[BrianL99]

[QUOTE=kkingston57;2435637]Good luck. Wait till you play in the summer and know you hit a ball into the rough, other players watch it go into the rough and you can not find it. Stroke and distance penalty and go back to former hitting spot. In summer months can happen a lot, We do not have hundreds if not thousands of fore caddies. We agree that in this situation drop a ball and take a penalty stroke. If you want you can change your score to reflect the true stroke and distance penalty for handicap purposes. If all players played by the strict rules, rounds in TV will be up to 5 hours[/QUOTE]

Probably even longer.

99% of the time, the players (particularly higher handicap players) who insist they "play by all the rules", are the ones you don't want to play with, for a multitude of reasons. Typically, they really don't know "all the rules", they take forever to implement them and spend more time arguing about them, than adhering to them.

I play 150-200 rounds/year and I'm a 5 Index. Unless it's a specific situation/match or a competitive round, nearly every single person I've ever played with, adheres to the usual "casual round rules". Good inside the leather, if you lose one drop it where you think it went and take a stroke (as in a hazard) and finish the round in less than 4 hours.

You can always tell the DB's on the first green. If the guy brings a towel with him when he walks to the Green ... disassociate yourself immediately from the group.

If someone has a "long putter" ... same deal.

Collection of USGA Tags on his bag? Probably bad news.

Carries a 2nd "little carry bag" with wedges around the Green ... trouble. (I hadn't seen one of these in 40 years, until I got to TV.)

Golf is supposed to be about having fun. If you're in it for the competition, you shouldn't be carrying a double-digit handicap.