It’s an actual Homer Simpson second. You’re out on the course, you attain into the bag for a membership and discover one you didn’t count on to be there.
Now you’re frantically shifting all of them about, performing a determined depend as you go, and praying you haven’t accomplished one thing foolish.
Sure, I’ve accomplished this. I’ve bought halfway by means of a spherical and realised I had greater than 14 golf equipment. D’oh, certainly. In case you’ve discovered your self on this place, you understand you’ve damaged a rule.
However what’s it, how massive is the penalty, and why does it exist within the first place? Why can golfers solely carry as much as 14 golf equipment? There may be an fascinating backstory right here, so let’s reveal all about this golf membership restrict rule…
Golf membership restrict rule: What number of golf golf equipment are you able to carry in your bag?
In search of somebody guilty? I’m trying on the golf bag. Try these outdated work of gamers at St Andrews again within the 1800s. You don’t see folks carrying a billion golf equipment then. That’s as a result of they had been restricted by the quantity they might match beneath their arms.
Quick ahead to the mid-Thirties and it was reported Lawson Little had as many as 31 with him when he made off with back-to-back Newbie and US Newbie Championships.
“The very best recorded complete was in 1935 when a participant confirmed up with 32 golf equipment,” Rand Jerries of the USGA instructed Hyperlinks Journal.
“He had a full set of left- and right-handed golf equipment in the identical bag. His feeling was, ‘If my ball got here to relaxation towards a tree, why ought to I be deprived?’ It was round this time everybody determined issues had been uncontrolled.”
Sure, the ever burgeoning numbers irked guidelines makers and, in the summertime of 1936, Robert Harris – a part of the Guidelines of Golf Sub Committee at The R&A – proposed limiting the quantity a participant may use to 14.
Within the wonderful, The Guidelines of The Inexperienced, A Historical past of the Guidelines of Golf, Kenneth Chapman says Harris didn’t get his suggestion by means of the primary time spherical however when the USGA adopted the measure in 1938, the R&A adopted the subsequent yr.
Try the amended Guidelines of Golf in September 1939 and it’s proper on the high alongside taking part in a ball from the teeing floor – emphasising its new significance to the general recreation.
“The golf equipment utilized by a participant throughout a spherical shall not exceed 14, and the golf equipment carried shall be restricted to that quantity”.
Why did this occur and why 14 golf equipment?
Chapman says it was concerning the introduction of metal shafts, which had been beginning to turn into fashionable within the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties. Whereas hickory and picket shafts had been workable, the “rigidity of metal made it crucial to make use of extra golf equipment to provide the identical consequence”.
However why 14? Why not seven – the quantity Francis Ouimet used to beat Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in a playoff for the 1913 US Open? Why not 10 or 12?
It seems the quantity was determined arbitrarily. As Chapman reveals, in his 1953 e-book Sixty Years of Golf, Robert Harris wrote the quantity was reached “with out the why and wherefore of solely fourteen golf equipment being questioned or debated.”
He additionally had some purchaser’s regret: “It’s now obvious that fourteen is simply too many – these debates with caddies relating to digits, when the participant is afraid of the shot, are slowing up the sport”.
What on earth would he assume now?
What do the Guidelines say about 14 golf equipment?
You’re not allowed to start out a spherical with greater than 14 golf equipment or have greater than 14 throughout a spherical. So says Rule 4.1b.
In case you start with fewer than 14, you possibly can add golf equipment as much as the restrict throughout the spherical. In case you uncover you could have greater than 14, when you’ve turn into conscious of this you “should take the surplus membership or golf equipment out of play earlier than making one other stroke”.
The way you try this depends upon when these further golf equipment had been added. In case you began with greater than 14, you possibly can resolve which membership you wish to take away. In case you added a membership throughout the spherical, that’s the one you should take out of play.
How do you take away it? You don’t should dash again to the clubhouse or snap it in two. You possibly can simply inform your taking part in companions, or your opponent in match play, or you possibly can flip it the other way up, or give it to another person, or put it in your golf buggy. The concept is that you simply take “another clear motion” to point out you’re not going to be utilizing it anymore.
And don’t fear about choosing up a misplaced membership on the course and placing it away for secure protecting in your bag. It isn’t handled as one among yours. You simply can’t use it.
The penalties you’ll rack up for having greater than 14 golf equipment are doubtlessly card wrecking. You add two strokes for every gap the place a breach occurred as much as a most of 4 – including these two strokes at “every of the primary two holes”.
In match play it’s barely totally different. You modify the rating of the match by deducting holes as much as a most of two. The rule, 4.1b (4), provides the instance of a participant who begins a match with 15 golf equipment and figures it out whereas taking part in the third – which they win to go 3up.
“The utmost adjustment of two gap applies and the participant would now be one up within the match.”
And don’t go considering that since you’ve topped up on the penalties you possibly can resume utilizing the forbidden membership. Rule 4.1c says the penalty for doing that’s disqualification.
Ought to we be allowed greater than the 14 golf membership restrict?
With all method of hybrid and wedge choices now, you might fill a bag with totally different bounces and grinds on their very own. Is it time to look once more on the 14-club rule?
I believe the present quantity is a pleasant steadiness. It provides you flexibility within the bag but additionally brings a contact of ways to the sport. I’ve sometimes spent far an excessive amount of time questioning whether or not to take a 19-degree hybrid or go for the 4-iron, or whether or not one other wedge may assist however would necessitate dropping one thing else I would wish to make use of.
It does make me assume strategically about which golf equipment I would wish to use on which holes and – though it’s sometimes irritating – it’s part of the sport I wouldn’t wish to lose.
Now have your say
What do you consider this golf membership restrict rule? Ought to we be allowed to take as many golf equipment as we like out on the course? Do you assume it’s time for a change? E mail me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or go away a remark. You can even get in contact on X.
NOW READ: Can I be penalised if I put a misplaced membership in my bag?
NOW READ: I’ve bought too many golf equipment in my bag – What penalty do I face now?
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