NEW MEMBERS CHECKOUT HOW IESGA WORKS

1. Go ahead and replace that damaged club

Crack your driver with your DeChambeau-like swing speed? No problem. As of Jan. 1, you’ll be allowed to replace it, or any other club that you damage during a round. There’s just one caveat. The damage must be inadvertent. If you shatter your driver in anger, or snap your putter across your knee, you’re out of luck. Temper, temper, people. The governing bodies are trying to help you. But you also need to help yourself. 

2. More forgiveness for a ball moved by natural forces

At the 2019 Waste Management Open, Rickie Fowler made a bizarre triple bogey after a ball he’d dropped on a bank by the green rolled back into the water as he was walking up to survey his next shot. Rules are rules. And under the guidelines as they’re currently written, those are the breaks: A ball that moves due to natural forces is played as it lies (except on the green, where it is replaced). If it happens to lie in the water or out of bounds, tough luck. The player’s only option is to take stroke-and-distance relief. Come Jan. 1, that rule will change. Under a new exception, a ball that rolls to another area of the course or comes to rest out of bounds will be put back where it was before natural forces moved it. No penalty.

3. Simpler procedure for back-on-line relief

When you knock a ball into a penalty area or an unplayable spot, the drop you take is known as back-on-line relief. And the procedure for it can get complicated and time-consuming. If, for example, you drop the ball as it rolls closer to the hole, you have to drop again. Come Jan. 1, the procedure will be more forgiving. Your ball merely must come to rest within one club-length of where you drop it, even if it is one club-length closer to the hole.