Golf’s ruling bodies end wind-blown ball penalty

GOLFERS will no longer be penalised if their ball is moved by the wind after addressing it under new rule changes announced yesterday.

The move, which was widely expected following a number of high-profile cases of players being penalised over such an incident, has been agreed by both the R&A and USGA, the game’s two main ruling bodies.

In this year’s Open Championship at Royal St George’s, part of the frustration felt by Rory McIlroy in his final round stemmed from a penalty he picked up on the seventh hole when a gust of wind moved his ball on the green.

Earlier in the year, American Webb Simpson lost a play-off in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans to Bubba Watson after his ball moved a fraction of an inch on the 15th green and he incurred a one-shot penalty.

That penalty effectively saw Simpson lose out to Luke Donald in the PGA Tour money-list title race. The difference between first and second place there was $460,800 and Simpson finished $335,861 behind Donald after the final event on Sunday.

“Following an exhaustive, four-year review of golf’s 34 playing Rules, nine principal Rules have been amended to improve clarity and ensure penalties are proportionate,” said the R&A and USGA in a joint announcement.

On Rule 18-2b, which relates to a ball moving after address, the two bodies stated: “A new exception is added which exonerates the player from penalty if their ball moves after it has been addressed when it is known or virtually certain that they did not cause the ball to move.

“For example, if it is a gust of wind that moves the ball after it has been addressed, there is no penalty and the ball is played from its new position.” The change has been welcomed by welcomed by Padraig Harrington, who recorded the second of his two Open Championship wins at Royal Birkdale in an event that was badly affected by balls moving on greens due to the wind in 2008.

“Every time the wind blows I am worried that my ball is going to move and I am worried about grounding my putter, distracting me from trying to hole my putt,” said the Irishman.

“This change will speed up play, there won’t be as many suspensions and players won’t be getting penalised or disqualified unfairly. It is definitely giving us players a little bit of a break.”

In other changes, players will also be able to smooth sand in a bunker before playing from the hazard “provided it is for the sole purpose of caring for the course and Rule 13-2 (improving lie, area of intended stance or swing or line of play) is not breached”.

Common sense has also prevailed over players starting late but within five minutes of the correct time. That has been reduced from disqualification to loss of the first hole in match-play or two strokes at the first hole in stroke-play.

USGA Senior Director of Rules of Golf Thomas Pagel said: “We have produced a unified code of the Rules of Golf for 60 years and although the context has been the same, we often found the perception that there were different Rules in place depending upon where you were to play the game.

“Now the book will not only have the same content, but it will also be presented in a uniform fashion with similar formatting and covers; this will truly be a single code governing the Rules of the game that reflects the strong collaboration between the R&A and USGA.”