1. A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed in the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled in the rough. Such veering to the right or to the left frequently results from the friction between the face of the club and the cover of the ball, and the player should not be penalized for erratic behavior of the ball resulting from uncontrollable mechanical phenomena.

2. A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed *not* to have hit the tree. Hitting a tree is simply bad luck and there is no place for luck in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled had it not hit the tree and play the ball from there, preferably from atop a nice tuft of grass for having been so inconvenienced.

3. There shall be *no such thing* as a lost ball. The missing ball is somewhere nearby and will eventually be found by someone. It thus becomes a *stolen* ball and the player should not compound a felony by charging himself with a penalty stroke.

4. A ball in a bunker rolling backward toward the player may be hit again on the roll without counting an extra stroke. No more than two strokes are to be counted when playing from a bunker since it is reasonable to assume that if the player had time enough to concentrate on her shot instead of hurrying it so as not to delay her playing partners and dozens of foursomes behind her she would have been out in two anyway.

5. If a putt passes over the hole without dropping it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity holds that any object attempting to maintain a position in the atmosphere without something to support it must drop. The law of gravity supersedes the law of golf.

These rules sure help me. Try them out yourself. I'm sure you can save a few strokes as well.

Short Putts

The Best Opponent:
One who thinks 2 + 2 = 5.

Joke:
How is golf like fishing?
-Both mysteriously encourage exaggeration.

Horticultural:
"I'm in the woods so much I can tell you which plants are edible."
-Lee Trevino

Deductions:
The only thing that causes more cheating than golf is the income tax!

Doubleminded:
Why is it that the same spouse who can't add when it comes to the family budget at home turns into a mathematician on the golf course?