New Rules of Golf 2019
1) "Ball at Rest" rule: No penalty for accidentally moving (or scratching) your balls on the putting green. Just put your balls back where they were. Same goes for your ball marker and golf ball.
2) "Ball in Motion" rule: No penalty if your moving ball is accidentally deflected by yourself, your equipment, caddie, a cart chick, stray wildlife, etc. Yelling fore is, however, mandatory. You can't get crazy and park your golf cart behind the hole. Despite Randy's objections, that is NOT accidental.
3) "Taking Relief" rule: Anything requiring a drop (eagle flying off with your ball, etc.) requires you to drop from knee height. Not from the hole in your pocket that you use to "find" lost balls, not from shoulder height, not farted out, KNEE height. Have the cart girl bend over to knee height to assist if needed.
4) "Fix the Green" rule: Fixing spike marks is OK. And ball marks. And any other marks on the green (not Szerlag or Zalewski, though). It is now perfectly acceptable to repair any marks you may have made on the green due to being "over-served".
5) "My Putter Sucks" rule: Go ahead and take that 3-putt anger out on your shitty putter. Teach it a lesson. No matter how it ends up, you can still use it, no penalty. Safety first, though guys. No one wants to see a putter sticking out of your playing partners skull, even if it matches his hat.
6) "Double Hit" rule: No more TC Chen's. Your game is bad enough as it is if you're double hitting it, no need to pile on and add a penalty. It counts one stroke like any other shot, just tell your playing partners to stop laughing and play.
7) "Maximum Score" rule: This doesn't apply to our league, just those other crappy leagues. Ignore this one. For the other leagues, this just means they pick up and move on after a triple bogey or some other normal bad score for them. Should speed up the league in front of us by 50%.
8) "Player Behavior" rule: Some "Kramden wannabe" can be watching the Raccoon Classic on TV, then phone into the clubhouse to tell us the Commish had an illegal drop on the 5th hole. The commish can drop the way he wants. This is a gentlemen's game. C'mon. Dustin Johnson gives this rule a "it's about time, two middle birds up to the USGA" rating.
9) "Lost Ball" rule: Let say Balaka hits his tee shot on 18, and it lands on the other side of 6 Mile road. Lost ball and reload, right? Nope. He drops on the nearest edge of the fairway (no nearer the hole from where the ball was last seen), and takes a two stroke penalty. Chip and putt for a par.
10) "Sandbox" rule: Cleaning up the bunker is OK, for those very rare occasions you find yourself in one. Toss those pinecones, large rocks, beer bottles, Rusty's old girlfriends, etc. out of the bunker without penalty before taking your shot. All other rules still apply, i.e. you still can't ground the club or touch the sand with the club in any way before taking the actual shot.
11) Last but not least, the "Flag" rule: The flag can remain in the cup for shots played from the green, i.e. putts. What kind of bullshit is this? OK, fine.