As announced in the early of March 2017, the USGA and R&A went through a five-year review over the current rules and proposed a series of changes in 2019. Accordingly, the new golf rule book will have 24 rules instead of 34 as before, to achieve the goals below:
- Simplification: making the Golf Rules easier to understand and implement.
- Reduce penalties
- Speed up a round: via some small details in keeping pace rules.