The Stymie Rule in Golf

 Laying a stymie - using your own ball to block the path to the hole of your opponent - used to be a legitimate tactic in match play

Sixty years ago, in the code of rules effective from 1st January 1952, the stymie, always a contentious part of the game, was consigned to obsolescence. More favoured on one side of the Atlantic than the other, a unified stance on this issue (and others) finally came at a meeting in 1951. The Shell International Encyclopedia of Golf reports that 'a joint committee of the R. and A. and the USGA was joined by representatives from the Commonwealth' and to what must have been the pleasure of the USGA, the following conclusion was reached: 'the R. and A. agreed to abolish the stymie'.

How golf's lexicon ever came to contain such a word remains unclear. Its use as a tactic on the golf course is more easily attributable and dates from when players didn't pick the ball up until they had holed out. It was inevitable that one would sometimes get in the way of the other, though early rule-makers did make the stipulation that for a stymie to be valid, the balls must be at least six inches apart.

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Jones' Realization

As a ploy, the stymie later helped in shaping the game's history. When, in 1930, Bobby Jones achieved the Grand Slam, he was taken to an extra hole by Cyril Tolley in the British Amateur. With his own ball 10 feet from the hole in two and Tolley's seven feet away in three, his position called for a subtle line of thinking, one which Ron Rapoport later described in his book, The Immortal Bobby: 'It was not as important for him to sink the putt, he realized, as it was not to overrun the hole. If he could keep his ball between Tolley's and the cup, the Englishman would be stymied.'

Tolley's only remaining hope when this occurred lay in chipping over his opponent's ball, something he valiantly tried. But while Jones expressed his regret that the match should end under such circumstances, he was in truth an avid supporter of the stymie and always argued for its retention in the rules - an advocacy which was more admired in the Old World than it was in the New.

Unpopular in America

Swaying American opinion was the way the stymie influenced some important matches, such as the US Amateur final between Jack McLean and John Fischer in September 1936. One down, Fischer missed a five-foot putt at the 34th, but luckily blocked McLean's way. Fischer halved the hole as a result and later won the match at the 37th. The USGA, meanwhile, canvassed opinion on the stymie. 'Few like it, and it is predicted the USGA will drop it from the Rules,' says the 20th Century Golf Chronicle in reflecting the mood of the time.

In the event, things progressed more slowly than had been anticipated. When, in 1938, the USGA legislated, it was to allow a ball within six inches of the cup to be lifted. As always, the British, who in the words of the Shell Encyclopedia, saw the stymie as 'a vital ingredient of the match play ethos,' were unmoved. Rapoport, in his book about Jones, also cites Old World reluctance at embracing change, 'especially as the alternative was lifting the ball, an abomination that could lead to such outrages as "surreptitious cleaning" and "inaccurate misplacement."'

The Stymie Abolished

The yielding of the British position eventually came at the 1951 meeting. The previous year, the USGA had finally abolished the stymie altogether, but this wasn't the only area where they and the R. and A. were at loggerheads. The Shell Encyclopedia testifies how golfers increasingly found conditions to be unlike the traditional Scottish links and that, prior to 1952, both bodies had ended up publishing their own set of rules.Far from being unified, there had been an increasing disunity between them, and as the same publication remarks, 'Perhaps the fiercest battle raged over the stymie.'