Too many rules in golf.

There are now hundreds of convoluted rules for golf. With a few more added for each new year.

What's wrong with 'play the ball where it lies'?

As with most organisations, the governing bodies of golf in the UK ( R&A ) and across the pond ( USGA ), have set about, successfully, expanding their ranks, to increase their own importance. This has led to an army of blazer wearing middle aged men, who sit at their desks dreaming up new rules. Where you need to ascertain what type of animal has made the marks, your ball now rests, before you can find the appropriate penalty. This rule, was probably dreamt up by a blazer after watching the Natural World on TV. Enough is enough.

For 2009, let's re-write their job descriptions and ask them politely, to start reducing the number of rules in golf to a level, where most golfers including professionals, can understand and remember what they are.

I recall with with a smile on my face watching Bernard Langer hit a ball out of a tree. Let's see more of this. Do we really need all these specified drop zones? How about removing a free drop from golf?

If a professional golfer hits their ball next to a television cable or adjacent to a grandstand and deems the ball unplayable, it should be a penalty. The cables aren't strewn down the centre of the fairways or the stands built in the middle of the greens. They know where these tournament hazards are, after all the practise rounds.

The game of golf is being suffocated by a plethora of unnecessary rules.