Running the rule over game's finer points

Rules of golf: Philip Reidrecommends a thorough read of the Rules of Golf

What do you do? You're playing in the club medal and one of the other players in your fourball is taking relief from a gravel path, which he is entitled to do.

But rather than go to the nearest point of relief, which would have him dropping in some rather unpleasant rough, he has decided - wrongly - to take relief on the fairway side of the path, getting a nice lie as a result.

Do you turn a blind eye? Never.

"Ideally," says Colm Madigan, the rules convenor with the Golfing Union of Ireland (GUI), "if you believe someone is infringing the rules, you should say it there and then. That way, you might be able to facilitate the problem. And, if not on the spot, you should say it before playing off the next tee."

Of course, the rules of golf are a minefield and, as Madigan, one of the country's leading referees, admits, most are broken unintentionally because of what he describes as "total ignorance. Many players just don't know the rules because no one has taken the time to sit them down and talk".

Surely, though, it is up to every player to get his or her hands on a copy of the rulebook and peruse it?

Of course it is, but even professional players who think they know the rules inside out can fall foul of the law, as some of golf's biggest names have discovered to their cost.

Once, Greg Norman was disqualified from the Asian Open in China - a co-sanctioned event on the European Tour - for taking an illegal drop when he got mixed up between red and yellow stakes at a water hazard. When his tee-shot on the 17th found water, Norman dropped next to the hazard rather than returning to the tee and completed the hole.

It wasn't corrected before he drove off on the next hole, so he was disqualified.

It was not the first time Norman had forgotten the correct rule.

One year, playing in the Honda Classic on the US Tour, the Aussie hit a provisional ball on the 13th hole because he thought he drove into a water hazard, forgetting that you can only play a provisional ball when a ball is believed to be lost or out-of-bounds.

As it turned out, Norman's original ball turned out to be safe, in a bunker, but Norman should have played the provisional ball.

Instead, he played the ball from the bunker, wedging onto the green for what he thought was two shots.

But, in fact, he was disqualified for playing a provisional ball under the wrong circumstances (Rule 27-2a in the Decisions on the Rules of Golf).

If he had followed the correct procedure, he would have returned to where his second tee-shot had landed (now lying three), incurred a two-shot penalty for playing the wrong ball and hit his sixth into the green.

So, no, it is not easy to understand the complexities of all of the rules.

However, the GUI and the ILGU are aiming to increase rules awareness by holding seminars for clubs around the provinces, and, if needs be, holding rules nights in the clubs - if requested - so that many newcomers to the game, who have taken up golf maybe as a second sport, can become acquainted with the rules.

"I'd say that, of those who have only recently come into golf, no more than five per cent actually pick up a rules book and, in many of those cases, it is only if they have come across a problem themselves or seen something happen that they want to check out," says Madigan.

"But 95 per cent of golfers never go near a rule book, and that is something we obviously would like to change."

Madigan makes the point that there are only a dozen or so basic rules, and the first few deal with the etiquette of the game. In short, they are not difficult to learn.

But it is not just newcomers to golf who don't fully know the rules and who can get confused.

"Some of the biggest offenders are Senior Cup and international players," says Madigan who, by way of affirming the point, recalls an incident in a Barton Shield match that took place in Carlow.

"I was called to a match on the 18th where a player had hit the ball way right into the trees and had played a provisional which was down the middle of the fairway.

"But the original ball was found, to which the words 'I'll declare that lost' were uttered. You can't do that.

"Once the original ball is found, the provisional goes into the pocket."

There are also occasions, though, when you can get the rules to work for you.

While some players have been known to acquire relief from "rabbit scrapings", the most demonstrable working of the rules came in the 1999 Phoenix Open on the US Tour when a certain Tiger Woods's swing was impeded by a giant boulder. The boulder was deemed to be a "moveable" obstruction and Woods enlisted the help of spectators in the gallery to help move the rock.