Time to switch to a more personal sports experience: golf.   This is a sport I have personally played for many years.  Though not for everyone, it’s extremely popular. According to the National Golf Foundation, 25.1 million Americans played golf on a course in 2021, and a total of 36.9 million Americans played golf either on a course, simulator, driving range, or golf entertainment venue in 2020. Going by that latter number, that’s 12 percent of the United States’ population of 329.5 million.  Interestingly, it surged during the pandemic, with people searching for an outdoor, non-contact pastime.  I’ve heard it described as frustrating, rewarding, challenging, and addicting.    My favorite expression is “a good walk spoiled”. 

But to the point.  The rules of golf, administrated in the USA by the United State Golf Association (USGA) are exceedingly complicated for such a simple game in concept (hit the ball, and get it in the hole!).   Most make sense, but some are controversial, and some seem downright silly.     But this article will be about one rule and penalty that has often vexed me:  out of bounds.   

What is “out of bounds”?  It is the golf course boundary, plain and simple.   If you hit a shot and the ball lands out of bounds, it is a penalty.  That seems to make sense, but my issue is with the penalty itself.   When a player hits a ball out of bounds, he is required to play another ball from the same spot as the original shot.  The original shot counts as a stroke of course, plus a 1 shot penalty.  It is called a “stroke and distance” penalty.  The net effect is in fact a 2 stroke penalty.  Say a player hits his drive out of bounds, then hits another from the same spot.  His new ball is now “lying” 3, and hitting 4.  Thus a 2 stroke penalty. In addition to the penalty, there is the mechanism.  It is common, very common, that you do not know your ball landed out of bounds.   So you walk or ride up the fairway, find that your ball is out of bounds, and then are forced to backtrack back to the tee box, to replay the shot.   Often with the next group of golfers glaring at you. Some call it the “walk of shame”. Fun time indeed!

Buts lets look at a little more critically at the concept of “out of bounds”.   Golf was invented by the Scots, in the wilds of the countryside.  The enduring rule of play was “play it as it lies”.   The original ruling body of golf, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, adopted the most severe form of the penalty in 1842, which cost the golfer 4 strokes! But that didn’t last long and was dropped in 1846.   The current rule was agreed to by the R&A and USGA in 1951.  But the point is, when golf was invented, there was very little or no “out of bounds”. You were out in the countryside, not the suburbs. You hit your shot, found your ball and hit it again.  In a perfect world, there is no “out of bounds”, you “play it as it lies”. The proliferation of out of bounds is directly related to the proliferation of golf courses in populated areas.  Or the encroaching of population in the countryside.  And frankly, this can not be prevented.  Private property, and property boundaries are a way of life now in virtually every golf course setting.

As you may have noticed, my overriding theme in all these blogs is fairness.   Fair to say I am obsessed with it.  Unfortunately, there are many instances of “unfair” out of bounds.  Because of simple constraints of room, many golf course border very close to homes and private property.  Seeing an out of bounds marker or line literally 10-20 yards from the fairway, or green, is not uncommon at all.  What’s frustrating is that you can have a “decent” shot, near the fairway, but be out of bounds.  Often the ball is just sitting there, begging for you to play it.  I’ve seen balls land literally 1 yard off the edge of a raised green, and the ball rolling down the slope and crossing an out of bounds line.  How fair is that?   This is not just the ranting of a lousy player (I am pretty lousy).  I’ve caddied in some prestigious tournaments where the exact same thing happened to my player, who lost out on a high finish. (2 strokes in a competitive tournament can be 10 positions…).

So what to do?  Out of bounds will be with us forever on virtually every golf course.  I’ve even played The Old Course at Saint Andrews in Scotland, and even there, out of bounds has encroached some parts of the course (I saw an approach shot land on the 17^th green and roll out of bounds!).  The easy solution is to change the penalty.  USGA did something like this for recreational play.  They created a local rule in 2019 to allow a golfer to drop a ball in the fairway perpendicular to where it went out of bounds.  However, the real reason for the rule is to speed up play, and it is not used in sanctioned  tournaments.   My solution?  Change the rule to be like a lateral water hazard, or an unplayable lie, each of which is a 1 stroke penalty.  OB is like a water hazard or unplayable lie….you know where the ball is, you just can’t play it!   No going back to the tee box or original spot of play.  2 club lengths from the point it went out of bounds, one stroke for the drop, play on!

Faster play and several less stokes for me! (I told you I was lousy……).