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Nick Price has said what some PGA Tour professionals are struggling to believe as they grapple with the intricacies spelt out in the new rules for golf.
“I would like to show professional golfers that the US Golf Association [USGA] is not the enemy. It is the guardian of the game and it makes decisions about the game, but it also wants to listen to what everybody has to say. It wants to do what’s best for the game. There are no hidden agendas.”
Tell that to Justin Thomas. Or Rickie Fowler. Or any of the PGA Tour professionals who believe that the changes to the rules, as issued by the game’s two governing bodies – the USGA and The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (The R&A), the ruling authority of golf throughout the world except in Canada, the US and Mexico – are causing confusion on tour.
The particular sources of their ire have been the change to a knee-high drop, which Fowler has already fallen foul of, and a caddie not being allowed to stand behind a player when the player begins to take a stance to make a stroke.
But while Price is ever the diplomat and would like to see the USGA and tour players reach common ground, Dale Hayes has a simple message for the tour pros: “Those are the rules. Deal with it.”
He added: “We can all have our own opinions as to what rules we’d like to see changed, but the bottom line is that the USGA and The R&A write the rules of golf, and a huge amount of thought goes into it. I think they’ve done an unbelievable job of making important changes to the rules for the good of the game.”
Thomas, in particular, claims many tour professionals feel aggrieved that they were not consulted before the changes – among the most comprehensive so far made in the game’s history – came into effect.
But Hayes dismissed this as nonsense: “It was a collaboration. Even I filled in a survey about it. The European and PGA tours were all consulted about the changes, and the PGA Tour’s Jay Monahan even released a statement saying it was a collaboration. So, for the players to say they weren’t consulted is hogwash.
“What concerns me is that a lot of the complaints you’re hearing are coming from the younger players on tour. You aren’t hearing many complaints from the senior tour, or even the more senior players on the regular tours. The point is, the rules were changed for two major reasons – to make the game simpler and encourage more people to play, and to speed up play. And I agree with them.”
For Hayes, though, of greater concern is how few of the world’s leading professionals took the time to understand the new rules before the season started.
“So few of them actually read the new rules when they came out. Dustin Johnson admitted it,” he said.
“I don’t get it. You’re playing for millions of dollars and you don’t know the rules. It astounds me. When we got the new rule books for our members at Zwartkop Golf Club, they flooded our office trying to get copies.” – Michael Vlismas Media
