Rog's Blog: Renegade Rule 2-2

In the Rule Book effective from January 1956, Rule 6-2 appeared as follows:

In the 1968 Book this Rule read:

When the Rule Book was restructured in 1984, Match Play became Rule 2 and 2-2 read:

And, in the current Rule Book, Rule 2-2 states:

2-2. Halved Hole

A hole is halved if each side holes out in the same number of strokes.

When a player has holed out and his opponent has been left with a stroke for the half, if the player subsequently incurs a penalty, the hole is halved.

Each of these Rules has the same meaning and you will notice that in each case the second paragraph of part 2 of the Rule bears no relationship to the first. In each case the first paragraph explains what a ‘halved hole’ is. On the other hand, the second paragraph relates to a situation where a player breaches a Rule after holing-out.

Most importantly, however, should a situation arise where a player breaches a Rule after holing-out in a match, there is (and has been) no possibility that players can discover the resolution to the problem through a rational interrogation of the Rule Book.

The usual (rational, efficient and recommended) method of using the Rule Book is to determine a description for what has occurred which is likely to correspond with the language of the Rules, and to search the Rule Book Index for reference to that issue. In virtually every instance, with the application of a little imagination, an appropriate reference can readily be found.

But not in this case!

In 1956, the Index read:

Now, I defy any rational person to make a connection between ‘player incurs a penalty after holing-out’ and ‘player retains half already gained’.  And what is more, even if you, by some miracle, fluked the latter combination of words you would then, bizarrely,  have needed to somehow work out that you had to look under ‘halved hole’ to find what you were looking for.

But this was a veritable mine of information compared with what happened in the re-structure of the Book in 1984. The complete relevant Index entry then became as it is today:

In a search of the Index for ‘breach of rule after holing-out’ or some variation thereof, the player will draw a blank. There is no reference within the Index which comes close to describing the situation.

Thus it is not possibile for a player to research the Rule Book for the solution to this problem unless he/she already knows the answer!

Without checking every heading in the Book, and standing to be corrected, Rog is confident that every section heading in the Book poses a question or describes a situation (Doubt as to Procedure: Seeing Ball; Searching for Ball: Ball Striking Flag or Attendant : Relief: etc, etc, etc)  other than the heading to Rule 2-2 as it relates to the second paragraph.

While ‘halved hole’ is clearly an appropriate heading to a section purporting to answer the question: what is a halved hole, it is not an appropriate heading to a section which purports to address the question: what happens if a player breaches a Rule after holing-out.

It is astonishing to think that this state of affairs has pertained for at least 60 years without any one of a long succession of Castle Dwellers either viewing this as a problem, or dealing with it.

Quite simply, the paragraph:

When a player has holed out and his opponent has been left with a stroke for the half, if the player subsequently incurs a penalty, the hole is halved.

needs to be separated into its own section of Rule 2, with the heading, such as:

‘Penalty incurred after holing out’,

with an appropriate entry made into the Index, such as:

Penalty

incurred after holing-out in match play

How difficult would that be?

It is situations such as this to which Walter Lippman’s famous quote is most apt:

Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.