Rules of Golf

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 right or 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 such 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 has no place in a scientific game. The player should estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree, and play the ball from there, preferably from atop a nice firm tuft of grass.
3.    There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course somewhere and eventually will be found and pocketed by someone else. It thus becomes a stolen ball, and the player should not compound the felony by charging himself with a penalty stroke.
4.    In or near a bunker or sand trap, a ball rolling back toward the player may be hit again on the roll without counting an extra stroke, or strokes. In any case, no more than two strokes are to be counted in playing from a bunker, since it is reasonable to assume that if the player had time to concentrate on his shot instead of hurrying it so as not to delay the game of his playing partners, he would be out in two.
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.
6.    Same thing goes for a ball that stops at the brink of the hole and hangs there defying gravity. You cannot defy the law.
7.    Same thing goes for a ball that rims the cup. A ball should not go sideways. This violates the law of physics.
8.    A putt that stops close enough to the cup to inspire such comments as "you could blow it in" may be blown in. This rule does not apply if the ball is more than three inches from the hole, because no one wants to make a travesty of the game.
9.    There is no penalty for a so-called "out of bounds" shot. If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not be a problem. The golfer deserves an apology, not a penalty.
10.    There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard. Golf balls should float. The fact that they do not is a technological problem that the manufacturers have not yet overcome. Again, the golfer should not be punished for someone else's shortcomings.
11.    Advertisements constantly proclaim that golf scores can be markedly improved by purchasing the newest clubs, balls, shoes and other golfing accessories. Since this is financially impossible for the average golfer, 1/2 stroke per hole may be subtracted from the score for using old equipment.