May Lawyers Play Golf?

I'll stipulate up front that I'm not the most socially adept person and make frequent blunders. (Luckily for me, I'm often accompanied by loved ones who are quick to point out my errors.) My question today has to do with the mix of sports, law and culture. Specifically, is it ever "wrong" in some social or moral sense to use the rules of a sport in one's favor? Can it be "unsporting" or socially inept or something along those lines for an athlete to apply the rules of the game in a manner that might be surprising, even apparently wrong, yet upon close reading is permitted? I have written on this theme before (here's the link), and I remain bewildered by the claim that there exists some concept of a sport apart from the rules by which the sport is played.

Let me explain my latest confusion. A few days ago I was doing parental duty spectating at a junior golf tournament. On a par four, one of the players in my son's group shanked his approach shot dead right into the woods; he then dropped a provisional ball from the original spot and struck the provisional ball to within a few feet of the hole. Spectators are allowed to assist players in finding lost balls, something I customarily do. But in this case I hung back, and waited to see if the player wanted to look for his original ball or instead proceed to play his provisional. (If he were able to play his provisional he would surely score a bogey.) In a misjudgment, the player trudged into the woods, and I followed. A tournament rules official (this was a serious tournament) was already in there, poking around for the ball. A few minutes later he found the ball, but it was unplayable, stuck in a bush. No plausible place to drop it was nearby or back, and so the only choice for the golfer was to replay the original stroke and see if he could duplicate the excellent provisional shot. Before he did so, the player asked the rules official if he could forget about the first ball and go play the provisional. The official replied in the negative. He said that with the original ball found the provisional had to be abandoned and that to play the provisional ball would be to play the wrong ball, with attendant penalty. Glumly, the junior golfer dropped the original ball back at the original spot and replayed the shot, albeit into a bad lie in a sand trap. He ended up with a triple bogey. He also lost the tournament by a single stroke.

Tough luck for the golfer? Certainly. But also a questionable call by the official. To be clear, the rules of golf provide exactly what the official described. He got it right. But the rules just as clearly provide for exactly the opposite conclusion. So he got it wrong. Which rule should apply? Why not allow the golfer the benefit of the rule that militates in his favor? When I happened to mention all of this to the rules official after the round was over, even showing him the relevant rule in the book (my son keeps a copy in his bag; he's a born lawyer) that provides for the conclusion opposite the one he declared on the course , the official became quite agitated. He said that I was ignoring the spirit of the game and was arguing for bad sportsmanship and that we (adults) need to set a better example for these young men and women.

But how could I be right on the rules yet a bad example at the same time? If the rules provide for differing outcomes, why is one rule (the official's punitive one) morally superior to the other? Could someone please explain this to me so I don't set a bad example for my children?

Here's the rule the official cited, and the one I did. See who you think is both correct and right.

1. Rule27(c) gets to the heart of the matter. It provides that if a provisional ball has been played in case the original ball is lost, once the original ball has been determined not to be lost the player must abandon the provisional ball and play the original. This is undoubtedly the rule the official had in mind when he directed the junior golfer to play the original and, if he chose, proceed under the unplayable ball rule to drop the ball back at the original spot. The rule appears clear. But lawyers are paid to create ambiguity. So keep reading. (And yes, this is why people hate lawyers.)

2. Notice that the paragraph above never said that a ball thought to be lost was "found." It said the ball thought to be lost was determined not to be lost. Rule 27 itself contains the same circumlocution, stating that the putative lost ball is (in fact) "not lost." Why not just say the ball has been "found"? Because for the rules of golf, a lost ball doesn't mean a ball no one can find. A ball can be "lost" even if the golfer can see it right in front of him, right in the middle of the fairway.

3. Section II of the Rules of Golf set forth definitions, and "lost ball" means, as everyone knows, a ball the player cannot find within five minutes of beginning a search. But a ball is also "lost" where "the player has made a stroke at a provisional ball from the place where the original ball is likely to be or from a point nearer the hole than that place." That's the definition, as much a definition of "lost ball" as a ball not found in five minutes. This other, alternative definition means that if the player, upon finding his original ball stuck in a bush, proceeds forward to a point nearer the hole and taps in his provisional ball, then at that moment the original ball back in that bush has now become a "lost ball." Don't believe me? Back to Rule 27, under the heading "When Provisional Ball Becomes Ball in Play": "The player may play a provisional ball until he reaches the place where the original ball is likely to be. If he makes a stroke with the provisional ball from the place where the original ball is likely to be or from a point nearer the hole than that place, the original ball is lost and the provisional ball becomes the ball in play under penalty of stroke and distance."

4. So the rules of golf, in literally adjacent provisions, provide specifically for exactly opposite conclusions. Under the first specification (the rules official's), the provisional ball must be abandoned and the golfer who plays the provisional suffers the severe penalty for playing the wrong ball (two-stroke penalty plus player must go back and play original ball). Under the second specification (mine), the player can walk away from his original ball (or better, not look for it at all) and tap in his provisional for a bogey. Under my approach, the player can hit a provisional and decide later if his chances are better by playing the original or taking the stroke and playing the provisional. I realize my approach "sounds wrong" and that the common understanding is that a "found" ball cannot be "lost." But that's not what the rules say. Indeed, what is the point of that entire alternative definition of a lost ball and all that extra explanation in Rule 27 if not to apply precisely to the situation it describes, a golfer who plays his provisional ball again from a point nearer the hole?

5. The USGA's Decisions on the Rules, which are deemed by the rules to also constitute the rules of golf (resulting in this simple game with balls and sticks being regulated by literally hundreds of rules) provide numerous examples of just the situation I described. Once the provisional ball is played from a point nearer the hole, then the original ball is lost, even if the original ball is found in a literal sense. Keep in mind, nowhere do the rules of golf create an obligation for a golfer to search for a ball. The rules and decisions do of course say (as the rules official pointed out) that once the ball is found (or the player is notified that it's been found) then the provisional ball must be abandoned and the original ball becomes the ball in play. But, again, the rules also provide the alternative, deeming a ball "lost" when the provisional is played for the second time, in essence. The rules and decisions also make this opposite conclusion (the one for which I argued) just as clear.

6. The Decisions are written in question-and-answer format. Check out Decision 27-2B1:

Q. At a par-3 hole, a player hits his tee shot into dense woods. He then hits a provisional ball which comes to rest near the hole. In view of the position of the provisional ball, the player does not wish to find his original ball. He does not search for it and walks directly towards his provisional ball to continue play with it. His opponent (or fellow-competitor) believes it would be beneficial to him if the original ball were found. May the opponent (or fellow-competitor) search for the player's ball?

A. Yes. In equity (Rule 1-4), he may search for five minutes provided that in the meantime the player does not play a stroke with the provisional ball, it being nearer the hole than the place where the original ball is likely to be. The player is entitled to play such a stroke. If he does, the original ball is then lost under Rule 27-2b and further search for it would serve no purpose.

See? I told you. Just go hit that provisional ball. In the junior golfer's case, just hit it and say that the original is "lost" as defined by the rules.

7. The Rules also say, if one encounters a point not covered by the rules, one should fashion a ruling "in accordance with equity." Here one can't say that this point is "not covered" by the rules (indeed, over-coverage might be the problem), but in any event, what is equitable here? One could say it's the process outlined by the rules official. But why? Why is it inequitable to abandon the first ball and play the provisional? The player will take his stroke penalty and did execute the very same shot that would be required upon re-dropping the original under the unplayable ball rule. Is it that the player played the provisional with less pressure, knowing that there was a chance the provisional wouldn't count? Okay, but if the rule were opposite (as actually, it is) and golfers could proceed to play the provisional (as the rules explicitly permit) then that provisional shot would have some added pressure, as the golfer would know this was his only chance to salvage the hole with a good provisional shot.

8. I asked a friend, not a golfer, which rule she thought more equitable and she said the one where the golfer gets to play his provisional shot: why waste time walking back to hit the same shot for the third time? She thought that stupid, given that the penalty was fully assessed. Is this friend wrong? Wouldn't most golfers (older than the junior player in this case) have strolled right past those woods, ignoring that ball in the thicket, and tapped in the provisional for the bogey? Indeed, wouldn't it be bad form (and hyper-competitive) for another player in the group to go looking in the thicket for the original when the player clearly was advancing toward the provisional? The more equitable outcome is the one commonly practiced.

9. Here's the rub of the green: the rules of golf are chock full of such contradictions and ambiguities. Other sports with thick rule books have a similar problem. (Football rules are so full of verbiage, nuance and interpretation even in defining such basics as touchdown or pass reception that I've suggested, only half-jokingly, that a lawyer be added to the studio announcing team; I've even volunteered for the role, promising to laugh uproariously at all the inane jokes.) But is it proper to push the rules of a sport so hard? Should people like me look for loopholes and ambiguities and alternative meanings and find ways to justify applications of the rules that seem at variance with their intention? The intention, it seems to me, is to encourage players to look for original balls and play them if found. The alternative ruling (mine) would allow the golfer to be able to pick from two shots. Say some PGA golfer reads this and uses my reading of the rules in a PGA event. Would that be a good thing? Would that player be vilified (as I was) for being a bad sport? Or would he, by spurring reconsideration and amendment of the rule, be doing golf a favor? In the legal field, lawyers are trained to push the rules at every juncture on the premise that this practice produces better rules. Athletes and coaches in sports often push the rules too. Are the rules of sport the proper subject of such stress? Or is there a spirit of the game that overrides specific provisions?

And if there is an overriding spirit to our games, could someone please reduce it to writing so all of us insensitive sorts don't go around setting bad examples?