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00:00Now the rules of golf can be incredibly difficult to get your head around, but don't worry,
00:04I've done all the hard work for you. I've trawled through hundreds of pages of the rulebook
00:09to bring you the eight ways you could be making your golf clubs illegal. Now, it's really
00:14easy to do. A lot of you, I'm sure, would have fallen foul of some of these. And look
00:18out for number three, because I'm pretty confident everyone has done that one at some point.
00:22We're here at the beautiful Burley Park Golf Club in Stamford, Lincolnshire. Let's get
00:26into it.
00:41Now, the first way your golf clubs could become illegal starts even before you've teed off.
00:46And this is one that so many golfers fall foul of. It's just having too many clubs in your
00:51bag. As we know, under the rules of golf, you're only allowed a maximum of 14 clubs.
00:56And often, golfers, we like to chop and change clubs in certain areas of the bag. Me, for
01:00example, I like to chop between my hybrid and my two-iron depending on the conditions that
01:05I'm playing in. But I'm not allowed to have both. If I had both, that would be 15 clubs
01:09and I'll be in for some serious penalties. Now, the rules say that if you accidentally get
01:16to the first tee before your round and you realise you've got an extra club in your bag,
01:19you need to take the appropriate steps to take that club out of play. You need to declare
01:24it to your playing partners. Ideally, you would leave that club behind so it's not in your
01:28bag. If that's not possible, you need to sort of make an indication that it's not in play.
01:33Maybe turn it round in your bag with the grip pointing up. If you've got a buggy, maybe leave
01:37it on the floor with a buggy so it's not actually in your bag. So you've taken the appropriate
01:41steps to let everyone know that this club is out of play. Obviously, you're not allowed to then use it
01:46during the round. But you're not going to incur any penalty shots if you go through this process.
01:51Now, problems start to occur if you tee off and then realise you've got an extra club in your bag.
01:56That's when you're going to start incurring some penalty shots. So say, for example, you tee off from the
02:00first hole, you're walking down, you look in your bag and realise, ah, I've got an extra club in my
02:05bag.
02:06What is the penalty? So you then need to take the same steps. So realise, choose
02:11the club that you don't want to use, turn it over, put it in your bag, declare it to your
02:15playing partners,
02:16let them know that that club is out of play. But because you've already teed off, you incur a two
02:22-shot penalty.
02:23Now, a penalty occurs here, two shots per hole in stroke play with a maximum of four shots.
02:29So if you tee off from the second hole and then realise you've got an extra club in your bag,
02:34that's a four-shot penalty. If you rewind back to Ian Woosnam at the Open Championship at Royal
02:39Litherman St. Anne's, got to the second tee, realised he had an extra driver in his bag.
02:43He hadn't teed off on the second, so he only got a two-shot penalty, but it did cost him
02:47the Open.
02:47So make sure you check your bag before your round, make sure there's only 14 clubs in there
02:51and you won't incur any of those pesky penalty shots.
03:01Oh dear. That wasn't very good. I've just noticed when I hit that, there's a little bit of a rattling
03:08noise on this club.
03:10And obviously, all modern drivers these days have some sort of adjustability.
03:15Now, these adjustable features are designed that they shouldn't reasonably be able to come loose during the course of a
03:21round or in reasonable play.
03:22And actually, they should technically be rendered unusable if the screw is not in place.
03:28So it's incredibly unlikely that the adjustability features on your drivers would come loose during the course of a round.
03:36However, if any part of the club does become loose during a round, it could be that the club becomes
03:42non-conforming.
03:44So you need to make sure that you take appropriate steps to restore the club to its original position.
03:50Actually, any sort of part of a driver that comes loose is technically classed as damage.
03:55The definition of damage on a driver is pretty broad.
03:58And it basically means the club condition has changed from what it was previously.
04:02So you can actually take appropriate steps to say, I've got the tightest GT3 driver here.
04:07So you say this track has become loose.
04:10You make sure you get your wrench tool.
04:11Hopefully, you keep it with you in your bag in case you need it.
04:16Give that a tighten and make sure you hear those clicks.
04:18That's going to give you that peace of mind that that is properly tightened in place.
04:22It's not going to come out again.
04:24And that's restored to its original position and you can carry on using that club.
04:27So take away from this, maybe on the first tee, make sure you listen for any rattles.
04:32If you do notice it, give the club a tighten and that means you can carry on using this club
04:37during the round.
04:46Now, let's say during the course of a round, you're not really happy with how your driver's performing.
04:51Maybe the ball flight is going a bit too high and the wind's getting up and you want to knock
04:55it down.
04:55The temptation might be to get your driver out between holes, get your wrench out and make an adjustment that
05:04would alter the playing characteristics of that club.
05:06Maybe knock some loft off to bring the ball flight down and hopefully make it perform a little bit better.
05:12Unfortunately, that is not allowed in the rules of golf.
05:14You're not allowed to make any adjustments to the club during a round.
05:18You can do it before a round, before you tee off, that's absolutely fine, but not during a round.
05:22If you do it during a round, you will be disqualified.
05:24Now, if you do make an adjustment to the club, but then restore it back to what it was before
05:30without hitting a shot with it, that's absolutely fine.
05:33But if you hit a shot with it, having changed the settings of that particular club, that adjustable feature, you're
05:38going to be disqualified.
05:49Now, I've just noticed, as you can see, I have got one of the reflective stickers I was using to
05:55test this club on a photometric launch monitor.
05:59Now, we know these stickers are used by those types of launch monitors to capture what the club is doing
06:04through impact.
06:06So, a lot of golfers put a sticker on the face here to monitor club head speed.
06:09If they're trying to increase their club head speed, there's a few other reasons why you might put a sticker
06:13like this on the face as well.
06:14But I was doing some testing earlier, it's on there, and the rules of golf say that something like this
06:20is a non-conforming external attachment.
06:24So, if you do discover that you've got a sticker on your face like this, you're not allowed to hit
06:30shots with that in place.
06:32So, you must take steps to take it off, and if you've hit any shots with this sticker on a
06:38face, you're going to get disqualified, unfortunately.
06:40We saw that happen with Rory Sabatini a few years ago after the round, realised that he had some stickers
06:45on his three-wood.
06:46He knew that he hit shots with that club during the round, and therefore he was disqualified.
06:50But, if you do discover you've got a sticker like this on the club face of one of your clubs,
06:55but you haven't hit a shot with it, you're okay.
06:57All you need to do is take the sticker off. There you go, get rid of that.
07:02And now that club is conforming, and you're allowed to use it for the upcoming shot, which I've got here,
07:07which is good, because I've got a 7-iron.
07:08So, the perfect club for this shot.
07:12Just a quick break to say, if you are enjoying the video, please do click the like button, it really
07:16helps us out.
07:17And do subscribe to the channel, if you haven't already, so you don't miss any of our other videos.
07:21And comment down below, have you fallen foul of any of these rules?
07:25Have you got any questions about the rules of golf when it comes to equipment and changes you can make?
07:28I will get our expert to reach out to you and answer any of your questions.
07:35Now, another way your golf club could become illegal is if you damage it in anger and then attempt to
07:41repair or replace it.
07:43The rules of golf are very clear.
07:45If you damage your club in anger, so maybe you slam it into your knee, slam it into the ground,
07:50you're not allowed to repair or replace that club.
07:53And if you do, you're going to be penalised.
07:55You are allowed to continue using it, it's still conforming in that regard, but you can't repair or replace it.
08:00If you damage a club, whether you're taking on a shot like this, where, who knows, when I hit it,
08:05the club might wrap against a tree and snap in half,
08:08I am allowed to repair or replace it under the rules of golf.
08:11Pretty unlikely you're going to be able to do that in a club match, unlikely to have a spare 7
08:16-iron available to you,
08:17but the rules of golf do allow you to do that.
08:19So, as long as you're not breaking a club in anger, you are allowed to replace it if you need
08:25to.
08:26The rules are in your favour, but, oh, I'm a bit worried about this one.
08:30I'm a bit hesitant that we're going to break this club here.
08:36Nearly hit the camera.
08:37Luckily, the club has become completely unscathed there.
08:40We've got away with it.
08:42But there you go.
08:43If you do damage a club in anger and try and repair or replace it, your club will become illegal.
08:48So, make sure you don't do that during a round of golf.
08:54Now, another way you can make your golf club illegal is by drawing lines on the club face with a
08:58substance that affects how the ball performs,
09:01how it flies, how it spins, how it performs through the air.
09:04Now, we've seen this before.
09:05I don't know if you remember.
09:06Hideki Matsuyama got disqualified at the memorial back in 2022, I think,
09:11when one of his team applied a white substance on the face to help with his alignment.
09:17Now, that substance was a white-out material or a tip-ex we have over here, which sort of protrudes
09:24slightly from the surface of the face.
09:26And it was deemed that that would have an impact on how the ball would come off the face.
09:30Now, it's worth pointing out that you are allowed to draw lines on the club face to help you with
09:36alignment, wherever it might be.
09:37But those lines have to be very thin and not protrude in any way from the surface of the club
09:43face.
09:43So, if you want to draw a line on your club face with a Sharpie, for example, to help you
09:48with alignment, just like that,
09:51you're absolutely fine to do that.
09:53But if the thing that you're using to apply that line is going to protrude from the face and affect
09:57how the ball comes off the face,
10:00then you're going to get into a problem.
10:01And if you hit a shot with a club like that during a round, you will be disqualified.
10:06If you remember, Ricky Fowler, a few years ago, drew some white lines on his driver.
10:12It looked very interesting.
10:13But that was perfectly fine because the lines were not sticking out from the face.
10:17So, a line like that with a Sharpie could well help you with alignment.
10:20Perfectly fine within the rules of golf.
10:22But anything that sticks out a little bit is going to be deemed non-conforming and make that club illegal.
10:30Right, come closer.
10:32The next way your golf clubs could become illegal is down to these, the grooves on your wedges.
10:37Now, there are rules in terms of how the grooves need to be a certain depth, a certain width,
10:43and also have no sharp edges or raised lips.
10:47Now, this is not something you need to worry about.
10:48The manufacturers have very tight tolerances when it comes to manufacturing the grooves on their wedges
10:53and making sure they are conforming.
10:56And then, actually, you can get some manufacturers that make illegal grooves
11:00to give you the extra spin around the greens that you can't use in competitions
11:03but will rip the cover off the golf ball if that's something that's important to you.
11:07But what's interesting about the groove rule is that, basically, any wedges that predate 2010
11:13are probably going to have illegal grooves in it.
11:15So, if your wedges are very old, there's a chance they could be non-conforming.
11:20That said, there is a little bit of leeway when it comes to groove rule.
11:25And unless you're playing in expert competitions, you're probably going to be fine.
11:29And there is a website, which I'll put in the description, where you can check your grooves on the database
11:35to see if the wedges that you'll carry are non-conforming.
11:38But I'll just read out what the USGA website says about it.
11:41Basically, it says, the USGA website states that the vast majority of golfers
11:46can continue to carry clubs manufactured prior to 2010 until at least 2024.
11:52Obviously, we're beyond 2024 now, but clearly, they're not that bothered about
11:56whether you're using non-conforming grooves in your wedges, especially at the club level.
11:59I think you're going to be fine.
12:01And as I said, if your wedges are before 2010, you probably want to think about upgrading anyway,
12:06because you're going to be reducing the amount of spin you're getting around the greens.
12:09But I've got a brand new wedge here, which hopefully has conforming grooves
12:14and will hopefully still give me a good amount of spin on these types of shot around the green.
12:24Not my best effort there, but there you go.
12:26Anyway, that's another way your golf clubs could become illegal if your wedges predate 2010.
12:31There's a chance they are, but there's generally a lot of leeway there,
12:34and you're probably going to be fine.
12:39Now, we're often taught that a putting stroke would be a good thing to try and implement
12:44when you're chipping, in terms of taking the risks out of the action
12:47and having a nice, smooth, controlled action to try and get better results
12:52when you're chipping around the green.
12:53But that doesn't mean that you can go to extreme lengths and put a putter grip on your wedge that
12:58you chip with.
12:58The rules of golf say that all grips, the cross-section of all grips,
13:03must be circular on all clubs apart from your putter.
13:06And you'll notice on a lot of putter grips, they have often a slightly off-centre
13:10or off-circular cross-section and often a flat front edge here to help you with your putting.
13:15But you can't take that a step too far and have a grip like this on your wedge
13:20to help you with your chip shots around the green.
13:22All your grips on your wedges must be completely circular, as you can see I've got here.
13:27So don't go putting putter grips on wedges.
13:30That's going to deem your clubs illegal under the rules of golf.
13:35Thank you for watching. I hope you enjoyed the video.
13:37As I said, do click the like button if you liked it.
13:39And if you're after any more rules of golf advice, do check out the Golf Monthly website
13:44because there's a whole host of articles there that are really going to help you out
13:46regardless of what situation you find yourself in on the golf course.
13:50That's all for me here at Burley Park Golf Club. See you next time.
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