USGA Responds By Clarifying What It Means To Play Alone

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The comment section is fairly telling, as are the poll results with 73% of you saying it was just fine for lone wolves to post a score for handicap purposes (thanks as always for voting).

Perhaps sensing the chatter a day after announcing that golfers must have full peer review to post a score, or maybe after seeing Golf Canada immediately announce on Twitter they were not going to adopt Section 5-1e vi of the USGA Handicap System Manual (Will Gray reports and here's the Tweet), the USGA sought to highlight some FAQ's.

What constitutes not playing alone?

As long as someone accompanies the player during the round (e.g., fellow competitor, opponent, caddie, marker for a tournament, friend riding along in a cart) the player is not playing alone.
How many holes can a player play alone to post the score?

The player must be accompanied for at least seven holes for a nine-hole score or 13 holes for 18-hole score.

This is consistent with Section 5-1 and the minimum number of holes played under the Rules of Golf.

For the holes played alone (not accompanied), the player would treat these as not played under the Rules of Golf and post according to “par plus” any handicap strokes the player is entitled to receive.

I'm pretty sure that's not going to help, especially judging by the Facebook reaction documented by Keely Levins. Then there's the reaction to the USGA on Twitter.