Here’s the scenario: You hit a hosel fade into the scrub beside the tee, utter a few comments (that would make a sailor blush), slam your club through the bottom of your bag, and begin to trudge towards your ball. After walking the 15 steps to the vicinity of your ball, you discover that, lo and behold, your ill-behaving sphere is sitting on a banana peel on top of the white OB stake. What to do?
Obviously, unless you’re a pimple-faced rules geek, you don’t know the answer. Not to worry. Just reach into your bag and grab your trusty pocket-sized copy of the “Golf Rules Quick Reference Stroke Play Guide” and, another curse or two later, you’ll merrily be on your way.
This easy-to-use, nicely illustrated guide is a welcome invention for those of us who are sick and tired of thumbing through the mind-numbing, tedious, and way-the-hell-too-thick official golf rules book (or decisions book).
Written by international rules official Yves Ton-That (he’s probably not from Nebraska), this guide uses clear and concise language - not the thespian, or whatever, style of the official rules book - and is based on common situations. (The banana peel incident isn’t actually in there. Sorry.)
I like this guide for the aforementioned reasons and more. Basically, this book is very easy to use and, best of all, if you spill beer on it the laminated pages won’t be damaged. Don’t think the old farts who wrote the rule book ever thought of that one. www.golfrulesmadeeasy.com. Retails for $8.95. Guide conforms to the official rules as published by the USGA for the years 2004-2007.
