Change is in the Air

With the imminent arrival of an Olympic year, a new edition of the Rules of Golf has appeared. There are two major changes that impact all golfers and several minor ones that are more the concern of officials.
In order to keep this article compact and to avoid distracting readers, here I shall concentrate on the two major changes.
1) Rule 18-2b (Ball Moving After Address)
Up until now, a player is deemed to have addressed the ball only when he has completed his stance and grounded the club either in front of or behind the ball. Because grounding of the club is not permitted in a hazard (bunker or water hazard) the player has addressed the ball when he has completed his stance.
In the new definition, the stance has been taken out of it. This means that the ball is never addressed in a hazard. Elsewhere, the ball is addressed when the player has grounded the club in front of or behind the ball, regardless of whether or not he has taken his stance.
This is significant. For instance, if a player is in a bunker and the ball moves after he or she has taken their stance the player is not automatically deemed to have caused it to move under Rule 18-2b.
Elsewhere, the player is still penalised for the ball moving after address – but a new clause in the Rule states that there is no penalty if it is known or virtually certain that something else (most typically wind) moved the ball. This happens with some regularity on fast greens at windblown courses, like those found at the Open Championship.
2) Rule 13-4, Exception 2 (Ball in Hazard; Prohibitive Actions)
This is the most liberal change to this Rule since the Rule for bunkers was first written in 1773. The player, or his caddie, is no longer penalised for raking a bunker before a shot is played from that bunker or a similar bunker provided that the raking is for the purpose of caring for the course. The other proviso it that the line of play, the lie of the ball and the area of intended swing are not improved by the raking process; in other words, Rule 13-2 must not be breached.
A related Decision (Decision 13-4/9) also warns that if a player does this too often or too vigorously, especially in an area close to his ball in the bunker, he can still be penalised under Rule 13-4 for testing the sand.
While this is a welcome change to the Rule that avoids players being penalised in most cases for a harmless action to tidy up a bunker, we need to be aware that it does not give us an unrestricted right to rake a bunker while our golf ball is still in it.

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