Rules Corner

Rules Corner: Key 2023 JPMGC Rules Decisions and Golf’s Two Great Principles

by the Jackson Park Men’s Golf Club Rules Committee: Reid Swick, Jimmy Bucher, Dave Foreman, Reed Johnson, Ben Carpenter and Karl Meier

This is the inaugural Rules Corner column for the reinstituted JPMGC newsletter; who knows how it will go!?

The purpose of the column will be–at the risk of sounding obvious–popularizing and clarifying the Rules of Golf.

Recapping recent history, here are our club’s major rules decisions/controversies of 2023:

• Confusion over our local “winter rules” and subsequent revision of those rules to allow lift, clean and place throughout the general area.
• Discussion of Ground Under Repair (GUR): What is it? When is relief allowed? This was followed by an email to all members clarifying the relevant rules.
• Memo to the JPMGC Board of Trustees from the Rules Committee about a USGA ruling on conditions on one of the fairways at Jackson Park, clarifying that those conditions are not GUR.

As it happened, all these related to whether to play the ball as it lies.

Stepping back, here are excerpts from “The Principles Behind the Rules of Golf” by Richard Tufts, originally published in 1960 and subsequently republished by the USGA:

“There is no game like golf. Most outdoor games–baseball, football, hockey, tennis, for example–are conducted on well-defined playing fields … The one common standard for golf is the size of the hole … Otherwise, it is difficult to imagine the tremendous variety of conditions, objects, and circumstances with which the Rules must cope in their worldwide application to the game of golf … Golf is a complex game, and we must anticipate that the Rules will reflect this fact.”

However, the Rules can be better understood by referencing “Two Great Principles” underlying the game:

“[The first principle is] play the course as you find it … One of the great features of golf is that it tests the player’s ability to execute a great assortment of strokes under a perplexing variety of conditions. Golf would cease to be a game of skill if the player were permitted to get the best of the conditions which confront him …

Golf, like life, is full of breaks, it is a game of chance, one of its fascinations being in ‘the way the ball bounces.’ To be able to accept the breaks and still go on playing your game has always been one of the tests of the true champion, a test which is more important to meet successfully in golf than in any other sport …

The second great principle of golf is that you put your ball in play at the start of the hole … and do not touch it until you lift it from the hole.“

Maybe, or hopefully, this raises more questions than it answers!

Finally, a reminder that all JPMGC tournament rules come from the official Rules of Golf set by the USGA and R&A, plus our five authorized local rules.

Here are recommended links:

• USGA Rules of Golf website
• USGA Rules of Golf mobile app. Please try it!
• JPMGC Local Rules
• JPMGC Rules FAQ’s

Comments and questions are always welcome.