Forum: Rules Of Golf

There are situations under the rules where you MUST inform your fellow competitor or your opponent, of what you intend to do. What are they? Let's start at list.

An FC used another FCs club during a match with me, stroke play against the other FC from who he borrowed the club. He didn't think anything was wrong with using this club because he only had 13 clubs in the bag. Is this allowed?

A player hits a shot into the trees and starts his 5 minute search. A couple of minutes into the search a ball falls out of a tree and hits the player. The player had not caused the ball to fall. This ball happens to be his. What's the ruling????

Playing in a tournament on #6 at Mississippi, a player hits his tee shot into the hazard that crosses the fairway at 280 yards. The ball is playable but is up against the concrete culvert that goes under the little bridge. "I am taking relief from the culvert," he says. "The culvert is in...

Golfer A hits a 250 yard drive into rough on the right. As he is walking towards the area where he thinks the ball is, golfer B, from an adjacent fairway, is seen hitting a ball. It takes A 3 minutes to get to the area and he searches for his ball for 1 minute. Believing B has hit his ball, he...

Average Difficulty. True story. A golfer hits a shot that embeds in soft turf in a water hazard. He takes a mighty swing with a wedge and extricates a huge chunk of turf out of the hazard in which the ball is still embedded. What is the ruling?

what would you do? Lets say if you try to get a club on the ball you will hit a rock that will damage your fogred wedges... Your ball just happens to land on grass that has rock under it. Yes, I would also like to know what the rules say but also want to know what YOU would do. I personally...

got though 14 before getting rained out. how do i enter this?

Advanced difficulty. A 5' wide cart path runs up the left side of a straightaway par 4. 18" left of the cart path is a 6' high, metal, out of bounds fence. Your ball comes to rest on the geometric middle of the cart path. As you wish to take relief from the cart path, from where may you play...

A player hits his ball thin out of a greenside bunker, and the ball flies over the back of the green, landing approximately 15 yards beyond the back fringe. The ball ends up 3 feet behind the back right corner of a large slab of concrete that extends vertically out of the turf about 12 inches. It...

Is there a penalty if you touch you ball with your club at address in a sand trap but the ball does not change position? Did no touch the sand with the club.:wallbash TY Mike

Im not sure what I'm supposed to do here. If I'm having a really good round and it gets to dark and 3 holes are left unfinished how do you cap the round? Does the dificulty of the last three holes change anything? I'm a 18.1 cap right now. Does it make a difference if you are playing well or...

While playing a round yesterday one of the guys in our group wanted to keep giving instructions throughout the round and it was quite annoying. He also asked me to fix some marks on the green that weren't ball marks. I noticed that he had 15 clubs in his bag and he just told me where I could...

Can a fellow competitor tap down a spike mark in your line of put? I know that you can’t tap down the spike mark from your own line but I was told yesterday that if you say something in regards of a spike mark in your line, your fellow competitor can walk up and tap it down for you without penalty....

This past weekend I witnessed something I had never seen before. My playing partner and long time friend was in the rough when he suddenly carried the ball forward. In tennis it is called a double carry. It was not a double hit as he only hit the ball once but it kind of got stuck on the club along...

I was playing a match on Saturday and the person I was playing against hit their ball into some thick grass....... She wanted to call the ball "unplayable" but after some discussion between people of our foursome, we did not believe that it was ....since she had a full swing and could see the...

Scenario, shortish par 4 (320 yds or so), OB fence line down the left side, but about two feet of sparse bushes before you get to the OB line. A drive comes to rest in the bushes but not OB. Ball is deemed unplayable, players measures two club lengths from the spot of his ball (no nearer the hole),...

My friend (peanut butter steve) was playing a match against another friend and it was discovered that he was wearing a rick smith golf glove... obviously he loses the match but even with the glove he didn't play to his cap so his cap is going to go up. My questions, because he was cheating... he...

Intermediate/Advanced difficulty. Many know that if a golfer is unsure of a ruling in STROKE play, that he may - (1) play two balls, (2) declare with which ball he wants to score, if the rules allow, and (3) that he wants a ruling. In MATCH play, though, playing two balls is not permitted. In...

My ball came to rest about a foot in a lateral hazard on the right side of the green but on top of grass clippings. Do I get relief in the hazard? TY Mike

BEGINNERS/INTERMEDIATES ONLY A cart path runs up the left side of a hole and my tee shot lands a couple of inches to the right of the centre of the path. Being 150 yards from the green I take out my driver to help find my nearest point of relief. I am right handed and because my ball is just...

This one is another real situation but for beginners please. The ball is near the green and landed in a muddy bare patch. I'm standing in the mud to swing at my mud covered ball. 1. Can i clean the mud off my ball? 2. As I'm standing in the mud do I get relief? 3. Since my ball is...

OK guys, this isn't "Tiger related" even though we all witnessed what happened last week-end, especially on Saturday. It happens in almost any major tournaments where the rough is nasty. It seems unfair to me that a guy who missed the fairway by a mile ends up in a more advantageous position than...

Ok, with all of the discussions and questions lately on rules. I was wondering if there were a simple rules book you would recommend. The more complicated rulings I would ask here ;). I was recently told I was taking a two shot penalty when it should have only been one. :lmfaoI am sure that it...

During my round yesterday there was a hole where my friend asked me to move my marker out of his line. After I moved it one putter head length away I noticed it was sitting up a bit so I tapped it down with my putter but it somehow stuck to the bottom of my putter and moved. Having seen it move I...

So I am trying to understand the rules a bit better and this one confuses me a bit. Say you hit your drive and it find the bushes in the rough. It may or may not be findable. But it is definitely not OB. Rule 27.1 states that: If a ball is lost or is out of bounds, the player must play a...

For beginners ONLY. This actually happened at a recent local tournament. As a golfer was taking his stance, water appeared at the base of his shoes and there was a squishing sound under his feet. Is the player entitled to relief under the casual water rule?

Moderately Difficult Ruling A player strikes his ball and it lodges approximately 1.5' inside a huge, rotten tree. The player identifies the ball as his and declares it unplayable. Where does he drop the ball to obtain relief?

Lobbie's ball comes to rest in deep grass on a slope that is in a hazard. He sets up, but has an awkward stance. He moves to one side, still in the hazard and takes a similar stance. He lightly brushes the grass with his club to get a feeling if the shot is worth trying. With this action he does...

The following situation is TRUE, however, I hope that it is acceptable to put it in the Hypothetical Rulings folder. Local Rule in place - mark, lift, clean and place on cut portion of your own fairway. Par 3, 18th hole - A player pulls his tee shot on to a cart path left of a pond, where the...

Played Champlain today, and on the first hole, I hit my 2nd shot into the long grass and trees along the right hand side. I saw it sitting up in the grass. As I approached it, another player who was playing the hole adjacent (#14) walked up to where I saw my ball stop, take out his club, and play...

In a tournament this week there was a fair bit of skunk damage in the rough on a few holes. One competitor was in one of these areas and his nearest point of relief could get him to the fairway but he was certain that he had to make his drop in the rough as that was where his ball was originally. ...

A couple of questions here. I have seen this a few times in the last couple of weeks. There are no signs saying ground under repair but areas on the fairways or just off the fairways are ropped off. I assume that it may be GUR or that it may be to keep garts away as it may be too wet or soft. ...

From the Leith Society website, a situation that resulted in varying opinions about what the correct procedure was. Donna hit her second shot towards the deep rough and trees, dropped a ball and said, "This is a provisional." Before she made a stroke at the provisional ball a forecaddie said,...

Due to a break in an irrigation line, the greens keeper has cordoned off an area of long grass and placed a “Ground Under Repair” sign in the middle of this area. Gerry hits his ball towards this area of long grass from the tee, looks in the GUR for his ball and cannot find it. He searches the...

Nation, #18, par three, 127 yards from very elevated tee box. Dave lofts a PW hign and it lands directly in the hole... and bounces out. Hole checked, did not hit the plastic liner/lip. Is it a hole in one? My vote yes, what say the rules gurus?

One of the main reasons I ask, a lot of my friends (including myself) take another shot if they badly miss a green on a par three if there is no one behind us. They call it a provisional so its not 3 off the tee but they know where there ball is, there is no chance of it being lost. The reason...

From a Rules website. Dave hits his ball into a large flower bed (Local Rule play prohibited) and asked his two FC's, to agree on the location of the free drop for a ball lost in the Flower bed. The two FC's agreed that it was known or virtually certain that the ball went into the Flower bed and...

dogleg right, cart path lines the right side of the fairway and beyond it are a scattering of trees you can't shoot through/over. ball lands about three feet on the right side of the cart path slightly before the corner, no shot to the green because trees are blocking. feet are on cart path on...

In taking relief from an embedded ball Bob measures and marks one clublength from the pitch mark no closer to the hole and then drops the ball. The ball strikes the ground 4-5 inches from the pitch mark and comes to rest within an inch or so of where it first struck the ground. The rule says...

As many golfers do NOT play farthest from the hole goes first when around the greens, this is a common situation. John is on the putting green 50' from the hole and Gerry is on the fringe 30' from the hole. John putts and at the same time Gerry chips, his ball striking John's and knocking...

Mississippi Golf Club, number 4, is a par 3 with a bunker at the back of the green. Mike hits his tee shot and the ball buries under the lip of the very back part of the circular bunker. Thinking he can play a shot sideways, he makes a stroke at the ball, but instead, drives the ball even further...

My ball landed in a clump of three tree trunks. I would have had to take two unpayables to get back to the rough, but I had an opening to recover. Unfortunately, I only had about six inches for my backswing. I made it out, but with such a short swing it sure felt more like scooping up the...

Got an interesting situation today. The guy i was playing with hit a ball inside a hazard area. The ball was in a thick grassy area; without realizing it, his ball was sitting on top of another ball that had been lost. When he hit the shot his ball popped up and went nowhere while the ball under...

played at royal woodbine in toronto and the rating is 71.4 and the slope is 136. I played from the blues. Total yards was supposed to be 6189 but it was much less. There were 3 holes where we had to tee off from the white tee box and one par 3 was moved to the tips. Also, one of the par 4s was...

Hi Gang: I have gone thru the RCGA rules, and unless I am blind, has any one ever heard of any type of ruling on whether golf bags that are carried can be dropped on the tee off area while hitting? Appreciate you help on this? Phoenix