Don't you just hate it when you see footballers on TV unloading a mouthful of spittle almost every time they draw breath?
My memory always harks back to that classic 'Not the 9 o'clock News' sketch where they introduced a 'Gob of the month' award, asking viewers to nominate the best action - to include technical merit and entertainment value!
It also reminds me that I once witnessed an official tobacco-spitting contest on a street corner in the stockyards at Fort Worth, Texas.
Competitors were allowed to chew tobacco for 60 seconds before projecting it across to the opposite pavement. It was won by a woman!
So what's has this to do with golf? Quite a lot, really, because the R&A, in conjunction with the US PGA Tour, has instituted a Rule which identifies saliva as either a 'loose impediment' or 'abnormal ground condition' if it's on the line of a putt!
In its latest volume of 'Decisions on the Rules of Golf' -recommended bedtime reading for any avid golfer - the R&A has introduced an item on expectorating.
According to the Daily Telegraph, a club pro came across saliva on the line of his putt and was unsure how to proceed, so an official submitted it to the august St Andrews body for a ruling.
Commented the R&A's Grant Moir: "I don't know that we really wanted such a decision in the 2002 book, but we felt this was a situation which had to be dealt with.''
The R&A chewed on it for a while and eventually decided that saliva must be treated either as "an abnormal ground condition'' covered under Rule 25-1, or a "loose impediment'' covered under Rule 23-1.
Under the first option, players can drop away from the saliva by using the same rules that apply to casual water. Under the second option, they can remove the saliva.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has revealed that players were reminded last year that spitting is poor etiquette. Yes and that means you Mr Woods!
"It's also not sanitary,'' he said.
So if you have any footballers in your golf group, who momentarily forget where they are, first have a word about their nasty habit and then take relief in the prescribed manner.
It's also very unhealthy to lick your balls, but that's another story.
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