Golf rules and penalties

I wasn't at Mens' Night last week. That's why my blog entry is a bit late. I missed playing because I was on a golf trip at Hecla. The course there was in excellent condition, the hotel was great, the weather was perfect, and the deal was awesome.

Given that I was out of town, I can only report the stats of Wednesday. Thanks to Scott Maynes and company for taking care of things in my absence.

I thought I would say a few words on golf penalties after watching what happened to Dustin Johnson yesterday at the US Open. In case you missed it, while Dustin was hovering his putter behind the ball, the ball moved toward him. At the end of the round the USGA gave him a one stroke penalty. He still won despite this.

I will admit that I have on occasion touched my ball prior to putting and caused it to move. I know it is a penalty but usually anyone who is playing with you says not to worry about it. There really is no advantage. It's more of an embarrassment. If someone told me to take a stroke I might do so...but only after I used profanity toward them. But if a ball that I wasn't even touching rolled toward me, I would blame the slope of the green, the wind, or Milt. No way I am adding that one to my tally.

To be fair, while we are competitive enough on Mens' Night we do occasionally take liberties with the rules. It might be fairer to say that we have adjusted rules for speed of play and in the spirit of friendly competition.

For starters, if someone is starting to address their tee shot and the ball falls off the tee, we tell them to hit it again.  Lots of people play winter rules on the fairways even though it is the summer. A few guys adjust their putting line to avoid dead spots. No matter how badly you butcher a hole on a Wednesday, you max out at a triple bogey. People take practice putts away from the hole after they have finished. On occasion, drops from hazards or from the bushes are estimated rather than measured. All of these are USGA rules violations.

There were 31 golfers last week. I am sure that they all enjoyed a good evening while honouring the integrity of the game. Hopefully none of them broke any rules that gave them an unfair advantage.

Skins went on four holes. Ron Huberdeau won a solo $20 for #2 while Joel Ostash teamed with Tim McWhirter for $20 on #7. The big winners of the evening were the dynamic duo of Blake Hunter and Ron Anderson who cashed in for $81 on #3 and another $53.50 on #9.

The closest to the pins were Brendan Brown on #5 and Daryl McCharles on #9. Daryl converted his birdie to share the $84 deuce pot with Chris Kimpinski and Blake Hunter.

Blake's total winnings for the evening was $95.25, bringing his season total to almost $120. Milt trails in second with $79.50.

Brad Benton still tops the ringer board at -4 with Scott Martin, Neuf, and Wes Arnfinson a stroke behind at -3.

Our second hole-in-one pot maxed out, so we now have two at $1500 and a third at $13 and climbing.