Rules of golf tweaked to limit role of TV evidence

Golf’s governing bodies will continue to use TV evidence in deciding upon rules violations, but will limit the role of the kind of “enhanced technological evidence” that saw Tiger Woods penalised earlier this year.

The R&A and USGA revealed several changes to the decisions on the Rules of Golf yesterday, the most significant being the use of video technology to determine whether a ball at rest has moved.

New Decision 18/4 states that “where enhanced technological evidence shows that a ball has left its position and come to rest in another location, the ball will not be deemed to have moved if that movement was not reasonably discernible to the naked eye at the time. The decision ensures that a player is not penalised under Rule 18-2 in circumstances where the fact that the ball had changed location could not reasonably have been seen without the use of enhanced technology.”