Temporary Rules, 1940

Via Konstantin, the following excerpt from the Richmond Golf Club rules, defining special circumstances during the Second World War. As someone commented: “the most British thing I’ve ever read”.

As a person who has avidly played golf in the past, the seventh rule is the one which causes me the biggest grin: that the player would be penalized by one stroke for creating the cardinal sin of losing concentration were a bomb to go off.

1. Players are asked to collect Bomb and Shrapnel splinters to save these causing damage to the Mowing Machines.
2. In Competitions, during gunfire or while bombs are falling, players may take cover without penalty for ceasing play.
3. The positions of know delayed action bombs are marked by red flags at a reasonably, but not guaranteed, safe distance therefrom.
4. Shrapnel and/or bomb splinters on the Fairways, or in Bunkers within a club’s length of a ball, may be moved without penalty, and no penalty shall be incurred if a ball is thereby caused to move accidentally.
5. A ball moved by enemy action may be replaced, or if lost or destroyed, a ball may be dropped not nearer the hole without penalty.
6. A ball lying in a crater may be lifted and dropped not nearer the hole, preserving the line to the hole, without penalty.
7. A player whose stroke is affected by the simultaneous explosion of a bomb may play another ball from the same place. Penalty one stroke.