Weirfan I hear you. My first thought was that people who aren't very good at math (and maybe even those that are good at math) will have a really hard time trying to figure out what point in the fairway is no closer to the hole.
You have to imagine a long length of twine that stretches from the hole to the spot where your ball went out of bounds. If you had such a piece of twine, you could hold onto it tightly and then walk over to the fairway. You will have walked in an ARC. You are going to essentially walk a portion of a large circle that has a radius of the distance from the hole to where your ball went out of bounds.
I'd guess that most people not only would not be able to do that accurately if they understood that that's what they were supposed to do, but further that most people won't even understand the simple geometry I just outlined. You certainly can't just go laterally straight over to the fairway, because that would definitely be closer. You needn't (but can) go at an angle slightly towards the tee but walk in a straight line, which would make it so that you are farther away than you were.
So yes, in general, I agree with you that although the rule is simple, the physical execution of the rule is likely to be a lot more complex than they think it will be.
