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Quick! How many rules are there in Rules of Golf? If you say 34, then you are in company of a small population of golfers who know this like it was their birthday.

The USGA and the R&A (that's Royal & Ancient for you, duffers) jointly write, interpret and maintain the Rules of Golf for every golfer to adhere to. What that means simply is that any golfer worth his/her salt should strive hard to guard the tradition and integrity of the game. Unfortunately, golf to a lot of people is simply hitting, finding and holing out their ball. Interpretation of the rules somehow gets lost somewhere in between. They forget that the fun and excitement of the game is actually embedded in following the rules.

Rules were written for the enjoyment of the sport. Have you ever played basketball without rules? How lame is that?

What good will a score of 76 give you if you broke every rule in the book? Out of bounds? No problem - I'll just take a drop without penalty because my ball shouldn't have and couldn't have gone astray if the golf gods were kinder to me. Or my putting seems off today - I'll just give myself a gimme on this one.

In my 18 years of playing this game, I've seen these scenarios play out hundreds of times - players trying to wiggle themselves out of a rather obvious infraction, or rationalizing why they should not be penalized for hitting from the wrong place, let alone hitting the wrong ball. I bothers me no end to listen to people skirting rules and interpretting them differently to suit their needs to the point of making their own rules.

I am not a big fan of some of these rules myself but they are there for a reason - sometimes to keep the golfers out of harms way. Take for instance the out of bounds rule. Golfers are advised not to even try retrieving their ball which went out of bounds for it may mean crossing a perimeter fence or highway, and just take the stroke-and-distance penalty. Or the rule that allows standing astride on the line of putt, clearly an infraction in the old days, but practical these days to avoid the wrath of the owner of the line of putt.

Are we expected to know all the rules? Not exactly. Not even the pros know all the rules. But it helps us enjoy the game even more if we know and apply the rules.