The CARP Organization (Canadian Association of Retired People) has negotiated with the USGA and the Canadian Golf Association to modify the Rules of Golf for seniors ... These Changes will go into effect On January 1st, 2007. Please advise all your senior friends of these important rule changes, especially those snowbirds who will be lucky enough to spend some time this winter in warmer climates.
Rule 1.a.5
A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough with no penalty. The senior should not be penalized for tall grass which groundskeepers failed to mow.
Rule 2.d.6 (b)
A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. This is simply bad luck and luck has no place in a scientific game. The senior player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there.
Rule 3.b.3 (g)
There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by someone else, making it a stolen ball. The player is not to compound the felony by charging himself or herself with a penalty.
Rule 4.c.7 (h)
If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity supersedes the Rules of Golf.
Rule 5
Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown in. This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the hole. No one wants to make a travesty of the game.
Rule 6.a.9 (k)
There is no penalty for so-called "out of bounds." If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not occur. The senior golfer deserves an apology, not a penalty.
Rule 7.g.15 (z)
There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard, as golf balls should float. Senior golfers should not be penalized for manufacturers' shortcomings.
Rule 8.k.9 (s)
Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new golf equipment. Since this is financially impracticable for many senior golfers, one-half stroke per hole may be subtracted for using old equipment.
Sent to me by my cousin, who said in the email: I thought this might clear up any questions concerning my attitude about score keeping at my age.
Things You Didn't Know About Golf
In 1858, at the St. Andrew's golf club, board members were debating how many holes should comprise a round. One pointed out that there are 18 shots in a 26-oz. bottle of scotch, and at one drink per hole, the game should be done when the bottle was empty.
In May 1973, at the Ponoka Community CG in Alberta, Canada, Richard McCulough tanked a shot. He hammered his cart with his golf club, the shaft broke and a piece flew up, severing his carotid artery. McCulough died.
At the 1973 Heritage Classic, Hale Irwin hit a shot that landed in a spectator's bra. PGA rules required Irwin to remove the ball and drop it. But the woman removed it herself.
Irwin was not penalized.
The Fukuoka Golf Course in Japan is so busy that there are stoplights at three holes.
On October 7, 1965, Robert Mitera's drive off the 10th tee was aided by a 50-mph gust of wind and set a world record for longest hole in one - 446 yards.
Amateur golfers have a one-in-12,600 chance of sinking a hole in one.
On March 6, 1497, King James II of Scotland, wary of an English attack, outlawed golf unless Scottish citizens could prove their proficiency at archery.
During World War II, the St. Mellons Golf and Country Club in England advised players, "During gunfire, or while bombs are failing, players may take shelter without penalty for ceasing play."
O.J. Simpson's alibi for the night of the murders was that he was "chipping" in his backyard with a three-wood. (Suspicious, since fairway woods normally propel a ball 200 yards off the tee.)
In 1962, Niles Lied drove a golf ball 1.5 miles across an ice cap at Mawson Base, Antarctica. (But bogeyed the hole. Just kidding).
At the Talamare Golf Club in Pinehurst, California, players rent llamas instead of golf carts.
Club policy, probably: in October 1976, at the chi-chi Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, a security guard discovered three black teenagers fishing in one of the ponds. He fired his shotgun. All three boys were wounded, but lived.
Bill Gates has been on Augusta's membership waiting list since '99.
The song CBS uses during the Masters is actually just the instrumental version of a song written by Dave Loggins that was inspired by his trip to Augusta in 1980. Dave Loggins wrote the song "Please Come to Boston" and is the cousin of Kenny.
During their 1998 breakup, Nick Faldo's girlfriend Brenna Cepelak took a nine-iron to his Porsche 959. "It would really have upset me if she'd wrecked my best clubs," said Faldo.
On August 6, 1998, caddie James Parker filed an $85 million lawsuit against actor Michael Douglas, after Douglas launched an errant shot that ruptured one of Parker's testicles.
According to Amazon.com, Chicken Soup for the Golfers' Soul is ranked 15th out of the 258 editions of the series published to date, just ahead of Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul.
At a 1997 speaking engagement in Washington, D.C., Tiger's father Earl Woods claimed that the book that most influenced him was Hitler's Mein Kampf. Later, he claimed he was joking.
In 1999, Earl offended the home of golf by declaring that Scotland "sucks." He added: "People had better be happy that Scots lived there instead of soul brothers. We wouldn't have been stupid enough to go out in that weather and play a silly-ass game and freeze to death."
Tiger makes $50 million a year in endorsements from that silly-ass game.
How To Make Your Yard A Golf Course
Got a spare $4,500 and a spiffy green sports jacket? This could be the first chapter of your own Cinderella story.
Dig a hole
A green is like a woman: pretty on the surface, but a big project underneath. First, dig an 18-inch-deep pit in the desired shape of your green—we suggest a girl-on-a-mud-flap motif—and cut a six-inch-by-six-inch trench down the middle of the green and 10 feet past its edge. Put an inch of pea gravel in the trench—which should slope slightly downward—then lay four-inch PVC pipe with holes drilled in the bottom for water to seep into from below. (Make sure the lower end of the pipe ends somewhere off the green.) Fill the pit with four inches of pea gravel, covered by an inch of coarse sand (you can buy both at a home supply store). “It’s like putting a layer of basketballs under a layer of baseballs to keep them from falling through and plugging up drainage,” says Palmer Maples Jr., the first course superintendent inducted into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame. The final layer should be a foot-deep blend of 85 percent medium-grain sand and 15 percent peat moss. Bad at math? Ask a local course where to buy a premix.
Score some grass
Smooth the soil to make the surface as flat as you can. Since your green will probably be far smaller than the average USGA regulation green, major undulations are out of the question; balls would constantly roll off. But it won’t be totally flat—minor undulations will result from your shoddy craftsmanship. Measure your green, then buy rolls of washed bent grass—or Bermuda sod if you live in the South—at your local garden supply store. September is an excellent month to lay bent grass sod, but you can plant it anytime it’s not freezing. Besides watering the green frequently, you’ll have to pony up $1,500 for a used putting green mower—which you’ll need to use daily to cut the grass to a GQ-editor-like 3/32 of an inch. Other maintenance chores include fertilizing, monthly fungicide applications, and regular top dressing—working sand into the green with a broom. Yes, it’s more work than raising a kid, but it’s also a lot more rewarding.
Sweat the details
Mow the edge of the green a bit longer to create a fringe. To add a bunker, dig a hole with another drainage trench, dip the middle and lip the edge, then fill it with medium-grain sand. To create a water hazard, buy a ready-made pond at a garden supply store or, if you’re feeling cheap, bury a rock-lined kiddie pool—remove the kiddies first—and filtration system. Take a gander at local dealers who carry cup-changing shovels, cups, pins, and giant windmills. Tee off from your neighbor’s roof, crank up the Journey, and you’re good to go!
Golf Betting / How To: Make Your Yard a Golf Course. . June 1998 / September 2002.
