- 2 minutes ago
Golf rules can be confusing, and even minor mistakes can add strokes to your score. In this video, Neil Tappin and rules expert Fergus Bisset explain five common infractions that will cost you a one-shot penalty, from incorrectly replacing your ball to slow play. Watch to ensure you don't fall foul of these simple rules.
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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 balls and get started. Right Fergus, so I have just hit my approach shot into this green
00:39and I've hit it terribly thin, really quite thin. Okay. And before I go about the delicate process
00:46of trying to get this one up and down I quite want to see whether I've caused any sort of
00:49terminal
00:50damage to my golf ball. Okay. And now I know I'm now in danger of incurring a one-shot penalty
00:55if
00:56I'm not careful. Come to the rescue. Tell me what I can and can't do. Okay. Rule 4.2c part
01:03one.
01:04It trips off the tongue. It does. Now, if you were not reasonably sure that there had been damage to
01:12your 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
01:30incur
01:31a one-shot penalty. Okay. So I'm okay so far. So you're okay. Now you can have a look at
01:35it. Now it looks
01:37pretty clean but if your ball had some dirt on it you would not at this point be able to
01:42clean it.
01:43If you cleaned it even to have a look if it was cut or cracked you would get a one
01:48-shot penalty. Is
01:48that right? Okay. So you can't clean the ball. Don't need to clean the ball. There's no mud or dirt.
01:53And actually the golf ball is looking perfectly okay. Perfectly okay. In which case you would
01:59replace it carefully and play on. There would be no penalty. My ball, the original position of my ball
02:05was right next to the marker like so. Yep. You have to put it back exactly as it was. So
02:12I have to put it
02:12back like that. So anything else than that is wrong. Any other spot. You have to put it back
02:16on the exact spot. Correct. So clearly if I put it back there that's incorrect. That's an incorrect.
02:22That would be in contravention of 14.2b2. Okay. You would be incorrectly replacing a ball. Now
02:30in this scenario what if I go okay well I put it back in the wrong spot so I'm just
02:33going to pop it
02:33into the right spot. That's now in the right spot isn't it? It is in the right spot. However,
02:39it's still an incorrect replacement of the ball. You have to replace the ball by hand on the exact
02:44spot. Do you? So in that case you again would be one stroke penalty territory. Right so before
02:50picking, that's interesting, before picking up the tee I need to pick it up. Yeah. Pop it back down
02:54again. Yeah. Okay we're all good. Yeah that's on the exact spot. No penalty. You have now no one stroke
03:00penalties. Okay fine. This is looking, the grass underneath this ball is looking very tight though. Yeah.
03:10Oh. Not bad. And that's a slightly fat. Slightly fat. But it's trundling down there quite well
03:15actually. 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, just make sure you mark it. You place it back
03:22exactly 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 penalty shots.
03:34Or in this specific scenario penalty shot. Explain to me Ferb what we're talking about specifically.
03:41Okay so I've just missed a putt. I'm a bit frustrated about that and I want to have another go.
03:46I'm allowed to do that. Yeah you're allowed to do that. Rule 5.5b you're allowed to have another go.
03:50But rule 5.6a you are not allowed to unreasonably delay play. Okay. If there was a group behind
03:58waiting to play their shot and I spent five minutes desperately trying to hold this putt, I would be
04:03unreasonably delaying play. I'd be in contravention of that rule and it would be a one shot penalty.
04:07Yeah so this specifically relates to practicing on the golf course doesn't it? So why do you think it's
04:11only a one shot penalty then? Well I think it's just a minor blip that first time. You've just made
04:16a mistake. You maybe haven't noticed the people behind you. You weren't intentionally unreasonably
04:19delaying play. So it's a one shot penalty. But if you keep doing it, if you're sort of so
04:25oblivious to the group behind you, you just keep doing it through the round. What happens in that scenario?
04:28Well it can escalate. If you break that rule for a second time, say you did the same thing on
04:33the
04:33next green, it's general penalty. So two shots. If you did it another time, the following green,
04:39you'd actually be disqualified. Okay. So I think in all of these rules we
04:42are talking about what happens when you are playing in competition, not when you're playing friendlies with
04:46your friends. However, I think with this particular scenario, I think we both agree that any time you're
04:51unduly delaying play is not a good thing. Try and keep up with play. If you can do that in
04:56competition,
04:57then 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,
05:12what exactly 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.
05:27You did that correctly. Well done. Thank you.
05:30You marked that. Very good. You used the driver correctly. No club cover on it. Perfect.
05:36You measured it. Marked the spot at the end. One club length. One club length. Thereby establishing
05:42your relief area. You dropped the ball in that relief area. Correct. Unfortunately, you dropped the
05:49ball at shoulder height. And not at knee height. And not at knee height. So, knowing how particular
05:56the rules are about these things, again, it does lead me to think, why is that only a one shot
06:01penalty
06:01and not a two shot penalty? Why is that not the general penalty? Good question. I think a one shot
06:06penalty is given when the breach of the rules is deemed to gain only minor advantage. Now, in this
06:12instance, the advantage you have gained is not possibly enough. But you have actually not gone by
06:18the rules. So, it would be unfair to give you a two shot penalty for doing something that didn't give
06:23you
06:23a huge advantage. Now, you know, you could have re-dropped and incurred no penalty. If you
06:31would remember. If I hadn't have played the shot. The problem was that you played the shot. Okay.
06:35And then that is when the one shot penalty comes into play. So, it's a minor raffle and knuckles
06:41for that particular incursion of the rules. It's not the worst offence anyone's ever committed,
06:46but it's enough to get you a penalty shot. Right. We're going to take a quick break from
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08:19you
08:19can focus much more on your golf. Okay, so for this one we are talking about accidentally moving a ball
08:25that is at rest. And there's probably two scenarios that I can think where that would be most likely,
08:31probably, which would be mindlessly wandering around and you accidentally kick your ball.
08:35Or a scenario like this where you're about to hit your shot, you put the club behind the ball and
08:39you
08:39accidentally, as I've just done there, you nudge the ball. It's gone, it's rolled off its axis, it's
08:45close to the hole than it was before. Yeah. Tell me, Fergus, I can just replace that without penalty.
08:51No, I'm afraid not. But I can on the tee. You could, if you had done it on the tee,
08:55you haven't
08:55started the hole yet, you would just put the ball back on the tee. If you knocked it off, there's
08:59no
08:59penalty there. But unfortunately, you have started the hole. Rule 9.4b, ball has been moved at rest.
09:07It's a one-shot penalty and you must replace the ball where it was. If you played it from there,
09:12that would be ball played from the wrong place, which would incur a further general two-strip penalty.
09:17A two-strip 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. Yeah.
09:26So probably there. Does the same thing apply that we talked about earlier in the video?
09:30If I use my club just to nudge it back.
09:32Again, yes. So you'd be in danger of having one-shot penalty for moving a ball at rest
09:39and then incorrectly replacing the ball if you rolled it back. So yeah, be careful when you're
09:43doing that. Do you know, this is a rule that I, I play a lot of golf with my 10
09:48-year-old son.
09:48He often puts his club behind the ball a bit too close and he'll just nudge it. And he just,
09:53he looks at me and I say to him, I think you might have incurred a penalty shot there. He
09:57looks to me as
09:57if to say, what are you talking about dad? How is there any advantage from that?
10:01I think, and that again is what we're talking about. The advantage is, is minor. It's not,
10:06you know, that's why it's only a one-shot penalty. So as long as you put it back,
10:09it's a one-shot penalty, but it is still a penalty.
10:11Yeah. 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,
10:22scenarios 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. 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 do,
10:46isn'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. So
11:09it's
11:09stroke and distance. The one penalty shot is all that there is though, and then you're playing your
11:14third shot from here. So it seems extremely harsh, but in fact, it's one of the few scenarios where you
11:21only incur one penalty shot for your misdemeanor. But as you say, it feels like a two-shot penalty,
11:25and also worth pointing out, as we often say, the old provisional ball rule is worth mentioning in
11:30this scenario because if you're not 100% sure it's out... Yes, then you've got to hit a provisional
11:35ball. You've got to announce it's a provisional ball. You might well find your one down there.
11:39You might not, but if you've hit your provisional, you'll at least have something in play.
11:42Yeah. 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
11:52will only cost you one shot. Now, one shot is still a lot. They're well worth avoiding. If you
11:57do have any questions at all about any of the content in this video, post them below. We'd love
12:01to hear your thoughts. And of course, hit the like and subscribe button as well. But that's it for now
12:05from The London Club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.