neil.tappin@futurenet.com
This is an important question and one I find myself going back and forth on. On the one hand, I can see that for many, golf’s Rule book can feel somewhat impenetrable. Given its inherent difficulty, most would agree that golf is a hard sport to get into and a 160-page tome with a wide variety of Rules definitions and procedures doesn’t help. While the Rules have been simplified over time, they remain complex to the extent that even many experienced golfers never truly get to know them. Rules misunderstandings are probably the number one cause of an unfair playing field. This can’t be a good thing.
On the other hand, golf is one of the few self-policing sports, at least at club level, which accounts for most of…
