PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

If you are a golfer, do you know how to apply the rules in your nine or 18-hole rounds?

The likely answer is no. And one of the reasons is that the rules are so complex they defy common understanding.

As one golfer, I have tried to learn the rules, but have encountered great difficulty in doing so, either a tribute to my lack of acuity or the complexity of the rules themselves. I prefer the latter.

So, those of us who play the game of golf saw a solid development the other day when an international committee produced a simpler set of golf rules, albeit in draft form.

There were a number of key changes, as listed below, but, overall, the number of rules was reduced from 34 to 24, a solid step on its own, regardless of the detail involved.

Here’s the way the Washington Post put it in a piece on the rule changes:

“Seeking to simplify their game and increase its popularity among younger generations, golf’s governing bodies previewed a broad set of rule changes Wednesday. The proposed revisions to golf’s official code of play are designed to make the rules ‘easier to understand and apply,’ and the overhaul represents arguably the most sweeping effort since the sport’s first known rule book was published in 1744.”

The joint effort to produce new rules came from the United States Golf Association, which oversees golf in the United States and Mexico, and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club, which oversees golf in the rest of the world. What starts now is a six-month public review period, which will consider comments from anyone, pros and amateurs alike. Then, the final rules are scheduled to go into effect by 2019.

It is worth noting that Oregon’s own Barb Trammell, the executive director of the Oregon Golf Association, served on the international committee that produced the rules changes. She said it was a good, solid effort to simplify the rules for the benefit all who play the game.

On its website, the USGA said this: “The main goal of the initiative is to help golfers everywhere by revising many rule procedures and outcomes for better consistency, simplicity and fairness and, overall, by bringing the rules up to date to meet the changing needs of the global game. The current review began five years ago [as opposed to the usual four-year cycle] because we recognized that these incremental revisions over the years have tended to make the rules more and more complex, especially as concepts and exceptions are added in an effort to give a ‘fair’ answer for every situation.”

Here, with a nod to the Washington Post article, is a list of the rules which make the most sense to me.

• No penalty for accidentally moving your ball while in search of it or on the putting green.
• No penalty when a player (or the player’s equipment or caddie) accidentally deflects his or her own ball while it’s in motion.
• When dropping a ball while taking relief, players can do so from just above the ground, rather than from a standing position with the arm outstretched.
• Time for a ball search is reduced from five to three minutes.
• Allow players to repair “any damage on the green,” including spike marks and shoe damage. [This is a substantial change because all of who have watched professionals or played the game ourselves have been irritated about how spike marks or other indentations can spoil a putt.]
• No penalty for hitting an unattended flagstick still in the hole on a putt from the green.
• No penalty for touching the line of play on the putting green, as long as a player did not improve the line.
• Players can take relief from a bunker for a two-stroke penalty, using the “back-on-a-line procedure.” [All of us who have struggled with bunker play may like this rule, even with the penalty.]
• Players are encouraged to employ “ready golf” and take shots out of turn when it makes sense to do so; players should make strokes in no more than 40 seconds.
• Players could have their number of strokes on a given hole capped under a “maximum score” format.

“I think golf’s emphasis on the rules can sometimes turn people away from it,” which is a quote attributed to golf pro Rory McIlroy. “To modernize and make it simple is a good thing. With what’s happened in the last couple of years, with some rulings and high-profile things that have happened at crucial stages in tournaments, people who look at that and might want to get into the game say: ‘You know what? It’s too complicated.’”

“It all just seemed to get away from the simple game that it once started out to be,” according to another pro, Adam Scott. “Lots of things have changed over time, and I just don’t think we moved the rules quickly enough as the game changed, and decisions became a big part of this and having to ask about intent and all these kind of things. It’s difficult. There’s competition golf and then there’s social golf, and I think some common sense should be applied to both.”