There have to be some sort of limits, or the rule itself is worthless. In this case, the rule is hand it in “right away”. I’ve never heard of anybody getting tagged for not getting it done fast enough. The hard line is that you can’t alter the card after handing it in, she handed in an unsigned card and walked away. It’s a rule that 1st graders manage to live with, I think pro golfers can live with it too. No do-overs.
How do you know if your own score is correct or not if someone else is keeping it?
Do you write your opponents score on the card but keep your own score written on the back of your hand so when you have to check to make sure what your opponent wrote for you is correct you can remember what you shot?
Typically either you have space for more than one score on the card or you have two cards. Take the example of Sergio Garcia and Boo Weekly. Boo twice (?) screwed up Sergio’s card. You have to take responsibility.
A well controlled tournament like an LPGA or PGA event has everything pinned down to the precise distance for every shot for the players so they could get away without keeping the scores. But once you get away from that level of golf it is a different story and the only way to control the event is to have such rules. For example, there are typically Monday qualifiers for PGA Tour events. These are one day events that pro and hacks who didn’t qualify on their own merits can win a spot into the tournament…“its a Cinderella story”…These events are not as well covered with official scorers and the like. The scores are what the two golfers say they are and that is that so there have to be strict rules to make sure people are precise in the score keeping. The importance of the tourament can be huge for a golfer trying to make or keep his tour card.
One of the things I find a little stupid in the rules is the “call in” rules violations. That is any one can call the PGA or LPGA and say “I saw Michelle Wie drop and her ball was closer to the hole…she should be DQ’d” This happened last year(?) although it wasn’t a call in but rather a sports writer (walking with the group) who waited until AFTER she signed her card to report it to the officials…
Suppose a player gets to the clubhouse and finds he disagrees with the score his partner wrote down for him on #12. How is the dispute resolved?
Does it matter whether the written-down score is too high or too low? What is the “truth” against which it’s decided whether the written-down score is right or wrong?
they can bring it before the rules/tournament committee. Once they have done that they are protected against the not signing their card.
They might head back to the hole, ask the caddies (if any), look at video footage (if any) ask a spectator etc. In the end if there is still a disagreement, with no contradicting evidence, then typically they side with the player not the fellow competitor.
My informal understanding of “addressing and ball moves rule” is:
- a ball comes to rest and before you can mark it or address it, it moves - you play it where it lies, no penalty.
- a ball comes to rest, you address it, and then it moves - one stroke penalty, place the ball back as close as possible to where it originally lay.
- same as 2, but you don’t address (I’ve seen players do this in windy conditions - they don’t “sole” the putter), no penalty, play it where it lies.
- a ball comes to rest, you address, and the ball moves but returns to it’s original position (it “jiggles”) - no penalty.
- same as 4, but you cause it to move by jiggling with the club - no penalty.
USGA Definitions and Rules: Link
Move or Moved
A ball is deemed to have “moved” if it leaves its position and comes to rest in any other place.
Addressing the ball
A player has “addressed the ball” when he has taken his stance and has also grounded his club, except that in a hazard a player has addressed the ball when he has taken his stance.
18-2 (Ball Moved By Player, Partner, Caddie or Equipment)
b. Ball Moving After Address
If a player’s ball in play moves after he has addressed it (other than as a result of a stroke), the player is deemed to have moved the ball and incurs a penalty of one stroke. The ball must be replaced, unless the movement of the ball occurs after the player has begun the stroke or the backward movement of the club for the stroke and the stroke is made.
WHY IN THE NAME OF FAIRNESS DOES THIS STUPID RULE EXIST?
Why does this rule exist…well if your ball is in the tall grass one could imagine the pushing down of the grass at address until the ball moves into a more favorable location or lies.
BTW, I came across this decision in the USGA Rules… enforcing things like this in your Saturday foursome will make you very popular 
18-2a/1 Player Who Misses Tee Shot Tees Ball Lower Before Making Next Stroke
Q. A player playing from the teeing ground misses the ball completely. He pushes his tee further into the ground and plays. What is the ruling?
A. When the player made a stroke, the ball was in play (see Definition of “Ball in Play”). By pushing the tee further into the ground, he moved the ball and incurred a penalty of one stroke under Rule 18-2a and was required to replace it. However, when the player made a stroke at the ball without replacing it, he played under penalty of stroke and distance (see Rule 27-1a). This procedure overrides Rule 18-2a and, therefore, the penalty under Rule 18-2a does not apply. (Revised)
In other words, whiff/adjust tee/smack it 300 yards = return to tee and play your fourth shot!
Dig It… sure, I understand but to make myself clear we’re talking about the wind moving the ball on the green. I can’t extend the logic to that situation.
I hear you and the Open Champ. is a great example. The rule, IMHO, applies to all the situations where one might improve you lie by moving the ball. Unfortunately, in those cases where the wind is bad enough - you might get screwed…
I was in Edmonton once… nice town. Took me 21 hours to go from Hartford CT to there via Chicago…I slept well once I got there…
cheers
What makes it simpler? Just make a rule that says “you can kneel on a towel.”
Big bang boom, that’s it. It doesn’t have to be a slippery slope where “oh, we can kneel on it, so we can therefore stand on this super deluxe golf-stance thingy I brought!” Well…no, it means you can kneel on a towel so that you don’t get you god-damn pants wet and ruined on the grass.
You keep your own at the same time. Then you compare. I have had to sit down and go over cards when there was a discrepancy. His card is official for you once you sign it. He also signs your card. You sign his as scorekeeper.
I’ve seen all kinds of flaps over golf rules, and I’ve read a number of very well-publicized cases of snitches wrecking someone’s tournament for no discernable reason other than the sheer goddam illicit thrill of it. Yes, it’s disgusting, and anyone with any sense finds it disgusting.
But y’know what? As far as I’m concerned, it’s no different from NBA referees who completely ignore fouls in the last two minutes for some asinine “let the players play” principle, MLB officials who are taking a firm stance on doping after the horse has bolted (McGwire/Sosa home run chase), gone into the next county (71), settled down in another farm (leaguewide home run glut), sired a foal on said farm (73), and bolted again (756), or Olympic ice dancing, a nakedly corrupt “sport” that I still can’t believe hasn’t gone the way of roller derby. You make the decision to become a professional athlete, you deal with the stupid crap.
If you get bounced for some ludicrous technicality, fine. It happened to Norman, for crying out loud. Learn from your mistake. If you beat the snot out of your opponent while barely taking a jab in response and he still gets his arm raised in the end, fine. The world knows who the chump is, and you’ll go on to bigger and better things while he gets replaced by the next spoonfed nobody in three months. If you win six rings but the media is forever and ever and ever obsessed with your teammate who’s the G.O.A.T. (and they never get tired of saying it!)…that’s the American media at work, kiddo. Just take your money, do something meaningful with your life, and for crying out loud, don’t develop a gambling habit or buy a personal jet.
DQs that can strike out of nowhere for the most ludicrous minuitae imaginable. Slimy, sleazy stoolies who will end your tourney at the slightest opportunity. No guaranteed contracts. No subsidies. 43rd place is the best loser. One miss can cost you $200,000. Constant travel demands. Constantly under the microscope; one slip of the tongue can derail an entire seasion. That’s the life of a professional golfer. Either accept it or get off the Tour until you can.
Why do we need a rule specifically to prevent someone’s pants from getting dirty in the exceedingly rare situation where they need to kneel? Then follow that rule up with the existing rule preventing you from improving your stance.
You are required to sign for your official score precisely because of rules like the one about the ball moving after addressing it. Who knows that happens besides you, most of the time? If you didn’t have to attest that, in fact, yes, that is indeed what you scored (remember, your score is kept by someone else), you would never know if the player knew of a stroke or penalty that should have been added in that everyone else (including the official scorers) missed.
Now, some of what happens that seems so silly when applied in the realm of professional golf results from something common to golf and football (the soccer variety): they use the exact same rules regardless of where the sport is played. That is, they don’t have a different set of rules for the professionals from the blokes who are out on the course for a weekend tournament and a 30 handicap. So a rule that makes perfect sense in the context of a tournament where there is no one watching but the players themselves may not make such perfect sense in the context of a round by Tiger Woods, with everyone and everything in the world watching.
The reason a ball moving after addressing it is deemed a stroke is to prevent some wiley Scot from “addressing” the ball in such a way that the ball moves to a more favorable position. We play it as it lies in golf. 
As for Michelle Wie, where should the cutoff be? Arguably, the very second she hands the card over and it is devoid of her signature, she should be DQ’d. They relax that a bit so that if you get up, start out the door, and suddenly remember, “Doh!” and return to sign it, you are allowed to do so. But once past the fence around the scoring trailer, she is deemed to have turned in her score. The really sad part was the bit about the LPGA not knowing about this until she had started her round the next day; they learned about it from the volunteers accidentally, I understand. I have often thought that there should be a limit to the effect of what happens the previous day, but think about this: suppose that that scorecard had been signed, and had misscored the round by one stroke. Should Wie have been allowed to “keep” her erroneous score because no one figured it out until the next day? Where is the fairness in that?
The other way around as well. If I ever see some idiot in a recreational weekend round holding everyone up by trudging back to the tee after he can’t find his ball…
Well, I’m not sure the score was “erroneous.” But I could imagine something akin to Statute of Lims. If they don’t catch a technicality - or perhaps any transgression - by the time you tee off for the next round, there is no penalty.
Regarding the “ball at rest” discussion above, I’d appreciate an explanation of a specific situation:
Is this correct? Here is the situation I have in mind. Your ball is in the rough, essentially sitting on top of some grass that is lying somewhat flat. If you ground your club and touch the grass, you will depress it slightly, causing the ball to bob down slightly. The ball does not rotate or otherwise move in relation to the grass it is sitting on, but it does “move.” When you initiate your swing, the grass most likely springs back and the ball resumes its previous position.
My understanding was that this incurred a penalty, and that in such situations you ought not ground your club. I’d appreciate a specific cite to a ruling on the subject one way or the other.
Here’s another one I think stupid. You hit your drive into the woods. You declare you are hitting a provisional for the potentially lost ball and drive it down the middle. When you get out there, you find your first ball, but it is beyond some OB stakes you are not aware of. My understanding is that the rules require that you re-tee, because you did not declare the provisional to be for OB. How does this make sense?
WRT the OB ball…I was under the impression that you could declare a provisional for an OB ball. I do know that for ball that goes into a hazard the situation is different. In this scenerio: you play a stroke but feel the ball may be lost so you declare and play a provisional stroke. When you get to your ball you realize that it has enter a hazard (red or yellow staked) while you would like to take you option of a two club drop (or other option under the rules) you are forced to play the provisional ball. This is so because it is deemed that you have chosen to option of replaying the ball from the position you last struck the ball.
If you have a cite for the OB rule please post.
No cite off the top of my head - perhaps I’ll search later. But my understanding was that the rules say you need to declare the “reason” for your provisional. In the example I gave, the golfer thought his ball was lost, so he declared a provisional for that reason. As it turned out, the ball was not lost, but was OB, and he had not declared that he was hitting a provisional for OB.
Most of what I post here of what I understand of specific “tricky” rules is either what I’ve heard from better golfers than I who play tourneys and claim to know, or what I hear/read in the golf media. Me, I just play a fun recreational game. Neither the amount I wager, nor the pros’ rules, unduly interfere with my having a pleasant walk in the park.
In the example you describe with the staked hazard, I can kind of understand that rule, at least if you do not find your ball in the hazard. Because if you do not find your ball, I’m not sure you can establish that your ball entered or came to rest in the hazard. For all you know, it might have bounced off a tree and may just be under a leaf somewhere in play.
Thanks for answering these questions in such detail.
The situation you describe above does sound really pernicious. So a penalty can be applied retroactively against an action that nobody - not even the official scorer - found illegal at the time. Worse, they then declare that a player’s signed scorecard is now thus incorrect, ergo disqualification (instead of just the stroke penalty, which I would find acceptable).
To the layman, the application of this rule at the PGA Tour level does appear to be a manifestation of bureaucracy at its most sinister. Tournament officials (in essence) ask the player a question to which they know the answer, for no apparent reason besides giving them a chance to apply a wildly draconian penalty if the player gets it wrong.
On top of that, the officials are allowed to use new information that may come to light afterwards to change the correct answer, but the player is not given a similar opportunity to alter his response.
I understand why the rule exists in the context of consistency at all levels of the game. However, when phrased the way I’ve put it above it sounds like something out of Kafka.
In deed it is like that. However, if an official makes a ruling - not just present - then the player is “obsolved” from any penalties if it is later deemed that that official is wrong. Which is why the pros use officials quite a bit to make the calls.
It is important to note that the rules are quite simple however the application of those rules is complex. I think there only 34 rules. But there are pages and pages of decisions regarding the rules. (sounds like the US constitution).
The idea that you play it as lies is fundamental to the game, however, you dont have to play it as it lies if the ground is under repair - seems fair, but if a fellow compeitor leaves and orange peel on the ground and you ball in on the peel you have to play it from of the peel (same with duck doo and goose goop too). Now how about a bees nest - free drop from harmful situations - alligators and snakes too…
This last example saved a hole for me once. I played into a green that had a lake on the left side so of course I hit a right to left shot which rolled off the green towards the lake. When I approached I saw that my ball had come to rest against a snake sunning itself. I decided to take my drop at nearest point of relief and play on. Well the grass conditions and angle to the hole were much better and as a result I got up and down for a par (a snakie??? we call a par from the sand a sandy and one from the woods … yes a woody 
)
So a final point for this message is that the rules can help you as much as hurt you. One just needs to be familiar with the rules.