Lost or Out of Bounds Ball

[Dennis Harwood]

(08-23-2013 05:05 PM)John Morrissett Wrote:  Dennis -


Also, could you argue that a lesser penalty for out of bounds would allow fairways and greens to be positioned closer to out of bounds (ignoring for now the concerns with possible concerns with property damage) and therefore allow holes to occupy less land?

Thanks,
John

John - I think that raises the issue of why have an OB penalty at all. Obviously we could adopt the baseball rule of unlimited foul balls. Keep hitting til on lands in fair territory. Other than the obvious time problems, I suspect most golfers believe that bad strokes should have consequences. If you can not keep your ball on a 140 acre area that should have some scoring consequences.

That raises the issue of what should that penalty be? Is one stroke alone, compared with the penalty for lost ball ( S&D) a "fair" result ( assuming fairness should have anything to do with it )?. In the typical case of heavy rough and then a boundary adjoining the target ( the fairway) is it a proper result that the shot which misses the target by a bit and lost in the rough incurs a more severe penalty than the truly awful shot that misses the course entirely? I know we survive with the stroke penalty for WHs but the quality of the shot resulting in different penalty results rarely comes into play with WHs.

Property damage ( which you mentioned ) is also a factor. If we want players to be deterred from hitting astray from a line of play and imposing a severe penalty for hitting the ball on a neighbors property, is a stroke penalty alone without distance enough of a deterrent? Should the Rules be structured to provide the deterrent?

I am afraid I am not convinced we should adopt a different OB penalty of one stroke sans distance.

Regards,
Dennis