Stupid rules in Golf

We had the Dustin Johnson affair a while back and now the Race to Dubai ends with another silly penalty.  Guess it didn't matter the way Karlsson played the hole and sunk the putt.

The Game of Golf has a number of Rules that penalise a player for actions beyond his control and accidents. Poulter (today) & Harrington (Masters last year) were unlucky, but Johnson's was his own doing.

I think that The R&A need to take the 'Accident Penalties' out of the Rules right across the board.

TheLyth

Poulter was docked a shot on the second extra hole after he dropped his ball on his marker, leaving Karlsson to win it

He told Sky Sports: "I was handed the ball back and have gone to mark it and literally it slipped two or three inches above the coin. It dropped on the edge and the coin flipped over and that is a shot penalty.  "If it pitches in the middle and the coin doesn't move it is fine - this has never happened to me before." 

Karlsson said: "I didn't really like being up against Ian. He has a really good record and is a feisty player. I was happy he dropped that shot in a way as it made my putt easier."  

The rules are the rules.

Fair play to Poults for calling it. 

in most sports people commit fouls and they are not all deliberate but they  still get punnished we have to be carefull when thinking about changeing rules, look at football and the offside rule ( not interfering with play ) sometimes  its best not to tinker 

Poults has been unlucky with some penalties. Obviously this one, which he will probably never do again, and earlier this year just as he was about to take a putt, the wind blew his ball in a sudden gust, which meant a bogey rather than a par.

There are some silly rules kicking about, but rules is rules. I do read the rules occasionally...but can't ever remember them all!

Golf has too many silly dinosaur rules, the ruling body need to sit down and iron out the silly one's before it becomes a laughing stock. If poulter had not called the foul and played on then got found out then he deserves the penalty, but surely the best thing for golf and the tournament would have been no penalty and just replace the ball, even if you put it back another foot to make sure he was no nearer to the hole. It was a very disappointing Finnish to a wonderful tournament and totally spoiled it for the fans.{ and the 4ft putt would have been a lot harder had Karlson needed it for the win, presure can make any putt look hard.} 

If you read the relevant rule (21-1) it seems to make it clear that no penalty is incurred if the marker is moved during the specific act of marking or replacing the ball. So what did the referee think  Poults was doing crouched over the marker with the ball in his hand when he dropped it if he wasn't engaged in the specific act of replacing the ball?

Is the rule (or more precisely, decision 15 on this rule) designed to stop players deliberately trying to gain an advantage by tossing the ball onto the marker? I'm all for respecting the rules but this decision is nonsensical. When you consider that you are not penalised if you mark the ball then carelessly (or deliberately) walk over the marker and it sticks to your shoe it's incredible that another, even more obvious, accident is penalised. In that case you are even allowed to guess where your marker was when you trod on it!

To ruin the ultimate climax of the European season by applying this ridiculous decision at the 74th hole really does bring the game into disrepute. I would have liked Poulter to win but would have been happy to see Karlsson hole a meaningful putt for the title, which he almost certainly would have done - but there's a lot of meaning in that "almost".

I was there when Nicklaus gave Jacklin the putt on the 18th to share the Ryder Cup - of course it was a great gesture but everyone - including Jacklin - must have thought ever since "I wonder if he would have missed it". Far better, in hindsight, to have allowed him to hole out if there was any chance of it being missable. Incidentally, the greatness of the gesture to me was that Jacklin had beaten Nicklaus 4&3 that morning - can you imagine giving a putt, however short, to halve a match in the afternoon against someone who stuffed you that morning?