With the weekend Livingston competition on the horizon at BMCC, and In anticipation of an onslaught of Rules controversies and questions, Foremost travelled to Orlando and the spectacular Orange Tree Golf Club for a couple of playing sessions and rules consultations with golf’s premier Rules guru, Mark Russell.

Mark has been a PGA Rules official since 1980, and is currently Vice President of Rules and Competition overseeing all aspects of competition on the Tour. (Yes, he’s the guy you see on tv a lot).

Indeed, MR’s rules career has closely resembled that of F’s. Just last week, while F was answering questions at the Azalea Cup in the locker room at BMCC, Mark was overseeing another club tournament, the Masters at Augusta National. And, F and Russell are both noted Rules authors, although sales of MR’s book, “Golf Rules Plain and Simple”, have slightly eclipsed F’s sales to date at 130,000 copies.

Finally, both MR and F have made the historic, tough calls…MR, penalizing Stadler years ago for kneeling on the towel and Tiger for dropping improperly on the 15th at Augusta; and F, assessing Reader WT and himself a two-hole match adjustment upon finding 15 clubs in F’s bag. (It’s still debatable whether Stadler or WT had the bigger emotional breakdown – Reader JR claims he is still traumatized by WT’s temper tantrum).

F, of course, grilled his partner, MR, on a plethora of rules issues during and after play, and warned him to watch out as he would love to be able to say that he had called a penalty on MR! Alas, such a situation did not arise, although F did manage to interject his expertise into the game at one point (his Readers would expect no less!) by calling a penalty on their four-ball opponent DB.

Facts

MR played a brilliant pitch shot into a sharp incline behind the hole. All watched as the ball paused and teetered, and then began to slowly trickle directly back towards the pin.

Opponent DB, in a gesture of sportsmanship, raced across the green and quickly repaired his own pitch mark which appeared to be in the path of the moving ball. The ball stopped just short of the repair work.

F complimented his partner on a fine shot, and called a penalty on DB for interfering with MR’s line of play with a ball in motion.

“You can always repair a plug mark on a green”, said DB, perhaps startled that F would raise a rules issue in this company.

MR smiled and didn’t say a word…F was on his own.

Issue

Who was correct?

Ruling

Mercifully, F thinks he got this one right! With a ball in motion, a player can’t alter conditions of the surface affecting where the ball might come to rest. R11.3. This prohibition applies to the player’s own ball or another player’s ball, and includes actions prohibited by R8.1a referencing actions which might improve conditions affecting the stroke, such as replacing a divot or pressing down an indentation or raised area in the turf.

DB was rewarded for his noble effort to repair the plug mark with the General Penalty, Loss of Hole in match play.

F made one other effort to be helpful with the Rules after MR bounced a shot off a pond duck into the heavy rough of the PA. After MR played a nice recovery shot hovering his club at address, F reminded him that he can now ground his club in the PA. MR said he wanted to hover his club for the shot…oh well, F tried.

And one final note from Orange Tree for the Nashville crowd…the first person F ran into on the putting green was his former Head Coach, Steve Sloan….looking great!

Thanks to MR for an entertaining and informative couple of days! Although perhaps not of the historic magnitude of the Yalta conference between Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt, a summit between MR and F on the Rules of Golf is certainly a close second.

As usual, all comments and corrections are welcome!

Respectfully submitted,
F