YankeeJim: alosso: What is considered the spirit of the game
If you have to ask this, you'll never get it.
OIC: You're bullying me because you're too weak for reasonable arguments. Best parish councilman tradition, isn't it?
From that I take that your understanding of the spirit is to do what all others do, to follow the lead of the elders' doctrines blindly. Apparently, you fail to know what the ruling body R&A deems the Spirit of the Game - consideration: absent in your conduct, courtesy: absent!
(I'd be glad to be contradicted with reason)
To me, in addition to the official POV, a few words stand for the spirit of golf:
Safety, respect and freedom!
Safety needs no explanation.The threat of hard objects flying with 100+ mph is obvious.
Respect includes the people, nature (the course etc.) and the rules.
My kind of freedom is to execute whatever I can imagine while keeping up the other two items. Putter from bunkers, driver from the deck, etc. One Q is, "Which kind of shot will be best for me?"
If this, on WGT greens, would be to abandon the putter, I'd do so, because none of my golf values, including the official ones, prohibits it. It's nothing but my freedom of choice to act differently.