penalty areas where lateral relief is
allowed; and there will be no penalty
for moving loose impediments or
touching the ground or water in a
penalty area.
• Relaxed bunker rules: There
will be no penalty for moving loose
impediments in a bunker or for
generally touching the sand with
a hand or club. A limited set of
restrictions (such as not grounding
the club right next to the ball) is
kept to preserve the challenge of
playing from the sand; however, an
extra relief option is added for an
unplayable ball in a bunker, allowing
the ball to be played from outside
the bunker with a two-stroke penalty.
• Relying on player integrity:
A player’s “reasonable judgment”
when estimating or measuring a spot,
point, line, area or distance will be
upheld, even if video evidence later
shows it to be wrong; and elimination
of announcement procedures when
lifting a ball to identify it or to see if
it is damaged.
• Pace-of-play support: Reduced
time for searching for a lost ball (from
fi ve minutes to three); affi rmative
encouragement of “ready golf ” in
stroke play; recommending that
players take no more than 40 seconds
to play a stroke and other changes
intended to help with pace of play.
Presented in digital, text-based
form today, the new Rules will also
now be translated into more than
30 languages and readied for fi nal
delivery via print and digital formats,
including searchable Rules of Golf
offi cial apps developed by the USGA
and The R&A.
Three important publications,
to be distributed this fall, will help
players as well as offi cials and provide
interpretation and guidance in how
the Rules are applied:
• The Player’s Edition of the
Rules of Golf: An abridged, user-
friendly set of the Rules with
shorter sentences, commonly used
phrases, and diagrams. Written in
the “second person,” The Player’s
Edition is intended to be the primary
publication for golfers.
• The Rules of Golf: The full
edition of the Rules will be written
in the third person and include
illustrations. It is intended to be a
more thorough version of the revised
Rules.
• The Offi cial Guide to the
Rules of Golf: This “guidebook”
replaces the Decisions book and
will contain information to best
support committees and offi cials.
It includes interpretations on the
Rules,
Committee
procedures
(available local rules and information
on establishing the terms of the
competition), and the Modifi ed
Rules of Golf for Players with
Disabilities. It is a comprehensive
resource document intended as a
supplementary publication.
More than 30 “how-to apply”
videos and a summary of the
principal changes are now available
at usga.org/rules.
Additional
education tools will be released in
September.
Players are reminded that the
curre nt edition of the Rules of Golf
(2016) must be applied when playing,
posting scores or competing for the
remainder of 2018. The Rules of
Amateur Status and the Rules of
Equipment Standards were not part
of this review process.
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