Basic Rules & Conduct of Play for All Boyne Participants:
Since we have several new faces this year, I thought it best to review “our rules” to ensure that the games are fair for everyone. We have modified the rules as seen below to make the game a little more friendly for those of us with less skill, but still meant to maintain the integrity of the game by rewarding good shots and penalizing bad ones.
1. In general, we follow all of the Rules of Play of the RCGA. This goes for dealing with lost balls, water hazards, lateral water hazards, out of bounds among other items covered by the rules. If you are unsure of these rules, please ask one of your playing partners or better yet, you can view them on the internet or buy a condensed copy for your golf bag.
2. Where we stray from the rules include:
a. “Play the ball as it lies” – we allow you to pick up your ball and place it within a scorecard length of the original place it laid, no closer to the hole, with no penalty. You may not use this to improve your original lie, for instance, if the ball was in the rough, it must remain in the rough, or if it was on the fringe of a green, it must remain on the fringe. You may not use this rule if your ball is in a bunker or water hazard, where the original rules of golf will be in play. You may however, use this if your ball is unplayable, provided that you can obtain relief within one scorecard length of where it laid, if not, proceed with the RCGA rule of unplayable lies with a stroke penalty being incurred.
b. “Provisional ball” - in all circumstances, play a provisional ball if you believe your ball may be lost or out of bounds or in a hazard. You must indicate your action to your playing partners. This will speed up play.
c. In stroke play competition, gimmies (conceded puts) are allowed as long as the putt would have been easily made by any player. In other words, 3 footers are not gimmies.
I hope you agree that these rules make it fair for all and hopefully will speed up play and allow us to be able to enjoy the competition.
Speed of Play:
With respect to this touchy subject, it is a very important issue. Although we are not asking anyone to rush your shot, please make every effort to keep up to the group in front of you. Since we do play, two games per day, a slow group can and have made it impossible for some golfers to have a lunch break in between games. This also will make the golf more enjoyable for all of the rest of the players. Some players feel like they have to play faster to compensate for a slow player in the group and this is unfair.
Play “READY GOLF” by doing everything you can to make sure that you are ready to play your shot at all times by reading the green while others putt, getting distance and choosing clubs while others play, parking carts beside or behind the green rather than in front. If everyone does their part, slow play will not be an issue.
C.H.U.N.K. Rule:
C.H.U.N.K. - stands for Chronic Hacker Unleashes Nasty Klunker. This means that you will be supplied with ONE certificate which can be used on any of the Ryder Cup rounds. You must give the certificate to your playing opponent in exchange for the ability to replay any shot without incurring a penalty. The certificate is to be destroyed immediately, it is not transferable, nor does it have any face value. In other words, Use it or Lose It.
Sphincter Ball Game:
Each team will be supplied with 3 colorful golf balls. Each team will be required to assign a player in their group to play this ball on one of three predesignated holes and this will be the only score that counts for that hole. Once a player plays the colored ball once, he will not be allowed to play it on any other hole. In other words, three different players will need to participate. Normal handicap strokes will still apply. If the ball is lost in the course of play, it will be replaced by any golf ball and the hole played out, up to a maximum score of triple bogey less any handicap strokes apply. All other holes will be scored using the two best net scores.
40 Balls Game:
40 balls is the name of this competition where your team is comprised of the foursome you are playing with. After completing each hole and before teeing off on the next hole, your team must decide how many scores from the previous hole will count toward the 40 scores needed to complete the game. The team’s net score in relation to par is used for scoring, but keep mark the actual players score down for handicap purposes. You will see on the example below that on Hole#1, the net scores from Player A to D are 3,3,4,6 and the team decided to choose three scores by circling them on the scorecard before teeing off on #2. They used 3 scores and the net is -2 (2 under par). This is done until all 40 scores are used. This team ended with a score of -12. Hand in the score card to Norm after the round.
Ryder Cup Scoring:
Ryder Cup points are: 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 for a loss.