- 4 months ago
Are you a beginner golfer? In this video, we simplify the rules of golf for you. We cover the most common situations you'll face on the course, including what happens when you miss the ball, how many clubs you're allowed to carry, and what to do when you think you've lost your ball. Learn from our rules expert and improve your on-course etiquette and knowledge.
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00:00Now if you're new to the game you're learning everything about the sport but
00:03let's not let the rules of golf be the one thing that confuses you and spoils
00:07your enjoyment of this great game. So in this video we're going to bring you the
00:10six golf rules every beginner needs to know. Whether it's etiquette in bunkers,
00:15provisional balls, looking for your ball, all that sort of thing. By the end of this
00:18video you will know exactly the rules of golf that are going to help you get your
00:23way around the course if you're a beginner golfer. We've got Fergus Bissett our
00:25rules expert who's going to answer all your questions and we're here at the
00:28beautiful Trump International Golf Links, the new course, it's an absolutely
00:31incredible venue. Let's get into the video.
00:37Now Fergus, beginner golfers and people new to the game are probably quite
00:42familiar with that scenario. You try and hit the ball, you miss it but surely you're
00:47in luck. That doesn't count as a shot and you can have another go, no questions asked.
00:52I'm afraid it does count as a shot. In this we need to look at the definitions
00:56within the rules, what actually is a stroke and it is the forward movement of
01:01the club made to strike the ball. Now if you have purposefully attempted to hit
01:08the ball as I believe you did there. I would agree with you, I did try and hit the ball.
01:11I'm afraid that that counts as a stroke whether you make contact with it or not.
01:16You would now be standing up to play your second shot in this situation. There are
01:22instances where you can pull out of a shot if you deliberately miss the ball. If for
01:27instance you're put off by something and as you're coming that you can't stop the
01:31swing but you deliberately miss the ball, that won't count as a stroke. Tiger Woods
01:37famously used to be able to stop mid-swing. That's right, he just stopped
01:41sort of there. He did and that wouldn't count as a stroke. However, in this instance you
01:46have deliberately attempted to make a strike at the ball and it counts as a stroke. I'm sorry to say.
01:51So what if you were sort of swinging down and as you swung down you noticed the
01:56ball had fallen off the tee. So you're sort of saying if you sort of pulled out
01:59to stop your attempt at hitting the ball as it's fallen off the tee, that
02:04wouldn't count as a shot. You're correct. Okay, so beginner golfers take note that if
02:09you try and hit the ball unfortunately whether you hit it or not it counts as a
02:12shot. Now Fergus, beginner golfers I think it's fair to say would be tempted to
02:17experiment with lots of different clubs in certain areas of the bag while
02:19they're figuring out what's right for them. Yeah. But that could leave them
02:23liable for some penalty shots under the rules of golf. Can you explain exactly what
02:27the rules say in terms of the number of clubs in they have in the bag? Okay, well
02:30it's rule 4.1b and it basically says that you cannot have more than 14 clubs in
02:36your bag. That's the key number. Yeah. You can't start around with more than 14
02:41clubs in your bag. You can't add clubs as you go around so that you've got more
02:45than 14 in your bag. Yeah. If you do have more than 14 in your bag and you discover
02:49that and you haven't declared at the start of the round then you're going to
02:53face a penalty. Now I see you've got two putters in there. How many have you got?
02:57I do have two putters as you can see here which gives that actually the total is now
03:0215. 15. Yeah. And you didn't declare that at the start of the round? No because we're on the
03:06tenth hole here at the new course at Trump International. So I'm afraid you're going to face the
03:10maximum penalty for not declaring that you have more than 14 clubs in the bag and it would be four
03:15shots in stroke play and it would be two holes lost in match play. Okay. We're playing stroke play
03:24so I think you're going to be adding four to your score. What are the steps I need to take
03:28to declare
03:29so say I realise I've got 15 clubs what are the steps I need to take to declare a club
03:33out of play
03:34so that I don't incur any additional penalty shots? Well it'd be quite simple at the start of the round
03:39before you teed off if you noticed you were carrying this extra putter yeah you would just say to me
03:45I've got this extra putter in the bag I will not be playing with it during the round it is
03:48out of play
03:49that's fine you can then carry it as long as you don't play with any shots with it then then
03:54that's
03:54all right if you've noticed after after one or two holes then you can do the same you can declare
04:02it
04:02if you might if you managed to notice after one hole and declared it you would only face a two
04:05shot
04:06penalty yeah if it's two holes into the round it's four shots or loss of two holes yeah and
04:11it's I think it's good practice if you do realise and say you want to take your two iron out
04:15of play
04:15maybe sort of turn it around in your bag so you're not tempted to use it yeah that would be
04:18what you
04:18would do at the start of the game exactly I'm carrying this two iron I put it like this because
04:23I'm not playing with it yeah so there you go if you're a beginner golfer make sure you count your
04:28clubs before you tee off you're only allowed 14 and if you have a more than that you could incur
04:32some penalty
04:32shots Joel what are you up to oh I'm commenting on a golf monthly youtube video and don't forget if
04:38you have got a comment on this video you've got any questions about the rules of golf
04:41Fergus is our man our rules expert he will answer them for you and while I'm here I'm going to
04:45subscribe to the golf monthly youtube channel it's great all sorts of videos on there equipment
04:49tips rules what's in the bags you name it it's all there and if you're liking this video make sure
04:54you click the like button it really helps us out should we get back to the video yeah let's do
04:58it
05:03I guess it's in a bit of trouble over there could be it's one of those situations where
05:10I'm not sure where that's gone yeah and as a beginner golfer I think they make the mistake of
05:16not taking the appropriate action on the tee now yeah that's going to sort of cause some dire
05:22consequences down the line down the hole so what should beginner golfers be doing in this situation where
05:26you hit your tee shot you're not really sure where it's gone well I think the key thing to
05:31do when you really don't know what's happened and it could be lost or it could be out of bounds
05:35in
05:35this case it could well be lost is to play a provisional ball it's rule 18.3a it allows you
05:40to
05:40do so if you think that your ball might be lost what you do is you would say to me
05:45fergus i'm playing
05:47a provisional ball it's quite important that you declare that you're playing a provisional ball if you
05:50don't declare it or make it clear that you are playing a ball provisionally then the next ball that you
05:55hit
05:55from this tee would be counting no matter whether you find that one or not however if you play a
06:00provisional ball and declare it then either one might come to your rescue down there if you find
06:05your original ball you can play that if not you can go to the provisional and you'll be playing
06:10your fourth shot from down there it would effectively have been three off the tee yeah and I think this
06:15is really important for pace of play right so you don't want to have to get down there realize
06:19you can't find your ball obviously if you're a beginner golfer you'd be tempted to just drop one down
06:22there but under the rules of golf technically you're not allowed to do that you have to play
06:26another one from the tee so it just saves you having to walk all the way down there walk all
06:30the way back it saves that long walk back the long one wants to make which nobody wants to make
06:34it's
06:34quite embarrassing so they get always remember to declare a provision when there's certain phraseology
06:39that you have to use right when you're saying it it's easiest just to say i'm playing a provisional
06:43yeah there are certain things that you could say that would make it clear that that it was a
06:48provisional ball you couldn't just say i'm playing another you couldn't say that but if you but if
06:52you said i'm playing another just in case that implies that you're okay it's a tricky one so i
06:58think that my advice is always say i am playing a provisional ball there you go so if you think
07:03you've
07:03potentially lost your ball say you're hitting a provisional hit another one and then you haven't
07:07got to do that dreaded walk back to the tee from the fairway and holding everyone up right fergus
07:11beginning the golfers are quite likely i would say to hit their golf ball into some undesirable areas
07:17shall we say and i would say that we are in one of those right here this is where i've
07:21hit my ball
07:21into talk us through some of the rules that apply when it comes to looking for your balls at the
07:26moment i can't find it okay well i think the key thing to know here is rule 18.2a and
07:33it's
07:34the fact that you have three minutes to find your golf ball from the point where you reach the area
07:40where you think it is and begin to search for it um so actually either you or your caddy if
07:46you're
07:46lucky enough to have a caddy be nice not in this instance so at the point where you arrived in
07:52this area where you think your ball is yeah you begin to search you've got three minutes and you've
07:57got to be really careful with that because it it's not a long time that amount of time will go
08:02quite
08:02quickly and if you haven't found it within three minutes uh then that ball is is is is lost and
08:08your
08:08only option is then to go back and play under um penalty of one shot from where you played the
08:14original
08:15shot from that ended up in here yeah i think it goes without saying that if you think you've hit
08:19your ball into somewhere like this you should have hit a provisional ball should have hit a provisional
08:24ball probably yeah uh sometimes you know you just don't expect to end up in a situation like this
08:29and and in that case it might be the walk back uh you've got that three minutes make use of
08:34it but
08:35don't over stretch it there you go so if you do hit your ball into a nasty spot you get
08:40three minutes to
08:41find it if you don't it's back to the tee or you're playing in provisional right so fergus i think
08:45it's
08:46fair to say that beginner golfers would be quite keen to ask questions or seek information from
08:52people that they're playing golf with try and learn about the game and help them around the course
08:56especially if that person is of a higher skill level than them so what do the rules allow and don't
09:02allow you to do in terms of the information you can glean from others when you're playing on the golf
09:06course
09:06i think that the key thing here is is advice and it's 10.2 rule 10.2 you are not
09:14allowed to ask for
09:16or give advice to a fellow competitor and advice is basically influencing how a player might play a shot
09:27or a hole so you you can't ask somebody what club to hit and you you can't tell somebody what
09:35club
09:35you've just hit uh you can't sort of say um oh tell me how the this this slope is going
09:43to affect the
09:44shot that that would be advice any anything which which would influence um how you might play the shot
09:50or your strategy for the hole is not allowed uh that information would would you would incur a penalty
09:57a general penalty which is which is two shots in stroke play uh a loss of hole in match play
10:03information that you talk about so we could share the yardage and on this shot it wouldn't it wouldn't
10:09be advice if you were to say to me what yardage is it and i would look and tell you
10:14that 100 yards
10:16that that's not advice that that's public information so it's possible for anyone to find out what what
10:21a yardage is uh but how how should i play this shot that's advice so that's the distinction there
10:28a really key distinction there yeah because i think it's very highly likely that a beginner
10:32golf would want to know how far away the flag is that's okay that's okay and presumably they're
10:37allowed to ask okay well how far is it to cover the bunker things like that is that allowed yeah
10:42that
10:42that would any distance any distance related information uh that that's common information
10:48um that that would be available on a stroke saver that there's no no harm in sharing that but if
10:55you
10:55were but you couldn't say oh i need to cover this bunker what club should i have to hit to
11:00to cover
11:00that bunker that's advice uh and that would be incurring a penalty really interesting so uh some very
11:06key distinctions there in terms of information and advice and i think beginner golfers um should
11:12definitely take note of the uh information that fergus has given us there i think it's time to hit a
11:16shot uh in this lovely hole here this this 10th hole at trump international we've got about 80 yards
11:22let's let's see if we could make a fist of it
11:28that's got to go fergus it does it's short it's in the dunes um yeah didn't measure it i should
11:36have
11:36used my should use my rangefinder i don't know exactly or ask me the yardage or i should have
11:39asked you shouldn't i yeah i was allowed to do that silly me so do you have i hope that
11:43helps and
11:43remember you can ask how far this shot is but you can't ask what club to hit right fergus we've
11:48moved
11:48into a bunker uh and i think it's fair to say that beginner golfers from my experience probably break
11:54more rules here than they do anywhere else on the golf course when it comes to touching the sand ground
11:59in the club practice swings all that stuff yeah talk us through exactly what you can and can't do in
12:04the bunker uh when it comes to the sand around your ball okay rule 12.2b here and and you've
12:12you've
12:12pretty much described it all you you can't sort of test the sand for first right you can't kind of
12:19push your club down into the into the sand to see to see what the condition of the sand is
12:23like no
12:23for a start you can't grind your club either behind or in front of the ball yeah uh you can't
12:30take a
12:30practice swing that touches the sand so you can have a practice swing but as long as you don't that's
12:35fine that's fine yeah that's not that's not fine that all of these things would incur the general penalty
12:41of two shots in straight play loss of hole in match play if you were to do it there is
12:46an exception
12:47you can touch your club into the sand and you were doing it just as we started this you can
12:51lean on
12:52it to lean to support or you if you were climbing down into the bunker you could use it as
12:56a as an aid
12:57so to get in otherwise generally speaking don't touch the sand with your club don't even actually
13:04touch it with your hand that that would be a penalty for testing the condition of the sand as well
13:08so
13:09really quite a a tricky one for beginner golfers but but i think basically until you hit the shot
13:16don't put your club in the sand yeah and then but if you really did want to take a practice
13:20swing
13:20you can go into another bunker this is a an interesting one yeah you could if there was an
13:25adjacent bunker that wasn't the same bunker as this at all and and time permits yeah you could go and
13:31have a quick a quick go and just get a feel for it for what what a bunker shot felt
13:36like uh but not
13:37in the bunker that your ball lies no uh so i'm there's no bunker nearby so i'm not going to
13:42have
13:42a practice swing i'm going to have to just go straight into this so i'm allowed to wiggle my
13:46feet in right fergus a wee bit but not building your stance not building your stance okay well
13:50that's about as much as i can do yes don't touch the sand don't ground your club don't take the
13:55sand
13:55touch the sand on your way back as well that's another thing that golfers do and then we'll have a
14:01go
14:04nicely nicely done well that might have gone in but you know by this point i think you've broken
14:09about every rule in the book so yeah but a nice shot none of that thank you there you go
14:15there you
14:16have it those are the six golf rules all beginner golfers need to know i hope you enjoyed this video
14:20and if you like your rules content if you're a stickler for the rules in your group at the weekend
14:25check out our other videos we've got rules on bunkers on playable lies penalty areas you name it
14:32when you lose your ball what to do all the different scenarios on the golf course uh if you want
14:36to
14:36find out the rules on those check out our other videos but that's all from us here at jump international
14:40golfing we'll see you next time