[Photo: Keyur Khamar]<\/p>\n
The PGA Tour is changing one of its most controversial rules ahead of the 2026 season, and golf purists should be at least a little bit happy about it.<\/p>\n
There are few things that get Golf Twitter fired up more than pros playing preferred lies during tournaments. To many, the \u201cLift, Clean, and Place\u201d rule equates to lift, clean and cheat as players in the fairway are allowed to move their golf ball within one club-length (no closer to the hole) in wet conditions.<\/p>\n
RELATED: Do players on tour cheat? Our Undercover Caddie has the answer<\/a><\/p>\n But as PGA Tour winner Michael Kim revealed this week, the tour has made an alteration to this local rule that will lessen how much relief a player can take. Have a look:<\/p>\n Great new rule change to the pgatour lift clean and place rule. Instead of a full club length relief, it\u2019s only scorecard relief. Experienced it during DP world tour and thought it was much better. A full club length can really change the angle of a chip shot some times pic.twitter.com\/cJveuldcI1<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Michael S. Kim (@Mike_kim714) January 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n As Kim explains, only being able to move your golf ball the length of a scorecard and not a full club-length is \u201ca great new rule change\u201d. Kim adds, \u201cExperienced it during DP world tour and thought it was much better. A full club length can really change the angle of a chip shot some times.\u201d<\/p>\n In a follow-up tweet, Kim confirms that, yes, all scorecards used on the PGA Tour are standard length so there can be no shenanigans with players using bigger ones.<\/p>\n Yes on the pgatour<\/p>\n \u2014 Michael S. Kim (@Mike_kim714) January 6, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n To the \u201cPlay it as it lies!\u201d crowd including those at the USGA<\/a>, this still isn\u2019t a perfect solution. And it still doesn\u2019t address the PGA Tour\u2019s seemingly generous invoking of this rule. But this small modification will make many \u2013 including the players themselves \u2013 feel better about it.<\/p>\n RELATED: Here\u2019s how the USGA answered two of 2025\u2019s strangest rules questions<\/a><\/p>\n