Three weeks into the season - blog output.... zero!
In my professional capacity I'm a supervisor of 19 government employees. April is the month for MIDPOINT APPRAISALS!!!! (and they all have to be done by the end of this week). My motivation to write anything this month is quite dismal, but I have felt bad that I have not ground out at least one blog entry. I'm going to try to change that tonight!
Before I get to the subject of this blog, I thought a few observations would be good regarding this year's play. 1) Rain can really create havoc on a golf course, and I can't recall both nights of league play being rained out in the same week. It had to happen in week 1. This year the captains decided to build one week in the schedule to handle rainouts (it happens to be at the end of the regular season, 12 and 13 August), and we have now already filled that week with the scheduled week 1 matches. 2) After 3 weeks the fairways at Ruggles have a surprising amount of playable grass, and with a couple notable exceptions, the greens are pretty good. Doesn't mean that crabgrass infestation and a dry spell can't ruin it in short order, but we'll cross the fingers. 3) Week 2, first round for me, first hole... As I was walking up to the 16th green to mark my ball (while lying 9 and with a putt beyond the length of the flagstick), I started thinking.... "Wouldn't it be ironic if my opponent was the first person to use the "Sportsmanship Rule" and award me (the writer of that rule) the honor of picking up my ball and putting a 10 on the card just to end my misery on that hole?" Didn't happen. I made the putt for 10, did a mental flush, played the remaining 8 holes in two over, won my match and together with my partner won the 3 points for team net. This goes to show you that you may not want to use that rule early in a match unless you feel really confident your opponent won't find his game. 4) Ended up playing another match in week 3 against a new player in our league, who was also a new player to the game of golf. Had a super night with all three players with gorgeous weather and ended up back at the clubhouse with the new golf and enjoyed a beer on the patio with him. Nights like that are one of the reasons I continue to enjoy playing 9 competitive holes after work.
Local Rules! I said I'd get to them this year. The USGA and R&A allow the committee of a golf event to add their own rules to competitions, but there is a limit to how far the local rule can go. For instance, if a committee just doesn't like a rule of golf and wants to implement a local rule to change a Rule of Golf, bad sauce.... they say "no go!". If a player plays a round with Local Rules that don't coincide with the Rules of Golf, that competitor is not allowed to post a score for a valid USGA/R&A handicap calculation. That would be one reason I'd say that a REGL handicap might not be a kosher one-for-one handicap to enter in a major competition. In the Rules of Golf there are a set of "Model Local Rules" under Section 8 of the Committe Procedures. For instance, there is a Model Local Rule similar to the "Canton Rule" we use for balls hit out of bounds or that are lost which if implemented allow a competitor to drop a ball at the edge of the out of bounds or near the area in which the ball was lost without having to go back to the tee to take a stroke and distance penalty. HOWEVER, the Canton Rule and the Model USGA rule have one very big difference in that the USGA imposes a 2-stroke penalty to drop the ball and continue play, where in the Canton Rule, only 1 penalty stroke is imposed. You can see how your REGL handicap might be smaller than a handicap where players aren't using the Canton Rule.
One nice thing about the Model Local Rules is that the language can be plucked right out and imposed by the committee without the need to do a lot of creative writing. (I should have written this blog entry back in January and it would have saved me a lot of time writing and/or rewriting 3 local rule changes this year). For those of you with an interest in Section 8, the following link: 8. Model Local Rules (usga.org)
Local Rules in REGL are (generally) imposed for a couple of reasons: increasing speed of play, and dealing with the oddities of Ruggles Golf Course. If I get some motivation after finishing 3 more midpoint appraisals, I'll start talking about some of our local rules in the next edition of the Rules Blog. Until then, hit 'em straight and hope for continued good weather.