Some of you will cringe,ButMy senior group has "Leaf Rule"A ball lost IN THE FAIRWAY because of leavesmay be replaced with no penalty at the approximate spot where it was lost.
It speeds up play and keeps us all happy.
Several years ago I was playing in the final of our County Interclub Foursomes and our opponents drive went under some trees between 2 fairways, generally cut to semi rough height, so we all expected them to find it. 5 minutes of kicking leaves later and the ball had to be declared lost. It felt a very strange way to win a hole, made all the stranger by the fact that there werent many other leaves on the course, just under this one bunch of trees (I dont recall the species). I suspect a few days later the wind will have blown the leaves away and someone will have wondered why there was a nice new ProV1 sitting under the trees?
As per David's article, when I had a larger garden I always preferred leaving the leaves were they were and letting nature take its course, rather than the modern obsession with tidying up nature. And dont get me started on leaf blowers!
However at Hollinwell (Notts GC) we have plenty of broad leaf trees that drop their leaves into the heather beds which the heather really doesnt like, but its certainly not easy to clear leaves from within the heather. As the broad leaf trees in question arent natural to the heathland we are going through the process of removing some of them, but you can really see the heather beds near these trees suffering in comparison to the ones out in the open.
Cheers,
James