You will play the ball as it lies

Kellie Gachaga follows the progress of her shot during the 2016 Kenya Ladies Open Amateur Strokeplay Championship at Muthaiga Golf Club on May 28, 2016. PHOTO | MARTIN MUKANGU |

What you need to know:

  • I have had so much joy this Christmas season. Driving through the streets of Nairobi sans the usual traffic has been pleasant.
  • The golf courses have been deserted since most golfers have travelled out of town (or was it because there were no sponsored tournaments?).
  • The few rounds that I have played have given me such pleasure, despite posting poor scores.

I have had so much joy this Christmas season. Driving through the streets of Nairobi sans the usual traffic has been pleasant.

The golf courses have been deserted since most golfers have travelled out of town (or was it because there were no sponsored tournaments?).

The few rounds that I have played have given me such pleasure, despite posting poor scores.

There is a glorious ambience as we wait to usher in the New Year.

It is against this backdrop that a gentleman, let’s call him Holy Joe, was playing a round of golf at the Vet Lab Sports Club.

Holy Joe is a newbie and just like Adam in the creation story, it does not take a lot of convincing from his “helper” (read: caddie), for him to do the wrong thing.

His tee shot on one of the holes ended up in a fairway bunker. On this particular hole, the committee has seen fit to allow golfers, whose balls lie on the fairway, to move their balls within one card-length if they wish to get a more favourable lie. This is what is referred to as preferred lie.

Holy Joe’s caddie was of the cheeky opinion that since the bunker was in the fairway, the preferred-lie Rule applied.

Holy Joe’s ball happened to be within one card-length of the edge of the bunker.

Holy Joe felt very lucky for such good fortune to be able to get out of the bunker for “free”.

All golf newbies need to be able to recite the following adage before being allowed on the golf course; “play the ball as it lies, play the course as you find it, and if you cannot do either, do what is fair. But to do what is fair, you need to know the Rules of Golf.’

The game would at first sight seem to require very few rules if we all played the ball as it lies.

How hard can it be to play the ball with a club from the teeing ground into the hole by a stroke or successive strokes?

But, alas! Into the golfing Eden the taint of the golf Commandments had come.

When Holy Joe said: “I had not known that I had committed a sin. My caddie made me commit the sin. The club provided me with a caddie that did not know the Rules...”

At present we hear some talk of simplified Rules of Golf come 2018. Personally, I do not think that under simplified Rules we will see a lot of difference.

This view is borne of the fact that we cannot afford not to follow the simplest of Rules: “play the ball as it lies”. There are very few situations where a golfer will fall foul of the Rules of Golf if they play the ball as it lies.

The pity of golf today is that many golfers play to win and think of penalties as being defrauded and of free relief as being lucky.

It would be more gratifying if we would only remember that the true good is in the playing and not in the winning.

A golfer who does his best and does not win is entitled to feel as satisfied as the winner in the day’s engagement.

In the coming year, let us try to bring back the spirit of the game. Let us play for the enjoyment and not seek out the sponsored tournaments in the hope of a win. Let us not try and escape from unpleasant situations by creating fictitious Rules. Let us play the game for the challenge it presents.

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The current Kenya ladies champion and our current top junior girl golfer, Kellie Gachaga, is currently representing Kenya in the Junior Orange Bowl International Golf Championship.

With the kind of exposure that Kellie is getting in these international events, I am expecting to hear more of this talented young lady in the years to come.

It will be even better if we supported more junior initiatives so that we can get more “Kellie Gachagas” coming through the pipeline.

We wish Kellie all the best in Friday's s final round of the Junior Orange Bowl International Golf Championship being played at The Biltmore Golf Course.

I wish all golfers and readers of this column a blessed 2017.

The author is a KGU Executive