The message is clear from the powers that be: hold on to your balls.

The Rules of Golf can often make for fairly eye-watering reading.

Yet even those hardened officials at the Royal & Ancient bowed to 'common sense' last year and tweaked some of the game's more harsh commandments. One item in the hefty volume of golfing dos and don'ts won't be changing any time soon, however.

It seems Paul Lawrie can't do anything wrong on the course at the moment but the former Open champion became the second-high profile victim of rule 20-3 last weekend during his ultimately successful Qatar Masters campaign.

The 43-year-old accidentally dropped his ball on his coin marker on the 10th green during round two and was given a one-stroke penalty. The same thing happened to Ian Poulter during a play-off for the 2010 Dubai World Championship, which the Englishman would lose. Lawrie went on to win in Qatar despite his fumble but the Aberdonian still described the rule (under Decision 20-1/15) as one of "those freak, stupid rules."

He added: "Nobody purposely throws a ball on a coin to knock it closer to the hole."

Last year, the R&A took steps to alter a couple of widely considered "stupid" rules after two well-publicised incidents. Padraig Harrington was harshly disqualified from the Abu Dhabi Championship when, after signing his card, it was brought to light by a TV viewer – or an 'armchair anorak' – that his ball had moved a fraction as he took his marker away. If it happened now, the penalty would be two strokes.

Webb Simpson, meanwhile, was given a one-shot penalty in the final round of the PGA Tour's Zurich Classic when the wind blew his ball a quarter of an inch as he addressed it on the 15th green.

That mistake essentially cost him the title as he lost to Bubba Watson in a play-off but now there is no penalty for such an infringement from Mother Nature.

The ball-marking rule, which has caused such anguish to butter-fingered Poulter and Lawrie, is here to stay, however.

"I remember the Ian Poulter incident and I've read about the one regarding Paul Lawrie in Qatar last week," said David Rickman, the R&A's Director of Rules. "It's tough. Do the rules always seem fair? Maybe not. But perhaps this particular occurance is the result of carelessness. This is not a rule we intend to have a look at."

Another issue the golfing custodians may have another look at, however, is the belly putter. According to reports from across the Atlantic, in the wake of the United States Golf Association's agm last weekend, there have been renewed calls for robust debate on the topic of 'anchoring', the method in which the putter is secured against the body in a manner considered to be outside the definition of a natural or traditional stroke.

Given the increasingly widespread use of long putters, and the fact that Keegan Bradley became the first player to win a major with a belly putter at last year's US PGA Championship, the horse has long since bolted.

Yet, Mike Davis, the executive director of the USGA, said: "All of a sudden, this has become a much bigger topic. The USGA and R&A have been talking about this at length."

Rickman, meanwhile, gave little away, and added: "The issue of anchoring and long/belly putters has come to the fore again in recent months. We have regular discussions with the USGA as part of our everyday governance of the game and this is something that we are continuing to look at along with many other aspects of the game."

The USGA is expected to address the issue again publicly during June's US Open.