Forum: Rules Of Golf

My question relates to course difficulty based on ratings and slopes. For eample, Course "A" has a rating of 69.5 and a slope of 117. Course "B" has a rating of 68.4 and a slope of 120. Which course would be considered the most difficult? Witrh regards. RJS

Hi. Just wondering if a chipper is a legal club....(the club that looks like a putter but has an offset face) Thanks. :wave

Some courses are so small that you risk to shoot the wrong green. This is what happened and lead to a question about the rules. I had misjudged the course on the 1st hole at Canadian and sent my wedge shot on the green (looks like a practice green) left of the true green. Having been brought up...

QUOTE All lakes and ditches are defined as water hazards (red and yellow stakes) PENALTY - 1 stroke , drop two club length from point of entry. UNQUOTE The above quote is printed on the back of score card at a local golf course. However there is no stakes at the golf course around the dithches...

I am about to make my initial attempt at matching a set of clubs by total weight, first and second moments of inertia. A specified amount of weight is to be added to the clubs, some under the grip and some at a point between the bottom of the grip and the clubhead. Rather than put a plug down...

In Friday's Mercedes second round, Stuart Appelby hit a ball on a short, driveable par 4 into an area where he thought the ball might be lost. He them hit a provisional ball. When the telecast came back to him a few minutes later, he was standing near his provisional ball. The commentator...

Hi Gary Would this Grip Tee be legal or illegal for golf / tournament play? I think this design is now illegal for Long Drive competition this year.

During the last round of the Sony Open, Davis Love III hit his approach shot way right of the green, in fact in went behind the grandstand and under a van/truck. He was given a free drop. Why? I thought he would get a one stroke penalty and drop it where it went out of bounds. Any thoughts?

The new rulebook is here! The new rulebook is here! Some interesting changes. Here's the synopsis, http://www.rcga.org/english/Rules/CHANGES_TO_RULES.pdf Among the highlights for you extremists out there. Appendix II Club Length Clause 1c amended to include a new 48 inch limit....

Hey Gary, A player is surveying a putt while the ball is on the green with ball marker directly behind ball (I see tour pros do this all the time). Lets say that the player sets up like he's going to hit the putt so he can look down the line, he grounds his putter behind ball and coin, causing...

Had an argument with a friend who said becoming a CPGA was easy. I understood that you had to have a specific handicap AND go through a qualification round. Is this correct?

Hi; Hate to go back to basics but - I have had conflicting opinions on this point of etiquette... If a player is addressing the ball and his head is pointed a 12:00 and his butt is at 6:00 where do I stand? Once I was about 20 ft behind at 9:00 and the guy teed off and then...

The rules contest ending March 28 had this question and answer: A half-eaten pear lies directly in front of Bob's ball in a bunker and there is no pear tree in the vicinity of the bunker. Can Bob remove the pear without penalty? No. A pear is a natural object. When detached from a tree it is...

That Poulter incident where his physiotherapist went in the creek to look for his ball and Garcia clubbing his club in the bunker were definitely strange and I think unfair rulings, it was clear Poulter did not mean to put his ball in the water and it was also clear that Garcia did not know he went...

What does someone have to do to get an RCGA (or other official) handicap? Is this about playing with a CGPA pro or some stuff like that? Or being a member and having signed scorecards? I'm just curious, as I'd like to plan out my next 10 years of golf around some kind of tangible goal. How...

I've heard that contacting the ball in a practice swing doesn't count as a shot, although I can't find anything official on the subject and will take the stroke as is until I can confirm that. But, operating under that train of thought, what happens if you're on the tee and make contact with the...

Does anyone have an opinion on the claim by Ken Venturi that Arnold Palmer "did wrong" in the 1958 Masters. The issue resurfaced recently with Venturi's book on his life in golf. Apparently Palmer, who was leading the tournament overshot a par three and plugged his ball. He asked for a ruling and...

Interesting ruling on # 11 Augusta After Ernie drove his tee shot into the woods on # 11, he had a couple of unsuccessful tries to move fallen tree branches whitout moving his ball. The ball was unplayable as it lied. He called the ruling officials (3 of them) to give him a ruling that allows...

I caught the tail-end of a story on the Golf Channel last night about some sort of contraversy last week involving Stewart Cink, anybody catch that story? Something with him in a waste bunker???

Are you allowed to bring a rules book with you on the course in a competitive event? I know in my pool league each team is required to have a rulebook, but I've never seen a golfer carrying one. Dan

At the Spring Open qualifier today my ball ended up on a huge ant hill adjacent to the 13th tee. One of my fellow competitors was unsure if I got relief, so I chose to play two balls, one taking relief and the other, playing the original ball. I hit the ball with which I took relief on to the...

Here is a question maybe easy for most of you. A fellow competitor drove the ball off line in the woods. Since it was not marked as a hazard, a provisional ball was hit. After searching, the original ball was found. The ball is unplayable. The provisional is eliminated cause he found the...

My ball lands in a water hazard and I decide that I want to play it out. I do not ground the club, however, the club touches some long grass that is growing in the hazard, as I take my backswing. As I start down I decide that I want to stop my swing and do so before contacting the ball,...

Similar to the previous thread, with a little twist. This actually happened to a friend last week. The player addresses his ball in the hazard, takes his backswing and as he starts down his club contacts a tree branch. The tree is in the hazard. He checks his swing. He does not make contact...

This happened a few weeks ago at Hautes Plaines: A fellow competitor hits his ball into a bunker where there's lots (and I mean lots) of very fluffy sand (greeen side bunker on 5th hole). This ball is buried under the sand (0% visible) and, therefore, cannot be identified. What are his...

At Casselview a playing partner experienced his ball in bounds, but he couldn't swing because he was too close to a farmers fence. There were no white stakes to indicate out of bounds. With his ball on the course, but a hindrance which was not part of the course, I believe he gets free relief. ...

Two balls lie in the fairway and are next to each other and are so close that it makes it impossible for yourself to hit your ball without hitting your fellow competitor's ball as well. What's the proper thing to do? What if the same situation happens in a hazard? (bunker or water hazard)

I was at the Canadian today, chipping onto the 17th green. My playing partner's ball was already on the green. I chipped on, and my shot rolled into my opponents ball. My shot was obviously slowed down, and his ball was knocked further from the hole. We ended up replacing his ball where we...

In taking a drop from a cart path, it is my understanding that you must take "full relief". In other words, you cannot still stand on the cartpath after taking relief. The argument could be made that this says nothing about the stance. My take on it is that the stance is understood to be...

Hi Gary, In the spirit of the season (it is a Ryder Cup year after all) I have a match-play question. Players A and B are opponents in a singles match. Both player’s balls are on the green, A is lying 3, B lies 2 and has a putt to win the hole. B strokes his putt and misses and his ball rolls...

This scenario has happened twice in my tournament golf lifetime and in both cases I did not handle the situation correctly. On the first tee of our club championship several years ago three of the four members of the group indicated the marks on their ball identifying them as their own. The...

When qualifying for our Intersectional Team, we use Stableford points to determine team members. On the scorecard the marker was asked to mark the player's score for the hole and the Stableford points earned. When the player attests his scorecard, is he marking for the correct hole by hole...

According to the rules of golf, are you allowed to play a match play and a Stableford match at the same time? For example, if you are a member at a golf course, can you play on men's night (which uses a modified Stableford scoring system) and play a match play at the same time? What happens...

Some courses allow relief from small trees less than 2 club lenghts in height. does anyone know if this is a rule for all courses?

33-7. Disqualification Penalty; Committee Discretion A penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the Committee considers such action warranted. Any penalty less than disqualification must not be waived or modified. If a Committee...

I was playing in the AGF qualifier yesterday. My playing partner used his putter as a ball marker, picked up his ball, cleaned it and replaced it in front of the putter. I did not call him on that incident cause I was not sure of the ruling. Anybody know if he should have hade a two-stroke penalty?...

In match play you normally count the wins/losses/even for each hole against each opponent. At least this what I understand of the rule. In Slammer Tour, the practice is also to record the score for each hole. The score is used for statistics only, the match play scores are used for establishing...

You are standing on the other side of the hole with feet straddling the extended line of putt and stroke the ball with a pull type motion. Stance is O.K. because line of putt does not extend past the hole. Stroke motion is questionable. Scrapping motion is clearly illegal but is also...

In a recent club tournament a player ducked hooked a ball out of view to the left and as the players were walking toward the area where the ball could have been, a non-competitor(green fee player) was seen picking up a ball. The competitors asked to see the ball and the green fee player...

Check this out. http://www.usga.org/playing/rules/animations/index.asp There's 6 available now with 20 more to come. Cool. :bigcheek

Last year I played in the Citizen Amatuer Tourney. The first day I was paired with a guy who hit his ball in the deep rough/trees all day. Every time he hit his shot into the trees, he would jump in his golf cart, race 280 yards up to his ball and start a frenzied walk around the ball in a tight...

A friend of mine recently played in a local stroke-play golf tournament. On one hole he hit his drive in the centre of the fairway and when he and his group walked up, the ball had disappeared. After looking for 5 minutes, the player makes the long walk back to the tee alone, hits a bad hook into...

Hi Gary, I've noticed in Loch March's local rules that 3 of the 4 par-3's have designated drop areas. In an instance where the drop areas (on any course) are specified in the local rules, do these drop areas supercede the regular rules pertaining to water hazards and lateral water hazards, or...

On our road trip last weekend, I got penalized twice for playing the wrong ball. First time, it was a friendly game that my playing partner had played my ball first and after I made my shot to the green, I found out that in fact it wasn't my ball, When I asked him if he has my ball, the answer...

Ok, so I have bought the little book, kept track of my scores, played enough rounds to work out a handicap. Now, what are those handicap numbers for each hole for? And why are the numbers so unrelated to each other? Thanks