FRANK'S REVIEWS OF EMD'S.

Some things in life and golf are inevitable. As much as we try to fight them, we are fighting a losing battle and are in total denial if we think we can prevent them from happening.

One of these inevitabilities is the use of EMDs (Electronic Measuring Devices) in golf.  Their adoption was as inevitable as the sunrise, even though many smart people who promulgate the rules tried to prevent it from happening.

Consider where it all began.  First there was the caddie, someone who knew the course and would advise the player of conditions that might affect his play.  That knowledge included the distance to certain objects and to the flag itself, but since most golf was played on windswept links, exact distances were not as important as prevailing weather conditions and the state of the turf.  This was followed, considerably later in the history of golf, by 150-yard stakes which were removed for competition in some cases.  Shrubs or notable trees often took the place of the stakes.

These simple steps fueled our growing obsession with knowing our “exact yardage,” which lead to the sale of yardage booklets.  These guides were originally developed by caddies for their own use, then were sold to other caddies, and finally became a commercial business.  “Stroke-savers,” as some of these were known, mapped out the distance to the green from almost every bunker, bush, tree or prominent feature on every hole. Plaques or sprinkler heads were marked to give distances to the center of the green  (sometimes they carried identifying numbers rather than yardage, so that this secret information was provided only to caddies at courses like Pine Valley and the Old Course in St. Andrews).

Using this information was not considered a violation of the rules in competition. In fact, the USGA and the R&A provided caddies and players a “Hole Location Sheet”  identifying the exact spot on the green, measured  from the front and side, that the hole had been cut for that day.

Rule 14-3 today -- and its predecessor, 37-9a, which was adopted in the early 1967 -- states in part “…the player shall not use any artificial devices … b. For the purpose of gauging or measuring distance or conditions which might affect his play…” I recall citing this rule many times in the mid 70s to advise innovators and golfers that such devices were not permitted.  

Still, I wondered about the wisdom of such a rule.  We seem to have this absolute need to know our exact distances to the flag, even though our shots range on average by about 10% of the intended distance with any particular club. In most cases, we wishfully take the upper end of this range as our norm and are inevitably short.

Around 1991, electronic devices appeared to fill this insatiable need of ours. They were capable of measuring distance to the flag stick with great accuracy.

For example, the GPS (Global Positioning System) that’s used for air and naval navigation was very easily adapted to golf to determine the exact position (within a yard or two) of the flag and the golfer using the device.

But use of such devices was in violation of rule 14-3. It didn’t take much foresight to recognize that golfers would soon be using them, and we should have seriously discussed a rules change then. For those of us who felt that the EMDs were an electronic invasion of our game and contrary to all traditions, we could have authorized a local rule to permit a tournament committee to ban such devices in competition.

But we didn’t, and for the 14 years that the USGA and the R&A delayed accepting this inevitability, golfers chose to disregard the existing rule en masse.

“Why” the golfers asked, “is it legal to pace off distance to a fixed marker, but not to use a measuring device?  Why is obtaining the same information a violation of the rule depending on the method by which it was acquired?”  This didn’t make much intuitive sense, and so the rule was widely ignored outside of formal competition. Some 60 million rounds a year were played using EMDs before there was any action; sixty million rounds a year in violation of the rule, and nobody went to jail.

Finally, in 2006 the USGA and R&A adopted the following common-sense recommendation:

“A Committee may establish a Local Rule allowing players to use devices that measure distance only.”

This does not include such measurements as wind direction and speed or elevation changes etc.  Only distance.

Today there are two different technologies that allow us to obtain exact distances.  One is based on GPS, which is used predominantly as a fixture in carts but has recently become available in handhelds. The other concept uses a laser beam to reflect off a target.