OFF THE RECORD

Golf Rules
Houston Attorney Officiates at USGA Tournaments

By Mark Schuck

This June, when you are trying to watch the U.S. Open at work on your computer, think of HBA member and ExxonMobil attorney Jeff Kuhn, who will be at the event as a rules official, possibly officiating a group including Tiger or Phil or even Rory. This year the tournament will be held at Pebble Beach in California. Last year, it was played at the famous Bethpage Black in New York. Kuhn officiated all four-plus, water-logged days of the event and also blogged about it for the Houston Chronicle.

Also, think of Kuhn the next time you look up a word in Black’s Law Dictionary. Kuhn co-wrote The Rules of Golf in Plain English with Black’s Law editor and legal wordsmith Bryan Garner (more on this later).

Officiating in the United States Golf Association’s premier event is a culmination of some 20 years of volunteer work that Kuhn has done for the USGA. He got into golf rules officiating in 1991, when, based upon a brother-in-law’s recommendation, he attended a four-day USGA Rules of Golf Workshop. Kuhn said that his “head was spinning” at his first workshop, but he was intrigued enough to go again two years later. At the end of each four-day workshop, a rules test is administered. If you score a 92 or higher on the exam, you are eligible to officiate in USGA national championships. Kuhn earned his eligibility in 1996 and has retained it ever since. He has now been to nine or ten rules workshops.

In addition to the U.S. Open, the USGA conducts the Women’s Open, the Senior Open, and many amateur championships each year. In order for a golfer to play in a USGA event, he or she usually has to qualify to do so. All around the U.S. each spring and summer, there are qualifiers for these tournaments, many of which occur in the Houston area. These qualifiers are where Kuhn got his start.

Kuhn first helped organize and officiate U.S. Junior Amateur qualifiers in the Houston area. Then in 1994, he went to the U.S. Junior Amateur at Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield, New Jersey. “I loved it,” he said, “and I started going to the Junior Am every year after that.”

After attending several Junior Ams, Kuhn got a call in 1999 to officiate a U.S. Senior Open, often a first step in toward an invitation to officiate a U.S. Open. Next, he was invited to a U.S. Amateur, and in 2004, he received his first call to officiate a U.S. Open, held that year at Shinnecock Hills on New York’s Long Island. Kuhn has officiated the last six U.S. Opens, and in all, he has officiated over 30 USGA national championships. He is on the USGA Regional Affairs Committee where he serves as the official-in-charge of U.S. Open qualifiers for the Gulf Coast.

So what does a golf rules official do? Golf is unique in that the players officiate themselves and assess their own penalties. However, The Rules of Golf is very complicated, and its companion, Decisions on the Rules of Golf, a book similar in many ways to an annotated statute book, is even more so. Hence, whenever a player has a question under the rules, the player turns to a rules official, who must quickly inform the player of his options. This ensures that players do not jeopardize their round by following an incorrect procedure, and it helps keep up the pace of play.

The complexity of the rules led to The Rules of Golf in Plain English. “I was sitting in a Garner seminar on legal writing, and during breaks I was studying The Rules of Golf for an upcoming rules workshop when the idea struck me,” said Kuhn.

He approached Garner during the next break and said, “We should tackle The Rules of Golf.” Garner, also a golfer, agreed. What followed many months later was a co-written manuscript of The Rules of Golf in Plain English. Garner used his publishing contacts, and Kuhn used his USGA contacts for permission (The Rules of Golf are owned by the USGA). The first edition of The Rules of Golf in Plain English was published in 2004; the second, published in 2008, incorporates the USGA’s latest rules revisions.

The drawbacks of golf officiating are few, Kuhn says, but it does take up a lot of time. Officials also have to pay their own transportation and lodging costs for all tournaments. “It is truly volunteer work,” Kuhn says. There are also the occasional difficult decisions one has to make as an official. Most notably, in a 2006 U.S. Open sectional qualifier held at Houston’s Lakeside Country Club, Kuhn was the official who had to inform former PGA Champion Steve Elkington that he would have to abide by Lakeside’s soft spikes policy or he would not be permitted to play. Elkington chose not to abide and withdrew from the event. The exchange was not overly pleasant. Kuhn had previously sent all contestants a packet of information notifying them of Lakeside’s soft spikes policy, and the contestants’ signed application also stated the policy. Kuhn notes that other professionals in the event, including former U.S. Open champion Tom Kite, had no problem with the spikes policy.

The benefits of officiating are many. Aside from the obvious—getting inside-the-ropes access at major golf tournaments, during which, “You can literally feel the pressure in the air at a major championship. It’s electric”—Kuhn says that being involved with golf rules officiating puts you in contact with great people, 80 percent of whom Kuhn estimates hold a graduate degree of some kind. “There are a lot of lawyers,” Kuhn says, “The training of law school and reading statutes prepares you well for being able to understand the Rules of Golf.”

Another reason Kuhn has contributed so much of his time over the years to the USGA is that, “I love being around competitive tournament golf. It is night and day different from playing on the weekend with your buddies. There is a certain feel about it that I just really enjoy.”

Between working, officiating, and spending time with his family, Kuhn is quite a golfer in his own right, currently carrying a 4.0 handicap index. He says that officiating has probably helped his game a bit, too, “by being able to see how exceptional players manage a golf course and their strategic approach in deciding the best way to make a par or avoid a big number.”
A particular example of this that he recalls is “once watching Ray Floyd shoot an amazing 68 in a Senior Open when he hit only three fairways.”

Keep an eye out for Kuhn at the U.S. Open or for his book at your local bookstore.

Mark Schuck runs The Schuck Law Firm where he focuses on business litigation, business bankruptcy, and appeals. He is a member of The Houston Lawyer editorial board.

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