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 to 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 my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

“Candy-land?” 

Yes.  That’s what some golf rules analysts call the place where you tee up your golf ball.

Why?

Well, it’s because you can do almost anything there in contrast to any other area of a golf course that is not on the tee where you are playing.

In a previous blog, I wrote about my decision to sign up for a three-month golf rules seminar and it was there that I learned about this — what you are allowed to do on the tee you are playing.

There are a host of restrictions anywhere else – in the fairway, in a penalty area, in a bunker, on the green, or on tee other than the one you are on.

For all of you golf rules nuts, here’s the place where you can find the answer about what you can do on “your” tee: Rule #6(5) and (6).  In abbreviated form, here is the text:

“(5) Ball Is Not in Play Until Stroke Is Made. Whether the ball is teed or on the ground, when starting a hole or playing again from the teeing area under a rule:

• The ball is not in play until the player makes a stroke at it, and
• The ball may be lifted or moved without penalty before the stroke is made.

“If a teed ball falls off the tee or is knocked off the tee by the player before the player has made a stroke at it, it may be re-teed anywhere in the teeing area without penalty.

“But if the player makes a stroke at that ball while it is falling or after it has fallen off, there is no penalty, the stroke counts and the ball is in play.

“(6) When Ball in Play Lies in Teeing Area. If the player’s ball in play is in the teeing area after a stroke (such as a teed ball after a stroke that missed the ball) or after taking relief, the player may:

• Lift or move the ball without penalty (see Rule 9.4b, Exception 1), and
• Play that ball or another ball from anywhere in the teeing area from a tee or the ground under (2), including playing the ball as it lies.”

Frankly, I would not have known this information without taking the rules seminar.

To put it simply, if you are ready to make a swing at a ball on the tee and don’t do so yet, but the ball of its own volition falls off the tee, no penalty.  Just put the ball back on the tee and hit. 

But, if you take a swing and barely hit the ball off the tee so it remains in the teeing area, then you are allowed – surprise here, for me — to tee the ball up again before you take your next swing.  This would be your second shot since the first swing would count.

But, in either case, you don’t have to hit it off the ground without a tee.

I have said or written this before, but golf rules are nothing if not complicated.  One reason is that golf is played out-of-doors on all kinds of land.  Designing rules for all situations is, therefore, complicated.

Rules are designed to achieve at least two objectives:

1. To help players make their way around a golf course fairly and equitably; and
2. To protect the entire field in a tournament to make sure no one gets an unfair advantage.

So, onward to review more golf rules.  Perhaps I’ll find another new one that surprises me.