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.

A friend who read my recent post, which, among other things, dealt with out-of-bounds issues in golf, raised a follow-up question.

This:  Is a golfer allowed to move an out-of-bounds stake if his or her golf ball is in-bounds and the stake is in the way of ball, stance or swing.

The quick answer:  No.

Here is the relevant information from the official golf rules:

“Q. May I remove an out of bounds stake?

A. No, objects marking course boundaries may not be moved. If you do move one of these objects before you play and doing so makes your next stroke easier in any way, you must put it back before you make a stroke. If you don’t, you will lose the hole in match play or get two penalty strokes in stroke play (see Rule 8.1a and Rule 8.1c).”

Interesting question because both my friend and I remember past occasions when both of us removed stakes impeding our swings.

No longer.

A further issue is that, in many cases, the stakes either are in cement or dug so far into the ground that it is not possible to move them.  And, under golf rules, they are not considered “immovable objects” from which you get relief; they are boundary markings.

Aren’t you glad to have this confirmed?

And this next footnote, which I cannot help myself but to report:  Yesterday, I asked one of my favorite golf rules officials this – if a golf ball is on the out-of-bounds line, is it in or out.

The answer is that, if the ball is touching the surface of the ground in-bounds, even if it partly on the line, it is in-bounds.  If it is directly on the line, then it is out.

My friend, one of the best rules officials in the region, got this wrong, so I am one up on him.  The self-satisfied look on my face is permissible because, for this footnote, I have not used my friend’s name.