- 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
00:21that 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
00:27what rule would you want to change tomorrow,
00:29I think 999 would say I want relief from divots
00:33in 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 gray areas here.
00:57Obviously, you can see your ball is obviously in a divot,
00:58but there'll be other situations where 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.
01:14Could you claim there's a divot?
01:16I think there's just too many gray areas for you to actually
01:18define what a divot is and 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 it's unfair that you get relief from
01:30animal holes, rabbit scrapings, that sort of thing.
01:33You get free relief from those, so 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 calling over their playing partners.
01:43Can you check if this is a divot?
01:44Is it not a divot?
01:46You know, what is it?
01:46Is it just a bad line in the fairway?
01:48And then, you know, what happens if you get in a divot in the rough or the semi-rough?
01:52That is a bit of a muddy area, even I think people who want this rule to come into place.
01:57Especially if it's not clear if you're quite in the fairway or not.
02:00Yeah, yeah, it's even more.
02:01It gets very muddy.
02:02I still think it should come into place somehow.
02:05The rules makers in the world need to figure that out, figure out those gray 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 we would like to change refers to the number of clubs you
02:20are 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?
02:30It's expensive.
02:31I think it takes a little bit of skill out of the game as well when you've got
02:33a club that does these sort of very 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 when steel shafts started getting used instead of hickories.
02:45But it's the rule now, I think it's rule four, no more than 14 golf clubs.
02:48I would reduce it to 10.
02:49Nice round number.
02:51Let's take four clubs out of the bag, make it a bit lighter, make it a bit cheaper for people.
02:55Bring that skill back in where you've got to, you know, finesse different kind of shots,
02:59you know, half shots, 50% shots.
03:00So with that in mind, Joel, I'm going to ask you now.
03:03Okay.
03:03Take 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.
03:12But yeah, in terms of the clubs, I would say I could definitely do without my lob wedge.
03:16A hundred percent.
03:1760 degree wedge.
03:18I 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, but you know,
03:28I 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.
03:44So I'd go five, seven, nine wedge.
03:46So I lose my six and my eight, my lob wedge.
03:49And then...
03:50Your four iron?
03:51I don't carry a four iron.
03:52I probably would if I carried 14.
03:54Probably, realistically, one of my hybrid or three would.
03:57I'd have to have to sit down with myself and really work out...
03:59Look at your Arcos data, maybe.
04:00Exactly.
04:00See which one's doing the same job as the other.
04:02So yeah, come on.
04:03I need your 14th.
04:04I need the fourth club out of here.
04:06Um, yeah, I'd probably get rid of my...
04:08One 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.
04:12We're both in agreement on this one.
04:13Let's get 14 clubs down to 10.
04:19Right, so I'm just thankful, Dan.
04:20We found some shade.
04:21Yes.
04:21A beautiful sunny day here at Pagliaro Golf Course in Madeira.
04:24But I'm a bit disgruntled, Dan, because my drive off this 18th hole,
04:28it'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.
04:34Yeah.
04:34Because the other post is in line here, going back past the camera.
04:38So the ball is just out of bounds.
04:40I've found it.
04:41As 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,
04:49so 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.
04:53So if I hit a good drive, make a distance to this one, playing four from the third.
04:58On a part four, which it is.
05:00That 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,
05:11if you've dropped it or you haven't found it,
05:14but you can reasonably, with some certainty,
05:17know where your ball has gone into the out of bounds.
05:19I think you should be able to drop a ball, in bounds, the point that it kind of crossed the
05:23out of bounds line.
05:24As you would do with red posts and yellow at the minute, right?
05:26Exactly, 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,
05:33but the penalty is not so severe.
05:35I 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.
05:43Yeah, absolutely, I can't stand it.
05:44I mean, I know there's a safety element to it, but yeah,
05:47internal out of bounds between two holes, you know, if you hit a wayward drive
05:51and it's sitting perfectly on another fairway, but you're randomly out of bounds,
05:55it 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.
06:06Right, Dan, that was a nice round, wasn't it?
06:08Very enjoyable, thanks for that, Joel.
06:09It's time to sign our scorecard.
06:11It 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.
06:17And so the USG and the RNA brought a new rule in, in 2023,
06:20a model local rule that meant you wouldn't get disqualified anymore
06:23for not signing the card, which I think was a good rule.
06:26Do you agree with that?
06:27I think it was always a bit harsh, isn't it?
06:28That you don't put your little squiggle down.
06:30It's often just the sort of blind scribble anyway, isn't it?
06:33You get DQ'd.
06:34That's now a two-shot penalty.
06:36However, it's only a model local rule,
06:38which means clubs don't have to adopt it if they don't want to.
06:40I think it should be written and entrenched in the rules now
06:44that if you don't sign for your scorecard,
06:46if you forget to put a signature on there,
06:48it's just a two-shot penalty, which I think is penalty enough
06:50for 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 like this video
06:58and subscribe to the Golf Month YouTube channel for more videos like this,
07:02which I think is pretty sound advice.
07:07So one rule that we want to change that I hadn't actually considered before
07:10comes down to putter design, Dan,
07:12in particular the alignment assistance you get from putters
07:16and also on golf balls as well.
07:17I think you've got quite a drastic change that you'd like to make.
07:20Well, this is a really interesting one
07:21when we were brainstorming ideas for the video.
07:24What did we, we sat down as a group and said,
07:25what do we want to change?
07:26And Joe, our colleague said,
07:27I think we should get rid of alignment aids on putters.
07:29And I said, well, okay,
07:30let's maybe get rid of them on balls as well.
07:32And the more I thought about it, I think the more I like it.
07:35So there's rules in place at the minute.
07:36Don't know the exact ones that say you allowed them
07:39and the height they're allowed in the club
07:40and the substance that you can use and, and, and, and, and.
07:43I would personally wipe it clean.
07:45And that's from putters.
07:46So you can see here on my spider, which I do love,
07:49and I do use this quite a lot.
07:50Sort of two alignment aids here, right?
07:52You've got the line going down the middle
07:52and the Y that they use, the white Y.
07:55And then on golf balls like this, I mean, again, really popular,
07:58but I'm sorry, TaylorMade, Callaway, Bridgestone now, get them gone.
08:02Let's wipe it clean and bring a bit more skill back into the game.
08:06I guess, you know, not having it all lined up.
08:07You've got to know where you put a head's face in.
08:09If it's open, if it's closed,
08:10you've got to trust your alignment with the ball, stuff like that.
08:13I think it's a really interesting one.
08:15And one, the more I think about it, the more I'm into.
08:17Yeah.
08:17I think if you look, think about other sports, you know, snooker, for example,
08:21you don't have alignment assistance from your queue.
08:23You could argue using lines on the ball or features like we've got on that TaylorMade,
08:28a tall response stripe, slows play down a lot when you're trying to line it up perfectly.
08:32You love fast play, don't you? I've noticed that.
08:34I do love fast play. I don't like messing around too much.
08:37So getting that precisely right can take a lot of time.
08:40So yeah, there's definitely a case to make for simplifying the design of the clubs and the balls
08:45a little bit, bring us more skill back into the game and best putters probably still come through.
08:51Yeah. And I think it's just, look, I'm not going to align it. You knock it down nice and easy
08:55and you just hold putts like that. You don't need the alignment aids.
08:59You've just demonstrated it.
09:00Thank you. Let's wipe them off completely.
09:02But let us know about that one because it's a bit more of an interesting one.
09:08Okay then, Joel, next rule change, please. What have you got for us?
09:10So we're going to talk about the teeing area, Dan. So this all comes under rule 6.1b.
09:14It's fascinating stuff.
09:15It's my favourite rule, that one.
09:16As everyone knows, the teeing area relates to the straight line from the front of the tee markers,
09:21two club legs back, and then a parallel line along here. This is your teeing area.
09:26But if you don't tee your ball up in the teeing area and play your shot, you get the general
09:31penalty,
09:32which is two shots. And you have to correct your mistake, i.e. play another ball from within the
09:37teeing area. Now, in my opinion, that is a very harsh penalty in a situation where you're not really
09:44gaining a massive advantage. So for example, if I tee the ball accidentally, say here,
09:49you know, just in front of the tee markers, I've gained a couple of inches.
09:53It's not worth it, is it? It's not worth the penalty, right?
09:56I'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 that
10:07you 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
10:31just
10:31keeps nudging themselves up. But I don't think you, I think there's hardly anyone who would go and tee,
10:34you know, if you're playing this way, no one would tee up over here. No, 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 the line. 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
10:50time,
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, or if you've hit it
10:59into
10:59the rubbish, they can say that that shot counts and that's fine. And I understand, you know,
11:03if you're teeing up the other side of the... Yeah, so that was my next question though.
11:06What if, you know, what if it's a hybrid to play for position, but you're not good with it,
11:10a hybrid? Yeah. So 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
11:20club that's going to go too far, if you go too far back, then you can, it becomes a perfect
11:25yardage.
11:25So I kind of understand it. So I'm okay with it this way, less okay with it this way. Okay.
11:29Yes,
11:29I definitely understand your point. I think the rules have got to just sort of relax a bit, man.
11:33You 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 tees. Bang. Boom.
11:48Have that. I think the privileges that are extended to golfers on the teeing area versus the rest of
11:53the golf course are excessive. Okay. I mean, I've got my phone. I can reel off some of the things
11:57that you
11:58can do on a tee. In between these two sticks. You can't do anywhere on the golf course.
12:03Okay. Tees can be up to four inches long. Yeah.
12:06You can alter the surface of the ground. You can make indentations with your foot or the club.
12:11You can move, bend, or break grass. We know you can't do that on anywhere else on the golf course.
12:15You can remove objects in the teeing area. You can press down sand and soil. You can remove dew,
12:21frost, 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
12:36on 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
12:51the ground. Whereas if you put the ball on the ground, you would see lower ball flights with more
12:56spin, less 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
13:06it
13:06brings the skill back into the game. It produces less distance. It solves an awful lot of problems.
13:11It does. Can I just pitch a couple of questions at you? Of course you can. I think people might
13:14be
13:14shouting at home, right? So, broadly 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 their driver at
13:25the minute to get it up in the air and off the ground? Those are my main steps actually. Yeah,
13:29obviously they'd be unpopular with golfers who struggle with their driver and obviously a lot of
13:33golfers are used to playing the ball, you know, on a tee, raised up. But I think people would get
13:38used to hitting driver off these sorts of flies. And yeah, they might play a slightly higher lofted
13:42driver as a result or a lower lofted three-wood, like I've said. But I mean, I could demonstrate
13:46one. I mean, we see driver off the deck anyway, don't we? I mean, that is from the more skilled
13:51players, but maybe that'll bring that element of the game back into the sort of high handicaps of the
13:56world. You know, on teeing grounds, you can get some pretty good lies. Because that is still now,
14:01and we'll show it in close up. Sat up fairly nicely. It sat up pretty nicely and I haven't
14:06hit a lot of shots today, so this could go horribly wrong, but let's give it a whirl.
14:13Oh, Joel. Look at that. That is your first swing of the day. First swing of the day,
14:18just down that right-hand side of the fairway. 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. Look, I know I'm a
14:25relatively good golfer, you know, three handicapper, but the high handicappers, they're probably going to
14:30struggle with these sort of lies, but I do think removing tees altogether and the privileges you
14:35get around preferring your lie, you know, using your wedges to raise up the ground and that sort
14:39of thing you see Laura Davies do. I think that needs to be banished from the game altogether.
14:43And wouldn't it be fascinating to watch the professionals play all these great golf courses
14:47that we can then come see back in the game again? You know, the rollback argument is we don't see
14:51some of the great old courses anymore because they're bombing it too far. Wouldn't it be great to see those
14:54golf courses back? And it's that risk-reward as well. Do you want to risk hitting a driver off the
14:59deck,
14:59off the tee, in case it goes horribly wrong? Yeah. But obviously you get rewarded if you hit it like
15:03that, you do still get some pretty good distance. It's a fascinating one, Joel. I think one, some
15:07food for thought for you guys watching at home. I think probably a really good rule to crown off
15:12that video. Yeah, there's going to be a lot of comments, I think. Well, let us know. Would you
15:15like to see that? I'm feeling a lot of anger because some golfers aren't, lots of golfers aren't that
15:20great and they're going to struggle with that, but I'm feeling lots of positives on the rollback
15:22perspective. But is it, I was going to say, is it a better solution than rolling back the golf ball
15:26for
15:26everybody? I would say yes. I would say yes as well. So let us know if there's any that we've
15:29missed that you would like to see. But for now, from Madeira, thanks for joining us.
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