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Re: Protocol...What to do when one player's ball blocks another player's attempt to putt at the hole

• TracyMax 2,361 Posts

  Tue, Mar 19 2013 10:25 PM

  Corwyn:

  Bobby Jones was a huge fan of the stymie, believing that it added an additional element of strategy to the game. I believe it was banned in 1952 when the R&A and USGA finally established a joint set of rules.

  So when they banned the "stymie" move, is that when "marking" the ball became the norm??

  [I remember a scene from the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played  where this happens and the player tries to chip over the ball to the hole. and it bounces out.]

• 35 Posts

  Wed, Mar 20 2013 6:49 AM

  Thankyou for the kind words Corwyn. Yes, golf has been good to me and I am flattered that you are familiar with my modest contributions to the game - especiallly as so few have made my acquaintance in this day and age. Well, of course, I chose my player name as a sort of tribute to Darwin after reading many of his wonderful essays on the game which he wrote for the Times and Country Life magazine with which you are no doubt familiar. Not a few of the people with whom I've played have expressed an interest in my lineage and it has given me considerable pleasure to introduce them to the man and some of his achievements.

• 35 Posts

  Wed, Mar 20 2013 7:12 AM

  Yes and no. When stymies were permitted, a player could mark and lift his ball if it lay in his adversary's path to the hole if and only if the two balls lay within six inches of each other. When the stymie was outlawed, then of course any ball lying in another's path to the hole could be marked and lifted. And you are obliged to so so in consideration of the other player since as you are probably aware, striking another ball on the green these days when putting incurs a two stroke penalty.

  You mentioned the movie The Greatest Game Ever Played. It may interest you to know that Bernard Darwin (my namesake) was Francis Ouimet's marker in that game and is portrayed as such in the movie.