1. Why the hell does this matter? Something better comes along so we just ignore it? Golf went a long time without steel shafts, forgiving clubheads, and quality mowers, should we just go back to the Bobby Jones days?

2. few enough skills tested? LOL find me one tour player that wants to make "estimating distance to objects" a necessity in today's game.

Well, baseball technically can go on forever (as can basketball, the 3OT Griz/Thunder playoff game was incredible)

Making NFL players replay an additional 60 minutes would be super epic and would probably double the injury lists

What if the police decided they were going to assign 100 cops to follow you everywhere and make sure you obeyed the letter of the law 100% of the time? You probably would think that was a little terrible. I doubt someone saying "Well just dont' break the law and you'll be fine!"

If the NBA decided they were going to assign 15 refs to watch the Bulls and call fouls on them and only 1 to watch the Hawks and call fouls on them, I don't think anybody would call that fair.

It has nothing to do with wanting to break the rules and everything about officiating everything evenly.

It matters because it was in response to your asking "How are you supposed to know how far it is to a flag, bunker, other hazard?" — I was pointing out that somehow millions of players have managed just fine.

And yes, I think for the most part we should go back to older equipment in cases where doing so would reduce distance and foregivingness¹, but not in cases where the primary effect would be to increase variance. So probably metal woods are good, but modern groove profiles and perimeter weighting not so good. But advancements in clubs and balls are central to the game, so it makes at least some sense to allow them; using a GPS on the course is not but it still provides an advantage, and that's why I singled it out.


¹ To be clear, these are two entirely different goals, only of one of which really belongs in this thread:

• Reducing how forgiving clubs etc. are makes the sport better by increasing the relative advantage a skilled player has. That's good for any sport.
• Reducing distance doesn't make the sport inherently better or worse, from the players' or fans' perspective, but it does reduce the land required to make a "good" course, whatever that is, so in the long run it reduces cost and/or makes more courses available, and it reduces environmental damage.

That tour players do not want a skill that right now they have no particular reason to be good at (because their caddies handle it for them) and for which the high level game has not been selecting, to become one of the determinants of success is not evidence that it wouldn't improve the game. Their bias is obvious: tour players will oppose anything that reduces their own individual relative advantage.

I realize that we "managed" to get by all this time. I just fail to see why we shouldn't use something that is faster and more accurate, while also making the game more enjoyable for everyone?

Which I tried to explain. Faster and more accurate not only isn't necessarily good, in many cases (such as in the case of longer-hitting, more forgiving clubs) it's affirmatively bad, in multiple ways. In the case of distance-finding aids the case is more subtle, but I tried to make it.

The fact that people did it before was cited not as evidence for this point, but only to oppose the implicit point, on which I guess you weren't relying heavily and may just have tossed in, that there would be some great difficulty in estimating distance without aids.

Meanwhile, please explain how the availability of GPS aids "mak[es] the game more enjoyable for everyone." It doesn't make the game more enjoyable for the player who can't afford one. It doesn't make the game more enjoyable for the fan who loses the opportunity to watch his favorite pro actually have to think about his club selection.

I mostly agree but think this is an entirely seperate point of contention.

Agreed, but if it was only spotted later should they get away with it? Should officials turn a blind eye to stuff just because they didn't spot it first time around? I know golf is nitty but I just don't see how applying the rules is a bad thing.

What is wrong with draws?

I disagree. I always think the more strictly and correctly the rules are applied the fairer it is. There is nothing fair about people being able to get away with rules violations and even if you can't police it 100% efficiently its still better than not policing it at all, half assing it or completely ignoring **** that happens simply because an official didn't see it.

Like at the WC when Argentina scored an offside goal against Mexico and they showed the replay on the big screen showing it. I thought it absurd that the officials wouldn't be able to reverse the decision. I understand why they didn't but I disagreed with it entirely.

There's definitely value in having a defined point at which results become final; the question is when that should occur. Allowing score changes long after the violation occurred, such as when the player signs his card after the round, definitely has a cost to players and fans, so this isn't just a case of a trivial "violation gets discovered —> obviously penalize". If it's reasonable to put an earlier time limit on it, for example at the conclusion of the whole or before the tee-off of the next one, that might be better.

We had this discussion in the golf forum about TV viewers phoning in and alerting officials. We all agreed it was totally ridiculous and should be scrapped.

Thankfully they altered the rule somewhat to prevent disqualifications.

Raz:

Nothing wrong with draws in regulation. I mean for playoff situations or when they would use a stupid gimmick like a shootout.

I love penalty shootouts, never understood the hate for them.

What should be scrapped? This isn't about the rules, just about whether fans should be able to alert officials to rules infringements they may have missed. I don't see how it was unanimously agreed to be ridiculous. How can someone take issues with rules being applied? Should officials ignore rules violations due to who first noticed it?

It isn't obvious what we all thought should be scrapped? "TV viewers phoning in and alerting officials"

By phoning in after the player had signed their scorecard it meant he/she would be disqualified. If it was spotted at the time then it would be a penalty by stroke. Do you not see how that was unfair? Unless you think they were deliberality cheating.

Like I said thankfully they have changed that part of it. Im just not a fan of a TV viewer being able to alter the course of a golf tournament from their armchair.

Plus the fact some guys get way more TV coverage than others which is a bit unfair.

But the fact they were disqualified is a seperate issue as far as I'm concerned. There is a lot of nittery and stupid rules in golf that I think should be scrapped. I was just talking about whether an official can be alerted to a rules infringement by someone then act upon it. Seems to me to be silly and unfair to NOT act on it.

I understand where you are coming from but Im just not comfortable with a TV viewer having that much power. Golfers are very honest people so I'd trust those and those around them to uphold the laws of the game.

The Harrington incident on Sunday was absolutley ridiculous.

Though I think that came from someone on the course (Fan or Marshall).

NBA: make sure this can never be called an offensive foul imo

Fair enough, I was mostly loling at the hockey suggestion. Pretty reasonable explanation for baseball, though I can't recall ever seeing someone breaking two bats in a single game. The thought of hockey going back to wood sticks in terrible.

Happened in the Predators Canucks series for a chance for the Preds to go up 2-0, and it was disallowed. Can't remember which game.

Yeah, pretty much withdrawn for hockey — but why would going back to wood be so terrible?

That is one seriously impressive dunk.

I think to ensure it's never called an offensive foul you have to ensure that human refs never call fouls. Which, if it could somehow be accomplished, would improve basketball more than most sports.

Football needs to figure out what the hell a catch is. Also theres no reason on earth why you should lose a challenge if you win it. You start with 2 and you can keep challenging until you lose twice.
Hockey needs to find a way for the refs to be able to call the games the way they want to without having to make up rules and interpretations on the fly so they can keep it fair.
Basketball is way too soft. The fact that theres a foul call every 30 seconds is silly. The whole, "offensive player can jump into a defensive guy and go to the free-throw line with consistency" thing is ludicrous.

It's a minor thing, but yes, the current challenge system is idiotic.

Seriously the NFL challenge system is ridiculous.

I've seen games where a coach challenged twice, won both, then got a third challenge and had to use it and won that one too.

Guess what? You're out of challenges! You've been screwed by the refs 3 times and have successfully proven it 3 times and if it happens a 4th time, tough nuts.

They should adopt the tennis system. Succesful challenges don't count.

I've seen only seen one show jumping TV show in my life and I have no idea how common this is. But in this show, the top 4 riders from the previous day did a jump-off. They ride the course 4 times, once on each of the 4 horses.