At the British Open, it pays to stick to the rules – as Ian Woosnam famously learned the hard way in 2001.
Ian Woosnam (r)
Though not too many rounds of golf will ever have erupted into fisticuffs, this most gentlemanly of games needs its rules no less than the most rudely physical of sports.
Golf’s first rules, the Thirteen Articles, were devised in 1745 by the Company of Gentlemen Golfers, now the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers. Some of the originals have scarcely changed, with particular reference to the 12th Article – “He whose Ball lyes farthest from the Hole is obliged to play first.”
Across the centuries, the number of regulations has grown to 34. The 30th Revision of the Rules of Golf, the most recent revision of these sacred sporting laws, was completed in 2004.
It is one thing to revise the rules, another to spread the news to the millions of players and fans around the world. In 2008, Rolex supported the publication of four million copies in English, while foreign golf unions affiliated to The R&A reproduced their own copies under licence in 25 or more other languages including Arabic and Mandarin. Copies of each edition have been filed for posterity at the headquarters of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews.
Every trio of players setting out in a modern Open Championship will be accompanied by a fully-qualified rules official whose work starts well before he leaves the first tee.
First and foremost, he will make sure that he is in possession of his copy of the Rules of Golf. He will then double-check that he has a list of the local rules, along with a radio to be used in the event of a contestant wanting a second opinion. As for the rest of his refereeing paraphernalia, that will include a measuring device which will be brought out on those occasions when it is not immediately obvious who has the longest putt.
Having checked that he himself is properly equipped, the official will turn his attention to the players.
Once he has introduced himself, he will make a gentle query as to whether they have checked on the number of clubs in their bags.
There was a time when the golfers would be more than mildly irritated at being asked something so elementary but attitudes changed following the 2001 Open at Lytham. That was the year when Ian Woosnam discovered that he had a 15th club – one more than the permitted 14 – in his bag.
Woosnam, who had been tying for the lead after three rounds, was on the second tee on the Sunday afternoon when he made the grim discovery which would cost him a two-stroke penalty and a huge psychological blow. Prior to his round, he had been wondering which of two drivers to take with him and his caddie had left the discarded club in the bag instead of returning it to the locker-room. For the record, the Welshman finished in a share of third place.
With this year’s Open being held at St Andrews, David Rickman, The R&A’s Director of Rules, suspects that the most oft-repeated rules query will concern the local directive about the status of roads and paths.
At many venues, players will be granted a free drop from such hazards.
Not so at St Andrews where these areas have traditionally been seen as an integral part of the course.
The busiest road of them all – in terms of bouncing, skidding golf balls – will be the one at the back of the 17th. With the hole having been lengthened to combat today’s longer hitting, the professionals will once again be going for the green with the more accident-prone longer irons.
In such circumstances, officials can expect to find themselves presiding over shots such as Jarmo Sandelin’s cleverly improvised chip in one of the old-style medal-match-play events on the links. With the wall behind the road preventing any kind of a backswing, the Swede turned round and hammered his ball into its stony face. The missile rebounded to within inches of the hole and Sandelin walked off with the most improbable of fours.
Such is the savagery of the gorse in July at St Andrews that Rickman is expecting Rule 28 – the Unplayable Ball Rule – to be invoked on a fairly regular basis, especially at the 12th where the left side of the fairway is flanked by a particularly prickly – and painful – species of the shrub.
In keeping with the Rolex sponsorship, there are several time-related rulings, these including the five-minute search for a ball.
When Mark O’Meara won The Open in 1998 at Royal Birkdale, he had a lucky escape at the sixth where he thought he had lost his drive in the rough. Conscious of the players waiting behind, O’Meara asked to be ferried back to the tee to hit another ball under penalty, only for someone to find his original before the statutory five minutes were up.
Since O’Meara could not by then get back to identify the missile within the time-frame, there was some confusion as to what should happen next.
In the event, he was allowed to play ball No. 1 on the grounds that the chief rules’ officials on either side of the Atlantic had earlier come to an agreement on what should happen in just such a situation. The little addendum, that extra time should be allowed, was written into the next edition of the Rules.
One of the more exciting timing regulations – at least from the crowd’s point of view – is the ten-second ruling, Rule 16-2.
“When any part of the ball overhangs the lip of the hole, the player is allowed enough time to reach the hole without unreasonable delay and an additional ten seconds to determine whether the ball is at rest.”
Hardly surprisingly, there have been some thrillingly theatrical moments in which a ball has waited till the eleventh hour or, rather, the tenth second, to disappear.
If it tumbles after the ten seconds are up, as happened to the 2002 Ryder Cup captain, Sam Torrance, in the 1990 English Open at The Belfry, he will be adjudged to have had an extra putt.
Torrance, for the record, thought he had made an eagle at the 10th as his ball finally made the effort to tumble into the cup. As it was, the Scot was adjudged to have waited a few seconds too many – and eventually lost the Championship on a play-off to Mark James.
No less surely; he had been beaten by the clock.
