New rules, new game from 1 January 2019
Your Captain is sat on a train into London reading random stuff and thought it was worth highlighting some of the important updates
- Three minutes to find a lost ball. Not important to Gregs unless it is a pro v1 near a body of water. Epically pivotal to the closing holes of the History Boy jug
- Drops are now from knee height, not shoulder. Because we all drop the ball properly, don’t we?
- You can clear up loose impediments in a hazard, but go easy – no grounding the club or sitting the ball on a nice sandcastle in a bunker. Wouldn’t make a jot of difference to quite a few members who find bunkers to be an impenetrable puzzle
- You are no longer penalised for playing with a damaged club. Great news for many of us, and excellent news for Pete. Good insurance for Noz – although Hoylake saw the end of the most abused club in WHV history
- Double hits are now ok. Seems weird, only Boyce swings slowly enough for that to happen, but he doesn’t possess the talent or skill to be able to do it on purpose. Also, see Mike
- In a change that will see some of us falling out – you can now putt with the stick in the hole without penalty. This will lead to several requests to take the “fecking flag out, you fecking philistine” from people who still believe they can putt
- And finally, in a controversial move – the easy R4 is now allowed. Two shot penalty to drop from knee height according to this insane diagram. Have fun with this one – remember, 2 shot penalty rather than stroke and distance and walking back to the tee.
The new official R4 is bound to cause some debate for society stalwarts
Not long til 2019 tour
