Imagine you are responsible for designing a golf course. Would you be focused on incorporating drains into the design for the purposes of challenging the player? Or would any such drains be a necessary practical solution to facilitate the removal of surface-water runoff generated as a consequence of the local climate, topography and geology?

If the drainage channels were not required for practical reasons, they wouldn’t be included as part of the course design. Hence, we do not consider them as part of the challenge of completing the course. Instead, they’re an unfortunate necessity working to keep the course as playable as possible following inclement weather.  

The Committee has undertaken an assessment of the Rules of Golf, the unique requirements of the club membership, and the overwhelming majority of social golfers which play the course outside of competition days to reach the following consensus: free relief from drains is warranted based on the following reasons:

• Risk assessment shows that play from uneven and sloping ground increases the chance of slips, trips, falls and potential for golfing related injuries;
• Tree roots are present throughout sections of the drains and are likely to become more prominent with time;
• Temporal variations affect the playing quality of the drains, including accumulation of water and mud, development of weeds through the seasons and damage caused by mowing during soft ground conditions.

The Committee appreciates the concerns raised by the minority of vocal members in relation to this matter. However, as the saying goes: you can keep some people happy some of the time. But the needs of the majority must take precedence. As outlined above, the drains are not a deliberate feature of the playing conditions, they serve as an engineering function to remove water from the course.

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