper for people.
02:55Bring that skill back in where you've got to,
02:57you know, finesse different kind of shots,
02:59you know, half shots, 50% shots.
03:01So, with that in mind, Joel, I'm going to ask you now.
03:03Okay.
03:04Take your 14 clubs that you probably carry at the minute,
03:06which four would you get rid of if this rule came into place?
03:08Really good question.
03:09For the record, I am totally in agreement with this.
03:11Oh, excellent, thank you.
03:12But yeah, in terms of the clubs, I would say I could definitely do without my lob wedge.
03:16100%.
03:1760 degree wedge, I pretty much only use it out of bunkers,
03:19and I think I could get away with using a 54 or a 56 quite comfortably.
03:23I think I'd get rid of my three wood.
03:25I only really tend to use that on second shots into par fives,
03:27but, you know, I can use a hybrid and flick a wedge in.
03:30I think my five iron as well.
03:32I mean, those are three clubs that I think could easily be taken out.
03:35I don't think I'd see a massive drop off in performance or scores as a result.
03:38I agree with you on the lob wedge.
03:40I love my three wood, so I keep it.
03:42I'd take, I'd only play odd iron, so I'd go five, seven, nine wedge.
03:46So I lose my six and my eight, my lob wedge, and then...
03:50Your four iron?
03:51I don't carry a four iron.
03:52I probably would if I carried 14.
03:53Probably, realistically, one of my hybrid or three, I'd have to have a sit down with myself and really work out...
03:59Look at your Arcos data, maybe.
04:00Exactly, see which one's doing the same job as the other.
04:02So, yeah, come on, I need your 14, I need the fourth club out of here.
04:05Yeah, I'd probably get rid of my, one of the wedges, maybe, the gap wedge.
04:10You'd get rid of the gap wedge, couldn't you?
04:11Anyway, yeah, I think a great rule, we're both in agreement on this one.
04:13Let's get 14 clubs down to 10.
04:19Well, so I'm just thankful, Dan, we found some shade.
04:21Yes.
04:21A beautiful sunny day here at Paliero Golf Course in Madeira, but I'm a bit disgruntled, Dan,
04:25because my drive off this 18th hole, it's come down the left, it's kicked left.
04:30This guy's stood there in your way.
04:31And this guy is going to cause me a lot of issues.
04:33Yeah.
04:34Because the other post is caught off in line here, going back past the camera,
04:38so the ball is just out of bounds.
04:40I found it, and as we all know, the penalty is very severe when it comes to out of bounds.
04:45I have to take stroke and distance, so walk all the way back to the tee,
04:48because I haven't hit a provisional ball because I didn't think it was going to be out of bounds.
04:51All the way back to the tee, play three off the tee, so if I hit a good drive,
04:54make a distance to this one, playing four from the fair hit.
04:57On a part four, which it is.
04:59That is actually crazy how severe the penalty is for out of bounds.
05:03Obviously, going back to the tee slows down play a lot.
05:05You've got that walk of shame, that embarrassment factor as well.
05:08But I think a fair and reasonable penalty, in my opinion, would be if you've dropped it,
05:12or you haven't found it but you can reasonably, with some certainty, know where your ball has
05:17gone into the out of bounds. I think you should be able to drop a ball in bounds,
05:21the point that it kind of crossed the out of bounds line.
05:23As you would do with red posts and yellow at the minute.
05:25Exactly, with a penalty shot, so playing your third shot,
05:28so obviously you've got a penalty, you've been disadvantaged by going out of bounds,
05:32but the penalty is not so severe. I think it's a fairer penalty.
05:36That's a much fairer way to deal with out of bounds, I think.
05:38And while we're here on out of bounds, I think we're both in agreement.
05:41Internal out of bounds, sack it off entirely.
05:43Absolutely, I can't stand it. I mean, I know there's a safety element to it,
05:47but yeah, internal out of bounds between two holes.
05:49You know, if you hit a wayward drive and it's sitting perfectly on another fairway,
05:53but you're randomly out of bounds, it doesn't make any sense to me.
05:56Yeah, and I think alongside the divot one we spoke about earlier,
05:59this will be a really, really popular one with golfers back home.
06:01Right, Dan, that was a nice round, wasn't it?
06:08Very enjoyable, thanks for that, Joel.
06:09It's time to sign our scorecard.
06:10It is.
06:11I believe there's a rule that you might want to tweak with disregard.
06:14I think there's a chance to change this now, and so the USG and the RNA brought a new rule in,
06:19in 2023, a model local rule that meant you wouldn't get disqualified anymore for not signing the card,
06:25which I think was a good rule. Do you agree with that?
06:27I think it was always a bit harsh, isn't it, that you don't put your little squiggle down,
06:30and it's often just a sort of blind scribble anyway, isn't it, you get DQ'd.
06:34That's now a two-shot penalty. However, it's only a model local rule,
06:38which means clubs don't have to adopt it if they don't want to.
06:41I think it should be written and entrenched in the rules now that if you don't sign for your scorecard,
06:46if you forget to put a signature on there, it's just a two-shot penalty,
06:49which I think is penalty enough for what is really a stupid mistake that we should all be doing anyway, right?
06:54There's something else written on the scorecard there as well.
06:55Yeah, so at the bottom of this one here, it says,
06:57like this video and subscribe to the Golf Monthly YouTube channel for more videos like this,
07:01which I think is pretty sound advice.
07:03Yeah.
07:07So one rule that we want to change that I hadn't actually considered before comes down to putter design,
07:12Dan, in particular the alignment assistance you get from putters and also on golf balls as well.
07:17Yeah.
07:17I think you've got quite a drastic change that you'd like to make.
07:20Well, this is a really interesting one when we were brainstorming ideas for this video.
07:23What did we, we sat down as a group and said, what do we want to change? And Joe, our colleague said,
07:27I think we should get rid of alignment aids on putters. And I said, well, okay,
07:30let's maybe get rid of them on balls as well. And the more I thought about it,
07:34I think the more I like it. So there's rules in place at the minute,
07:36don't know the exact ones that say you're allowed them and the height they're allowed in the club and
07:40the substance that you can use and, and, and, and, and, and. I would personally wipe it clean.
07:45And that's from putters. So you can see here on my spider, which I do love and I do use this quite a lot,
07:50sort of two alignment aids here, right? You've got the line going down the middle and the why that
07:53they use, the white why. And then on golf balls like this, I mean, again, really popular, but I'm
07:58sorry, TaylorMade, Callaway, Bridgestone now, get them gone. Let's wipe it clean and bring a bit more
08:05skill back into the game, I guess, you know, not having it all lined up. You've got to know where
08:08you put a head's face in, if it's open, if it's closed, you've got to trust your alignment with the
08:12ball, stuff like that. I think it's a really interesting one. And one, the more I think about it,
08:16the more I'm into. Yeah, I think if you look, think about other sports, you know, snooker,
08:20for example, you don't have alignment assistance from your queue. You could argue using lines on
08:25the ball or features like we've got on that TaylorMade tool response stripe slows play down
08:30a lot when you're trying to line it up perfectly. You love fast play, don't you? I've noticed that.
08:34I do love fast play. I don't like messing around too much. So getting that precisely right can take a
08:39lot of time. So yeah, there's definitely a case to make for simplifying the design of the clubs and the
08:45balls a little bit, bring us more skill back into the game and best putters could probably still
08:50come through. Yeah, and I think it's just, look, I'm not going to align it. You knock it down nice
08:54and easy and you just hold putts like that. You don't need the alignment aids. Thank you.
09:01Let's wipe them off completely. But let us know about that one because it's a bit more of an interesting
09:04one. Okay then, Joel, next rule change, please. What have you got for us? So we're going to talk about
09:10the teeing area, Dan. So this all comes under rule 6.1B. It's fascinating stuff.
09:15It's my favourite rule, that one. And as everyone knows, the teeing area
09:18relates to kind of the straight line from the front of the tee markers, two club legs back,
09:22and then kind of a parallel line along here. This is your teeing area. But if you don't tee your ball
09:28up in the teeing area and play your shot, you get the general penalty, which is two shots.
09:33Okay. And you have to correct your mistake,
09:36i.e. play another ball from within the teeing area. Now, in my opinion, that is a very harsh
09:41penalty for what is in a situation where you're not really gaining a massive advantage. So for example,
09:46if I tee the ball accidentally, say here, you know, just in front of the tee markers,
09:51I've gained a couple of inches. It's not worth it, is it? It's not worth it. It's not worth the penalty,
09:56right? But I'm not gaining a huge advantage by doing this and therefore I feel like the two-shot penalty
10:01plus correcting your mistake is very harsh. I think the one-shot penalty, like I understand
10:07that you need to protect the game and you can't have people teeing up way in front of the markers,
10:12but in this particular situation, I think the penalty is too harsh.
10:16Okay. I think I tend to agree with you, Joel. Where's the line though, literally? Because,
10:22you know, it's like VAR and offside, isn't it? It's like, oh, well, a toe, they shouldn't give it
10:25them. Let's make that not offside. Okay, cool. How far does it go? And you could get some person who just
10:31keeps nudging themselves up. But I don't think you, I think there's hardly anyone who would go
10:34and tee, you know, if you're playing this way, no one would tee up over here. Okay, that's fair.
10:37People would only make the mistake, you know, within like a 12-inch range, and I don't think
10:42you're gaining really much. Okay. I think so. I understand your point. Yeah.
10:45But my kind of main gripe is the penalty is too harsh. Agreed. I think so. And most of the time,
10:50people do this on accident, right? Exactly. And it's worth pointing out, in match play,
10:54there's no penalty. You can, your playing partner can ask you to play it again,
10:58or if you've hit it into the rubbish, they can set, they can say that, that shot counts
11:01and that's fine. And I understand, you know, if you're teeing up the other side of the...
11:04Yeah, so that was my next question though. What if, you know, what if it's a hybrid to play
11:08for position, but you're not good with a hybrid? Yeah.
11:10So if you keep coming back and back and back, I want to hit a driver now.
11:14You've probably gained more advantage going that way than you do this way. I think so.
11:17Because you can, if you're, like you say, if you're in between clubs and you've got the club
11:21that's going to go too far, if you go too far back, then you can, it becomes a perfect yardage.
11:25So I kind of understand it. So I'm okay with it this way, less okay with it this way.
11:29Okay. Yeah, so I definitely understand your point. I think the rules have got to just sort of
11:32relax a bit, man, you know, chill out a little bit, and this would be a great way of doing it.
11:39Probably the most dramatic and drastic of the ones we've spoken about. It could change the game
11:43forever. Talk us through it. It's a humdinger, Dan. Yeah, I think we should ban teeth.
11:47Bang, boom, have that. I think the privileges that are extended to golfers
11:51on the teeing area versus the rest of the golf course are excessive. Okay.
11:55I mean, I've got my phone. I can reel off some of the things that you can do on a tee.
11:59In between these two sticks. You can't do anywhere on the golf course.
12:02Okay. Tees can be up to four inches long.
12:05Yeah. You can alter the surface of the ground.
12:08You can make indentations with your foot or the club. You can move, bend, or break grass.
12:13You know, we know you can't do that on anywhere else on the golf course. Correct.
12:16You can remove objects in the teeing area. You can press down sand and soil. You can remove dew,
12:20frost, and water. You can do all sorts of stuff. You've got carte blanche here to do what you want
12:24with the golf ball, right? Exactly. And you don't want to see that.
12:26But, you know, placing the ball on a tee on the ground, on the teeing area on the ground,
12:31is enough to give you a good enough lie to be able to gain an advantage versus where you are on the rest
12:36of the golf course. Yeah. And then you've got the argument about the golf ball going too far,
12:41and how the tee is pretty much directly responsible for golfers being able to launch the ball higher
12:47with less spin because they're able to attack the ball on the up because the ball is raised above the
12:51ground. Whereas if you put the ball on the ground, you would see lower ball flights with more spin,
12:57less distance. You would definitely increase the level of skill that would be required to hit the
13:02shots correctly with a lower lofted three-wood or maybe if you still want to hit a driver. I think it
13:06brings the skill back into the game. It produces less distance. It solves an awful lot of problems.
13:11It does. I've got, can I just pitch a couple of questions?
13:13Of course you can. I think people might be shouting at home, right? So,
13:17broadly on board with it, I think it's a fun idea.
13:20Would it rule out that club entirely from existence? What about golfers who struggle with
13:25their driver at the minute to get it up in the air and off the ground? Those are my main steps.
13:28Yeah, I mean, obviously they'd be unpopular with golfers who struggle with their driver. And
13:32obviously a lot of golfers are used to playing the ball on a tee, raised up. But I think people
13:37would get used to hitting driver off these sorts of flies. And yeah, they might play a slightly higher
13:42lofted driver as a result or a lower lofted three-wood, like I've said. But I mean, I could
13:46demonstrate one if you know. I mean, we see driver off the deck anyway, don't we? I mean,
13:49that is from the more skilled players, but maybe that'll bring that element of the game back into
13:55the sort of high handicaps of the world. You know, on teeing grounds, you can get some pretty good lies.
14:00Because that is still now, and we'll show it in close up, sat up fairly nicely.
14:04It sat up pretty nicely, and I haven't hit a lot of shots today, so this could go horribly wrong, but
14:09let's give it a whirl.
14:13Oh, Joel. Look at that.
14:16That is your first swing of the day.
14:17First swing of the day, just down that right-hand side of the fairway.
14:20And it's probably gone a good, you know, 250 yards.
14:22And that's fine. That's all you need. So that's bringing the skill back into it.
14:25Look, I know I'm a relatively good golfer, you know, three handicapper, but, and the high
14:28handicappers, they're probably going to struggle with these sort of lies, but I do think
14:33removing tees altogether and the privileges you get around preferring your lie, you know,
14:37using your wedges to raise up the ground and that sort of thing, you see Laura Davies do,
14:41I think that needs to be banished from the game altogether.
14:43Yeah, and wouldn't it be fascinating to watch the professionals
14:46play all these great golf courses that we can then come see back in the game again?
14:49You know, the rollback argument is we don't see some of the great old course anymore because
14:52they're bombing it too far. Wouldn't it be great to see those golf courses back?
14:55And it's that risk-reward as well. Do you want to risk hitting a driver off the deck,
14:59off the tee, in case it goes horribly wrong?
15:01Yeah.
15:01But obviously you get rewarded if you hit it like that, you do still get some pretty good distance.
15:05It's a fascinating one, Joel. I think one, some food for thought for you guys watching at home,
15:09I think probably a really good rule to crown off that video.
15:12Yeah, there's going to be a lot of comments, I think.
15:13Well, let us know. Would you like to see that? I'm feeling a lot of anger
15:18because some golfers aren't, lots of golfers aren't that great and they're going to struggle with that,
15:21but I'm feeling lots of positives on the rollback perspective.
15:23But I was going to say, is it a better solution than rolling back the golf ball for everybody?
15:26I would say yes.
15:27I would say yes as well.
15:28So let us know if there's any that we've missed that you would like to see,
15:30but for now, from Madeira, thanks for joining us.
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