Dai Rees, captain of the '57 Great Britain Ryder Cup which beat the US, demonstrates how they used to do the stymie in the good old days ...
On this day, in 1951, a rule which is today considered archaic but
was very much a fabric of the game in the first half of the last
century, was eliminated from the Rules of Golf: the stymie.
Most
golfers born since the 1940s probably wouldn't even know of the stymie,
which made golf a heck of a lot more evil and - possibly - a bit more
fun.
In singles match play, until 1951, that is, players didn't
mark their balls on the green and weren't lifted unless they were
laying six inches apart or closer. So, a clever player who was behind
on a hole could use a clever putt, and roll his ball in between the
hole and his opponent's ball, thereby forcing said opponent to have to
putt around or over the ball in the path.
Sound a bit like snooker? ...