- 5 minutes ago
In this video Neil Tappin and Jezz Ellwood take a look at the rules of golf. They de-mystify 6 rules that can catch regular golfers out. The mistakes in this video are all easily avoidable - but you need to know what they are first. This should help you steer clear of any unwanted penalty shots.
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00:00Hello and welcome to The London Club and this video in which we're going to take a look at
00:03six avoidable golf rules mistakes. Now these are all things that golfers tend to do on the course
00:09that can end up costing them penalty shots. Now those players aren't necessarily trying to break
00:14the rules or gain an advantage but just by not knowing each of these rules in enough detail
00:18they can end up causing themselves a real problem. Now I'm going to be joined in this video by golf
00:24monthly rules guru that's Jez Elwood and he's going to talk you through exactly what you need
00:28to know in each of these scenarios to help you out on the golf course to help you avoid
00:31making any unwanted rules mistakes. Right let's get started.
00:41Okay so Jez I've hit quite a good shot in here. This is the 12th hole at The London Club.
00:45I've
00:45carried the water. It doesn't matter that I've only carried it by a few inches. Fair enough.
00:49But I do have this little sprinkler head on my line and the lie is very tight. I'm very keen
00:54to putt
00:55this. Okay. I'd be doing everything that I could I think to try and get relief in this scenario.
01:00Tell me what I can and cannot do. Well the only way you'll get relief in that scenario there is
01:05if there's a local rule. Okay. You might think this is puttable therefore I want to putt so I
01:11should be entitled to putt but the rules don't quite see it that way. They would say yes you get
01:17relief if
01:17you're standing on it or if your ball is on it but if it's just on your line between you
01:22and the flag
01:23there is no automatic relief unless it interferes with your error of intended swing.
01:27And unless I was sort of doing some sort of weird kind of. You would have to
01:29yeah contort things a bit to try and claim that so. It's not that's not happening.
01:34Your first point of call now is the scorecard if you're desperate to putt it and if the scorecard
01:38doesn't have the local rule that allows additional relief for this scenario then you would you could
01:44putt it if you wanted to but you'd be going straight through the sprinkler head and if the local
01:48rule does exist it will typically say sprinkler head within two club lengths of the green which
01:55that is and if your ball is within two club lengths of that sprinkler head which it is and the
02:00sprinkler
02:00head is directly on your line then you would be entitled to the nearest point of relief away from
02:05that. No I have actually haven't looked at the local rules here so I don't know whether I get relief
02:08here. No. In which case I'm going to just play it because I don't want to die. Again if you've
02:12forgotten
02:12to check the local rules and none of you have access to them out on the course. Best to play
02:16it as it is. Best to
02:17assume that the local rule doesn't exist. This is going to be a test. This will be a test but
02:24well we'll see.
02:29Well it's not brilliant but it's almost a gimme. It's almost a gimme. I think I'll take that.
02:39Right so we have a situation here that can cause players some problems. So I've hit my ball
02:45down the right hand side of this hole and I've found as you can see a nasty little spot. Very
02:50nasty tuft. But we've found my ball or at least I think I've found my ball. I now need to
02:55identify it.
02:57Now the process involves marking the position of the ball doesn't it? It does and the problem,
03:02the avoidable mistake a lot of people make is not marking it position first. Right okay. And if they do
03:09that then unfortunately that attracts a penalty. This rule changed a few years ago so that you
03:14didn't have to call your your playing companions over to observe the process but you do still have
03:20to mark the ball before you lift it. Right so you don't have to be here to watch. I don't
03:23have to be
03:24here though. But I do need to mark the position. I do need to put it back exactly where it
03:27was originally.
03:27So I put my tee in into this grass which I can just about see right underneath the ball. Lift
03:32up my ball
03:34and I can see from the markings that it's mine. Yeah. But there's also a bit of mud on my
03:38ball here
03:38Jez. Can I clean that? Well you can clean that only if you need to to be able to identify
03:43the ball
03:44and looking at that you probably don't. No you can clean it and see on that side. So that is
03:48another
03:48breach that will cost you a penalty if you were to clean that ball more than was necessary.
03:52Again that would be a penalty stroke and it's rule 7.3 penalty stroke for both breaches whether you
03:59fail to mark the position or whether you clean it more than is necessary to identify it.
04:02Yeah. So put this one back exactly where it was. Right in this tuft. Yeah. Good luck with that.
04:10And I'll have a go at this. It's one of those rules that is easy to get to get wrong.
04:15Just make sure
04:15you always mark the position of the ball before you identify it. Find out that it's yours then put
04:20it back exactly where it was. Okay so for this one you're going to need to use a little bit
04:29of
04:29imagination. So imagine that this the yellow penalty area stake on the ground in front of us
04:34is not that. Instead it's a white line drawn on the ground to mark out of bounds. Yeah. The question
04:41that we're looking to answer in this part Jez is when is a golf ball in bounds and when is
04:45it out of
04:46bounds and the reason that we put the ball in this very very specific position here is that depending
04:51on the direction of play this ball is either in bounds or out of bounds. Yes. Demystify please.
04:56Okay well let's assume first that this here the side I'm on is the coarse side edge. So I'm out
05:03of
05:03bounds and you're in bounds. That's right. Now if any of the ball is overhanging the coarse side
05:09it's in bounds. So if you look closely here you can see that some of the ball is over the
05:14edge of
05:14the coarse side edge of the boundary. So although that ball is on the line it is in bounds. Yeah
05:19and
05:19I would be able to play this in that direction. You could and you could stand out of bounds to
05:23do
05:23so and that wouldn't be a problem. Now that's good to know. If we flip it round so this is
05:28now
05:28the coarse side over here. Yeah. If you look over the top of it none of the ball is overhanging
05:34that
05:34edge. So although that ball is also on the line that would be out of bounds if we were playing
05:39that way. And oh the heart is broken. As much as you might be standing there looking at it trying
05:46to figure out a way to call that as in in play it's not it's out of bounds. It is
05:51and your only option
05:52then is to go back and replay under stroke and distance if you haven't already played a provisional
05:58ball which you would then have to move across and play if you had. Yeah so it's actually it's pretty
06:04clear but all the thing you need to understand is is any of the golf ball overhanging the course side
06:09if it is you're in bounds if it's not you're out.
06:23Oh oh that was to win the hole. Yeah that was tough but um I hope you're not just going
06:28to go ahead and
06:29tap that in. I was. Match play I'm now the ball further from the hole the order of play in
06:36match
06:36play is the player further from the hole as it is in stroke play but in stroke play ready golf
06:41allows
06:42you to do whatever you you want almost. Yes. But in match play it's a different kettle of fish if
06:47you
06:47go ahead and tap that in you've played out of turn. Yes. I could in theory ask that you replay
06:56the shot in the
06:56correct order by which time it might be a little bit harder to hole possibly. Hard to hole. Which is
07:01the
07:01reason for the rule really. A frosty relationship. Yeah well undoubtedly yes. If I make this then your
07:07little insurance policy potential is gone. As you say it's an awkward scenario that you you want to
07:14avoid so um best just to remember that in match play you have no no right to hole out if
07:21your ball is
07:21closer to the hole than your opponents. Yeah this one is on me I needed to go straight up and
07:27mark
07:27this one to avoid any kind of awkward situation between us that's the best thing to do isn't it.
07:32Yeah it's definitely the best thing to do so just remember while in ready in stroke play
07:36ready golf would perhaps encourage you to walk up and tap that in it's not quite the same in match
07:41play. Okay go on then Jez lock yours in. Okay. Or miss it. Oh no. Oh no. So I've got
07:55that to win the hole.
07:56You can have that. Thank you.
08:04Tricky shot this. Into the wind. I have to lean on this a bit to get it there. Oh. Uh
08:09-huh.
08:10Uh. Um. Ah. Okay. Right. Well. Okay. Now allow me to just stop you there before you hit that.
08:21Yeah. We have a scenario here and we get, I get, a lot of emails about this. People who think
08:27that
08:28there is now no penalty for you accidentally moving your ball anywhere on the golf course and
08:33that's not the case. There are some exceptions now that weren't there before but if you move your
08:39ball like you did there when you put the club down behind it the ball moved an inch didn't it?
08:44Yep. It's come off this tuft. It's now in a much worse line. It is. I'm quite looking forward to
08:47hitting it off there. Yeah well you will get to hit it off there in a minute. Okay that's good.
08:51Because what people often fail to do, A they don't realize it's still a penalty um for accidental
08:56movement but it is under rule 9.4 but you also have to now replace the ball before you play
09:02it.
09:02Right. So you've now got to try and replace it back on that that tuft that it was invitingly sitting
09:07on. It was. Um and then play it. So there's a penalty for causing the ball to move but if
09:13you had
09:13played it from the place it rolled to there's a worse penalty of the general penalty for playing from
09:18the wrong place. So that would be two strokes in stroke play or instant loss of hole in match
09:23play. It's an interesting one there. So I mean the general rule of thumb Jess would be if you've
09:27moved the ball anywhere on the golf course it's got to go back to where it originally was right?
09:30That's the case yes. Yeah. Yeah. If you've if you've if you're deemed to have caused it to move.
09:35But if you've if it's happened on the putting green no penalty. No but you still have to replace it.
09:39But you have to replace it. Yeah. But if it's happened here. Yeah. Ah. Yeah that's the problem.
09:44The only other issue um that has changed since the rules um had the big makeover in 2019 is you're
09:50no
09:51longer penalized if you cause the ball to move when you're looking for it. Ah okay yes. But again
09:55you have to replace it in the spot it was in estimating it to the best of your ability if
10:00you can't be 100% sure exactly where it was. And you know if you weren't stood here I think
10:04in that
10:05scenario I would probably always call over my playing partner at least one playing partner to say look
10:09this has just happened. Yeah. I'm now not improving my life by moving I'm putting it back to where it
10:13originally was. Yeah. Penalty shot. Yeah. And then get on with it. So now you've got a you know you'll
10:17know this
10:18time that it's best not to put the club down behind the ball before attempting to play. Yeah
10:22I've now made I've made a tricky shot somewhat harder because I'm in a now in a bad mood as
10:27well.
10:28So let's give it a go. Oh get down. Oh no it's gone left. This is going to end up
10:35quite a big score
10:36I'm afraid. Just short of the gorse but ah you're probably chipping for a bogey at best I would think.
10:54Oh it's down. Gone left. It's quite thick in the rough over there. It is at the moment isn't it.
11:01I think I'm going to have to hit another one. Ah.
11:05Okay so I see you've teased it up a bit more but what you haven't done is something that's fairly
11:10important at this point if you're playing in a competition and that is to make it obvious that
11:15this is a provisional ball and you only want to use it if you can't find the original.
11:19Right so me just saying in that scenario I'm going to hit another one. Yeah.
11:23That's not good enough. It's not enough. No you've either got to say I'm going to hit a provisional
11:27or you've got to indicate very clearly that the ball you're hitting is one that you only want to use
11:32if
11:32you can't find the original. And I think if you look into the decisions or the interpretations
11:37whatever they're called these days it says phrases like I'm going to hit another one just in case
11:41are good enough. Right okay. But if you just say I'm going to hit another one that ball would
11:46automatically become the ball in play even if you find your original ball in a perfect line.
11:50And when it comes to the rules of golf clarity is everything and so I would always advise people
11:55just to say I'm going to hit a provisional. It just avoids any kind of doubt in a situation like
12:00this. Yes. And the other thing I would say is that we often get comments on our videos saying
12:04oh why are you taking this is all a bit over the top this is all a bit much who
12:09cares. Well that's fine if
12:10you're just playing in a friendly isn't it. You do like in a friendly. Whatever I mean if you were
12:12playing in a friendly and I said I'm going to hit another one here. Yeah. You're not going to
12:15suddenly invoke a penalty on me. Well I might do. I'd hope you would. We wouldn't play much friendly
12:20golf together after that. No. But this is this is not for people who are just bunting around with
12:25their mates. This is just trying to help people who might find themselves playing in a competition.
12:30Someone calls them up on something like this and they get a bit aggrieved but it's really a matter of
12:34just knowing what you have to do. Yeah or they're playing for their handicap. Those things that's where it's
12:39important that you know rules like this and you don't end up making avoidable mistakes. So there
12:45you have it. That's our look at avoidable golf rules mistakes. If you do have any questions please
12:49feel free to leave some comments below. We understand that at times the rules of golf can feel quite
12:54complicated. They're there for a reason and it really does pay to know them in as much detail
12:58as you can. And that's it for now from The London Club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
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