You think you know the rules of golf?

Forget it. It might surprise you how little you know. They're so complex that even professional golfers can get confused. They can't remember them all and some of the rules even surprise them. So it's not only Michelle Wie.

Take the case of Boo Weekley in last week's Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill.

In trying to be nice to his playing partner, Tom Johnson, Weekley rushed over to pull out the flagstick so that Johnson's ball wouldn't hit it.

Had Johnson's ball hit the unattended flagstick it would have been a 2-stroke penalty for him because he was on the green. Instead, Weekley got the 2-stroke penalty in violation of Rule 17-2, which states that "if a fellow competitor or his caddie, without the player's authority or prior knowledge, attends, removes or holds up the flagstick during the stroke or while the ball is in motion, and the act might influence the movement of the ball, the fellow competitor incurs the applicable penalty."

Weekley's 67 turned into a 69, and eventually cost him around $20,000 as he finished 14th rather than ninth. So much for being a nice guy.

"That's the thing about this game. You never stop learning," Weekley said.

"I've seen some pretty weird things on the golf course, but that's one of the hardest penalties I have ever seen," Johnson said. "He was just trying to do me a favor."

Even Mark Russell, a PGA Tour rules official, had to say, "I've never heard of that in my 27 years in golf." And this is from a guy who wrote the most understandable book on the subject, "Golf Rules Plain & Simple."

I bring this up not only because golf does have some weird rulings, but because Weekley played with Tadd Fujikawa in the Sony Open in Hawai'i.

I remember asking Weekley after he had chatted with Fujikawa on the ninth green when the youngster got a free relief from the driving range netting all the way across the other side of the fairway.

"I asked him what the ruling was. I wanted to know what it was," Weekley said. Even back then he knew you never stop learning.

Now, let's talk weird.

Greg Nichols, Ko Olina Golf Club's general manager, remembers his good friend and 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger getting a 2-stroke penalty, also in violation of Rule 17-2, but under completely different circumstances.

It occurred in the Canadian Open, and Fred Funk was putting from off the green.

"Fred's ball was nowhere near the hole, so Zinger's caddie, Ted Scott, pulled the flagstick because Paul was next to putt," Nichols recalled. But Funk's ball was still moving and hadn't come to a complete stop, so Azinger was penalized.

A lot of rule violations involve caddies, especially the rule (6.4) where a player can be assisted by only one caddie at a time. It gets weirder when golf carts are allowed in tournament play.

Just ask local golf instructor Les Uyehara about it. He was playing in the JAL Rainbow Open when a friend, other than his caddie, moved his cart to get it out of the way. The third party was the "second caddie" since only Uyehara or his caddie could move the cart. Uyehara was disqualified.

It also happened to Mike Rich, then the University of Hawai'i men's golf coach, in another JAL Rainbow Open. His wife was driving the cart, but his son, wanting to help, put his dad's clubs away in the golf bag. Rich was also DQ'd.

"There are some real funky ones," said Kevin Hayashi about the rules of golf.

One in particularly occurred to him in the U.S. Open qualifying at Turtle Bay's Palmer Course three years ago. Hayashi was in the bunker sizing up his second shot when his caddie, Elton Tanaka, went into the bunker nowhere near Hayashi to retrieve a rake. Tanaka smoothed the sand on his way out. It was a violation of Rule 13.4a for testing the condition of a hazard. The 2-stroke penalty cost Hayashi a chance for the lone spot which went to Parker McLachlin.

Mark Wilson's caddie cost him two strokes for giving advice to another player, but the beauty of it was that Wilson went on to win the Honda Classic three weeks ago for his first PGA Tour victory.

Golf's severest penalty is being disqualified from winning a tournament, especially a major, for signing an incorrect scorecard. Roberto de Vincenzo (Masters) and Hawai'i's Jackie Pung (U.S. Women's Open) are the first to come to mind.

David Ishii has never been DQ'd for signing an incorrect scorecard, but he's embarrassed about putting down a wrong score for a fellow player, Leland Lindsay, in last year's Mid-Pacific Open. Instead of a 4, which Lindsay made on the ninth hole, Ishii put a 38, Lindsay's nine-hole total. No one checked the scorecard, including Lindsay, who signed it. He was credited with shooting a 110.

"That was the worst thing that happened to me," said Ishii, who apologized the next day. "We all didn't catch it."

While Ishii felt bad, under the rules of golf, Lindsay was responsible for the correctness of his own score recorded on each hole.

There are so many what-ifs in golf, a sport in which the rules are hard and fast, but at times, not really fair in spirit.

Says Uyehara, "I remember Babe Carter (one of Hawai'i's top rules officials) telling me (that) the 'spirit' of the rule is to help the golfer, not penalize the golfer."

It doesn't always work out that way.

So it's best to keep learning the rules, as Weekley said.

"That's why I cringed when Michelle said that the rules of golf isn't great reading," said golf commentator Mark Rolfing. "You've got to know the rules. Sometimes it can help you."