Have you ever wondered why the rules of golf are so complex and difficult to understand? 

The sport is truly unique. In all other sports, the officials are primarily there to observe the play and ensure that the rules are followed.  In golf, the officials almost never make calls or observations.  They spend virtually all of their time simply explaining the rules to the participants. 

No one ever argues with a baseball umpire about whether or not the rules that apply to a fair or foul ball are being followed.  They argue with the Ump about his or her observation.  Billy Martin never turned his hat backwards, kicked dirt on the home plate umpire’s shoes and offered him his glasses because the Yankee Manager did not understand the nuances of determining what constitutes a fair or foul ball.  Billy thought the Ump blew the call. Was Reggie Jackson’s potentially game winning line drive inside or outside of the foul line? Billy would subsequently be tossed out of the game for disagreeing with the accuracy of the official’s call, not the underlying rule.  When Dick Butkus nearly decapitated Ron Kramer, Vince Lombardi didn’t politely question whether the official’s interpretation of the rules pertaining to pass interference had been accurately applied by the refs.  He was screaming that Butkus hit him before the ball arrived.  Vince saw it as pass interference and he thought the ref blew the call.  Meanwhile the medical staff are retrieving Ron’s head from his helmet and reattaching it to Kramer’s body so that he will be available for the next play.  Finally, John Mcenroe wasn’t questioning the comedic qualities of the umpire or the rules pertaining to the legality of his serve when he exclaimed “You can’t be serious!!”.      

In all sports, other than golf, the participants know the rules and arguments ensue about the accuracy of the officials’ “calls”.

In golf, nearly all of the meetings between players and officials are centered around the accurate application of the rules. This happens because the rules are so obtuse and complex that no one, not even the professional golfers, know what they are. It’s a safe bet that amateur golfers, playing in a club tournament, don’t know a third of the rules for the game they are playing.  In spite of what my wife may think, golfers are not dumb.  The rules are just that convoluted.

How did this happen? 

Let’s go back to 18th century Scotland where the game evolved.  Early golf courses were not eighteen hole layouts.  The Scots simply built as many holes as the plot of land allowed.  The participants would gather for a rousing game of golf and it almost always would last for eighteen holes.  A particular course may only have five holes but the players would play them in sequence until they aggregated eighteen holes.  All of the early players agreed that eighteen was the right number.  Why?  Because all of the players started the contest with a pint of Scotch.  On a regular basis, a Scottish gentleman would finish his pint after playing eighteen holes. 

Nobody wanted to stay out in the cold, rainy, windy landscape of Scotland without proper fortification, so they called off the match at eighteen, went back to the club house, replenished their supply of whiskey and wrote the rules of golf.

When the meticulous nature of Scotsmen intertwined with a pint or two of whiskey, the strange rules began to take shape.  Angus says to Ian “I dinna think it fair that you splashed the ball in the lake and dropped another with no ill effect.  It shoulda cost you something”!  Ian responds,  “Aye, an additional stroke may have been merited. However, my initial shot just trickled into the lake and I dropped the ball less than yard from the same spot.  You pounded one sixty yards into the lake and dropped the second one all the way up to the front of the lake and on the green.  I dinna think that was fair.”  Angus replies, “Aye, maybe we should give those a one shot penalty and drop them where they first fly over the edge of the water hazard. And what about Bobby’s shot?  With full intention, he pounded one in the lake past the green so he could get a free drop on the putting surface.  Not at all fair.  We should penalize him a stroke!”  Ian replies,  “That’s not enough, we should give him one stroke and make him hit another one from the very spot he hit the first one.  How can we determine the difference between hitting one in the lake and hitting one intentionally in a lake beyond the green?  Let’s put circles around the lakes.  If you are in a red circle water hazard, you drop next to it.  If you’re in a yellow one, you get the ‘one stroke penalty and replay the shot’ remediation.”  Bobby pipes in, “I’ll have another Dewars.  Aren’t we being a little harsh? The poor hacker just lost a feathery and now we make him add a stroke. What if there is no good place to drop the ball?  Can’t we at least let the sod go back to a better spot to make the drop?”  Angus protests, “Nay!  He bought the package, he needs to pay!  You can’t let all of these hacks back up and drop the ball anywhere that suits them.”  Ian chimes in, “Let’s limit where they can make the drop.  How about straight back from the point the ball entered the water hazard.  To keep him honest, we draw a line from the point the ball entered the hazard and the flag. Go back as far as you want but you have to stay on that line.  A very narrow option.  I need more Glenlivet.  Bring me a tumbler of the 20 year variety!”

As with all alcohol consumption, the trio is stunned with how ingenious they have become.  In their minds, they have just created the perfect set of rules for balls hit into water hazards.  It doesn’t occur to them that most golfers will not understand all of the complex scenarios.  It is a little like drinking whiskey and dream designing every element of the first jet propelled airplane a hundred years before the Wright Brothers.  Seems like a great idea at the time but strangely, it is a little difficult to successfully get the thing to fly in the real world.           

Angus, Ian and Bobby have a very enjoyable afternoon swoozling scotch and hypothesizing.  150 years later we are stuck with all of these ridiculous golf rules. The threesome hope to do this every Saturday for years to come. They think:  “Okay, we start the oiling process on the links, then we settle in for three or four more hours of ‘rules documentation’.  We reduce the mental stress of rule writing with judicious use of the appropriate libations.”  Angus has explained to his wife that the three friends are on a mission for the benefit of mankind.  It is imperative that they sequester themselves in the club every Saturday and craft “The Rules of Golf”. 

After years of evolution, very likely with the same development process described above, we are now saddled with a 544 page rule book.  That’s right.  The “R&A and USGA Official Guide To The Rules Of Golf” is 544 pages long.     

Go out to amazon and buy the book.  Start reading anywhere.  Very soon, it will be clear that the entire volume was drafted by people in an alcohol induced haze.  Sure, the same crew could have written a solid book of rules in less than fifty pages and if they did it before they uncorked the Cutty Sark, we would understand it.  But who can blame them.  Think of all the glorious Saturday afternoons that would have been lost if they had changed the process.