- 3 minutes ago
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by resident rules expert Fergus Bisset to run through the 5 rules mistakes that will cost you a one-shot penalty. These would be classed as relatively minor breaches where it wouldn't seem like you're gaining a massive advantage over the field, yet they do still unfortunately incur a penalty under the rules so be sure to watch them all to make sure you don't have to add any unwanted shots to your scorecard.
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00:00Hello and welcome to The London Club and this video in which we're going to take a look
00:03at the five golf rules mistakes that everyone should know but that will only cost you one
00:09stroke if you make them. They'll only cost you one stroke because for the most part
00:13they are deemed to be a sort of minor infraction in the rules but they are well worth knowing
00:19because these are mistakes that we can all make. I'm joined in this video by golf rules expert
00:23Fergus Bissett. And finally this video is being sponsored by our very good friends at HalloFresh.
00:28We have an amazing offer for anyone watching this video and more on that later. Get out there,
00:33onto the golf course and get started. Right Fergus, so I have just hit my approach shot into this green
00:40and I've hit it terribly thin, really quite thin. Okay. And before I go about the delicate process of
00:46trying to get this one up and down, I quite want to see whether I've caused any sort of terminal
00:50damage to my golf ball. Okay. And now I know I'm now in danger of incurring a one-shot penalty if
00:56I'm not careful. Come to the rescue. Tell me what I can and can't do. Okay. Rule 4.2c part one.
01:03It trips off the tongue. It does. Now, if you were not reasonably sure that there had been damage
01:11to your ball, you would not be able to lift it. You could incur a one-shot penalty for lifting it
01:15if you didn't really believe that there was some damage to it. Oh, really? Oh, right. So the fact
01:19that I have to hit this terribly thin is okay. That's okay. So you're okay. Now, you have to mark
01:24your ball before you lift it. Okay. If you didn't mark it like that and you lifted it, you would incur
01:31a one-shot penalty. Okay. So I'm okay so far. So you're okay. Now, you can have a look at it. Now,
01:36it looks pretty clean, but if your ball had some dirt on it, you would not at this point be able
01:42to clean it. If you cleaned it, even to have a look, if it was cut or cracked, you would get a
01:48one-shot penalty. Is that right? Okay. So you can't clean the ball. Don't need to clean the ball.
01:51Don't need to clean the ball. There's no dirt. And actually, the golf ball is looking perfectly okay.
01:56Perfectly okay. In which case, you would replace it carefully and play on. There would be no penalty.
02:03My ball, the original position of my ball was right next to the marker like so. Yeah. You have
02:10to put it back exactly as it was. So I have to put it back like that. So anything else than that
02:14is wrong. Any other spot, you have to put it back on the exact spot. Correct. So clearly, if I put it
02:19back there, that's incorrect. That's incorrect. That would be in contravention of 14.2b2. Okay.
02:27You would be incorrectly replacing a ball. Now, in this scenario, what if I go, okay, well, I put it back in
02:32the wrong spot. So I'm just going to pop it into the right spot. That's now in the right spot,
02:36isn't it? It is in the right spot. However, it's still an incorrect replacement of the ball. You
02:41have to replace the ball by hand on the exact spot. Do you? So in that case, you again, would be one
02:48stroke penalty territory. Right. So before picking up the tee, I need to pick it up, pop it back down
02:54again. Yeah. Okay, we're all good. Yeah, that's on the exact spot. No penalty. You have no one stroke
03:00penalties. Okay, fine. This is looking, the grass underneath this ball is looking very tight though.
03:05Yeah. Oh, not bad. That's a slightly fat. Slightly fat. It's trundling down there quite
03:14well, actually. I'll take that. Okay, so there you have it. If you're unsure whether you might have
03:18damaged your golf ball, you are allowed to check, but just make sure you mark it. You place it back
03:23exactly as it was and that you don't clean it. You'll avoid a one stroke penalty.
03:27Right. So I've got two words for you, Fergus. Slow play. And actually, slow play can cost you
03:33penalty shots or in this specific scenario, penalty shot. Explain to me, Ferb, what we're talking about
03:40specifically. Okay, so I've just missed a putt. I'm a bit frustrated about that and I want to have
03:45another go. I'm allowed to do that. Yeah, you're allowed to do that. Rule 5.5b, you're allowed to have
03:49another go. But rule 5.6a, you are not allowed to unreasonably delay play. Okay. If there was a
03:57group behind waiting to play their shot and I spent five minutes desperately trying to hold this putt,
04:02I would be unreasonably delaying play. I'd be in contravention of that rule and it'd be a one shot
04:07penalty. Yeah, so this specifically relates to practicing on the golf course, doesn't it? So
04:11why do you think it's only a one shot penalty then? Well, I think it's just a minor blip that first
04:15time. You've just made a mistake. You maybe haven't noticed the people behind you. You weren't
04:18intentionally unreasonably delaying play. So it's a one shot penalty. But if you keep doing it,
04:23if you're sort of so oblivious to the group behind you, you just keep doing it through the round,
04:27what happens in that scenario? Well, it can escalate. If you break that rule for a second
04:32time, say you did the same thing on the next green, it's general penalty. So two shots. If you did it
04:37another time, the following green, you'd actually be disqualified. Okay. So I think in all of these rules,
04:42we are talking about what happens when you are playing in competition, not when you're playing
04:45friendlies with your friends. However, I think with this particular scenario, I think we both agree
04:50that any time you're unduly delaying play is not a good thing. You know, try and keep up with play.
04:55If you can do that in competition, then you'll avoid any of these penalty related scenarios.
05:02Okay. So I've just taken a free drop away from an immovable obstruction. Now, Fergus,
05:06you told me that I've incurred in the process of doing that a one shot penalty. Enlighten me. What
05:12exactly did I get wrong here? Because it felt like I did a lot of stuff correctly.
05:16You did do a lot of stuff correctly, but I'm afraid you were in contravention 14.3b,
05:22taking an incorrect drop. Now, you ascertained your nearest point of relief. You did that correctly.
05:28Well done. Thank you.
05:29You marked that. Very good. You used the driver correctly. No club cover on it. Perfect.
05:36Measured it. Marked the spot. One club length. One club length. Thereby establishing your relief area.
05:44You dropped the ball in that relief area. Correct. Unfortunately, you dropped the ball at shoulder
05:50height. And not at knee height. And not at knee height. So, knowing how particular the rules are
05:57about these things, again, it does lead me to think, why is that only a one shot penalty and not a two
06:02shot penalty? Why is that not the general penalty? Good question. I think a one shot penalty is given
06:07when the breach of the rules is deemed to gain only minor advantage. Now, in this instance,
06:13the advantage you have gained is not possibly enough, but you have actually not gone by the rules. So,
06:19it would be unfair to give you a two shot penalty for doing something that didn't give you a huge
06:24advantage. Now, you know, you could have re-dropped and incurred no penalty. If you had remembered.
06:32If I hadn't have played the shot. The problem was that you played the shot. Okay. And then,
06:36that is when the one shot penalty comes into play. So, it's a minor raffle and knuckles for that
06:42particular incursion of the rules. It's not the worst offence anyone's ever committed, but it's enough
06:47to get you a penalty shot. Right. We're going to take a quick break from talking about the rules of
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08:16have to worry too much about what's going on in the kitchen and you can focus much more on your golf.
08:22Okay, so for this one, we are talking about accidentally moving a ball that is at rest.
08:27And there's probably two scenarios that I can think where that would be most likely probably,
08:31which would be mindlessly wandering around and you accidentally kick your ball or a scenario like
08:37this where you're about to hit your shot, you put the club behind the ball and you accidentally,
08:40as I've just done there, nudge the ball, it's gone, it's rolled off its axis, it's close to the hole
08:45than it was before. Tell me, Fergus, I can just replace that without penalty.
08:51No, I'm afraid not. But I can on the tee.
08:53You could. If you had done it on the tee, you haven't started the hole yet, you would just put
08:56the ball back on the tee. If you knocked it off, there's no penalty there. But unfortunately,
09:00you have started the hole. Rule 9.4b, ball has been moved at rest. It's a one-shot penalty and you
09:09must replace the ball where it was. If you played it from there, that would be ball played from the wrong
09:14place which would incur a further general two-stroke penalty.
09:17A two-stroke penalty. So we're back to our position, back to our thing about moving the ball back.
09:21Do I need to, I don't need to mark the position, I'm putting it back to where it was.
09:24No, you just replace it by hand.
09:25Which is here.
09:26Yeah.
09:26So probably there.
09:27Does the same thing apply that we talked about earlier in the video? If I use my club just to
09:32nudge it back.
09:32Again, yes. So you'd be in danger of having one-shot penalty for moving a ball at rest and then
09:39incorrectly replacing the ball if you rolled it back. So yeah, be careful when you're doing that.
09:44This is a rule that I, I play a lot of golf with my 10-year-old son. He often puts his club behind
09:50the ball a bit too close and he'll just nudge it. And he just, he looks at me and I say to him,
09:54I think you might have incurred a penalty shot there. He looks to me as if to say, what are you
09:58talking about, Dad? How is there any advantage from that?
10:00I think, and that again is what we're talking about. The advantage is minor. It's not, you know,
10:06that's why it's only a one-shot penalty. So as long as you put it back, it's a one-shot penalty,
10:10but it is still a penalty. Yeah. Another one that's really well worth keeping an eye out for.
10:15So for our last one-shot penalty rule, Fergus, we've gone for one of the most common rules,
10:21scenarios people might face on the golf course, and that's hitting a ball out of bounds. Now,
10:25you are going to have to use your imagination slightly. Imagine that down the right-hand side
10:29of this hole over my left shoulder is a row of white stakes, and I've just sprayed one way right,
10:35Fergus. Yeah. And explain to me why we're talking about that in this video.
10:40Well, I think people would think that going out of bounds is, it is a monumentally awful thing to
10:46do, isn't it? You really feel like you've thrown shots away, and it feels like two penalty shots,
10:52doesn't it? Yeah, because you're teeing another one up. But in fact, the penalty is only one shot,
10:57rule 18, a ball out of bounds. One penalty shot applies. And of course, how to proceed if you do
11:04hit one out of bounds is that you have to re-tee from the position that you've hit before.
11:09So it's stroke and distance. One penalty shot is all that there is though, and then you're playing
11:14your third shot from here. So it seems extremely harsh, but in fact, it's one of the few scenarios
11:20where you only incur one penalty shot for your misdemeanor. But as you say, it feels like a two-shot
11:24penalty. And also worth pointing out, as we often say, the old provisional ball rule is worth
11:30mentioning in this scenario, because if you're not 100% sure it's out. Yes, then you've got to hit a
11:34provisional ball. You've got to announce it's a provisional ball. You might well find your one
11:38down there. You might not. But if you've hit your provisional, you'll at least have something in
11:41play. Yeah. So next time you spray a ball out of bounds, think to yourself, oh, it's not so bad.
11:45It's only a one-shot penalty. So there you have it. Those are the five golf rules mistakes that will only cost
11:52you one shot. Now, one shot is still a lot. They're well worth avoiding. If you do have any questions
11:58at all about any of the content in this video, post them below. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
12:02And of course, hit the like and subscribe button as well. But that's it for now from the London Club.
12:06Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
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