Let's be perfectly honest - I have a hard time with local rules. Rolling the ball in the fairway? Don't like it. Do I do it? Sure, but every time I do so I feel some bile in my throat.
Subjecting me to an hour of torture discussing adoption of local rules? Not a fan. So, it should come as no surprise that I was not happy with the adoption of the two major local rules during the last captain's meeting.
The Canton Rule, as it's come to be known, allows you to take a drop if your ball becomes lost or out of bounds (rather than returning to the spot of your previous stroke). While I understand the intent (hiking back to the previous spot might mean 500 yards of back and forth to get your ball back in play), I don't like the obscurity of where the drop takes place. In our match last week, we did invoke the rule on Hole #7. One of our opponents hit a rocket ship 3-wood approach that headed way right. To my eye, the thing screamed over the OB fence and kept right on going. Our other opponent said he'd heard tree contact just off the fairway. Ball wasn't found and rather than argue fence versus tall grass area, we had the guy drop near the high grass prior to the fence. Still a tough place to play from, but in the good old days (last year for instance), I think I would have advised him to play a provisional once we saw the original ball sailing wide right. If he would have done that, I don't think the time savings would have been any different.
The second (and in my opinion, the most foul of all local rules) was the adoption of "Rake and Drop" for any ball in any bunker. Captains were concerned that Ruggles wouldn't be touching the bunkers and the morning golfers don't seem to know which end of the rake the pick up. Honestly, I think Ruggles may have purchased a bunker tiller - most of the bunkers I've seen this year look to have been tilled and dressed and there have not been a whole bunch of footprints in them. To quote Shakespeare, "much ado about nothing!". The "Rake and Drop Rule" should be revisited, and I'm hoping it will be canned.