On April 26, 1998, at 0911 hours Pacific daylight time, a Beech C23, N9144S, was substantially damaged when it departed the runway laterally and impacted a ditch 75 to 100 feet off the side of the runway at Tulare, California. The private pilot and one passenger were not injured and no property damage was incurred. The flight had departed from Bakersfield, California, on a visual flight to Tulare. No flight plan was filed and visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal flight. The pilot stated in his report that, on the landing roll, he applied right rudder to correct his ground path to runway centerline. When he applied left rudder to stop the turn, he got no aircraft response until he had applied full left rudder. At that time the aircraft entered an abrupt left turn from which he could not recover before departing the runway surface. The aircraft was damaged to the extent that it was not possible to conduct a high speed taxi test to evaluate aircraft response to nosewheel steering commands.