What Are The General Penalty Rules In Golf?

  • 3 months ago
Neil Tappin is joined by rules guru Jeremy Ellwood to look at some of the simple rules related mistakes golfers are making. They offer 5 rules penalties every golfer needs to avoid covering what happens in some crucial scenarios on the course.
Transcript
00:00Hello and welcome to the London Club and this video looking at the five rules
00:04penalties that every golfer really needs to avoid and these are all things that are
00:09careless mistakes that golfers might make and I think if you play the game for long enough over enough years
00:14You'll probably end up making a few of these mistakes at some point and they can cost you penalty shots
00:19But hopefully after watching this video, you'll be able to avoid them, right?
00:23Let's head out now onto the heritage course here at the London Club. Look at our first golf rules mistake
00:30Okay
00:32So the first one on our list relates to equipment and in particular these things your laser rangefinders now
00:39I've already zapped the flag here and I found out that it's a hundred and ninety nine yards
00:43We're on the 17th hole of the heritage course of the London Club
00:45It's one nine nine, but it's downhill and this set tells me it's playing one nine two very handy in practice
00:51Yes, but but if you're at this stage of around in a competition and you've had that slope function on for the whole round
00:58I'm afraid you would be
01:00Disqualified now rule four point three a gives you one strike and you're out almost you the first offense first breach
01:06Whatever you want to call it of leaving the slope function on is a two-shot penalty or a loss of hole in match play
01:12But if you then zap another yardage on the next hole that second offense and any ones beyond that
01:19Mean you are no longer gonna you are no longer playing in this competition
01:22No
01:22and so you've got to be careful because on the side of the range finders is often a little
01:27Switch that you can toggle on and off here. It says slope addition when it's in slope
01:31I'd need to just push that down now. I'm at a slope and I can use this in competition
01:36It's the sort of thing that you can accidentally leave leave on you can and you know
01:40If you realize too late then it is as you say bad news. Yes beware
01:48Okay, so this one Jez is
01:51Really carelessness, isn't it carelessness lack of patience lack of ability to control the putter
01:57Which is one of my problems. Talk me through what's going on here
02:00Well, we're talking about a scenario on the putting green both balls on the putting green in stroke play you putt and you hit another
02:06ball at rest because
02:08Someone's raking a bunker and faffing around somewhere and you write you have nothing to mark it
02:12I'm asking to market you're pretty sure you're not gonna hit it and then the thing goes off in your hands and you do
02:17Yeah, so it's just a an avoidable mistake, but it can cost you can't it?
02:20Cost you a cost you two shots in stroke play you have to then replace the ball that was struck where it was your ball
02:26Stays where it is
02:28So I guess that may help you perhaps in a way and that it would have stopped it going further past the hole
02:33But you've cost yourself and in match play in match play no penalty again
02:37The ball is replaced and everyone just carries on with their business as if nothing happened a lot of these just be wary of what?
02:44Could potentially happen in a situation like this if there is another ball somewhere near the hole then ask that player to market
02:50Definitely because it's a needless shot given away just like that
02:57Okay, so for this one I'm gonna talk you through the following scenario, which I think is probably fairly common actually
03:03This is just to the right of the 17th green quite heavy rough around here
03:07Let's imagine I've blazed my tee shot out to the right and I'm in here somewhere
03:11And I come down and I see a golf ball in the rough. I can see it's a tight list
03:15Fantastic minds tight list brilliant. It's exactly where I think it is. So I'm gonna play it. What am I in danger of doing here?
03:21Yeah, well, I think people do this quite a lot. Don't know you're in danger of playing a wrong ball
03:25I think maybe people are so relieved
03:27They found a ball where they think theirs was going to be that they don't perhaps follow the checking procedures
03:33Carefully enough before then playing it. Okay, so that begs the question then what what is the checking procedure?
03:37So I come down. Yeah, instead of just going off to my golf bag to grab a club
03:41I'm gonna actually have a look at this, but how do I do it?
03:43Okay, so you can't see that it's yours from where it's lying. You can't see the marking
03:48So you you're allowed to lift it to identify it
03:50But you must mark the position of the ball first with t-peg t-peg ideal lift it up check. It's yours
03:56You can't clean it other than the extent necessary to be able to identify it as yours. There's nothing on that one
04:02Anyway, I'll be back down and then play on if it is indeed yours
04:05But if it isn't yours, that's when we run into troubles if you haven't gone through that checking procedure and just go on ahead
04:11Yeah, and so quickly just what's the penalty for playing a wrong ball, okay
04:15Well, the penalty is the general penalty. So in match play it would be loss of hole right in stroke play
04:19It would be two shots
04:20So it's quite severe
04:21But you also have to then correct the error in a timely fashion in stroke play and that means
04:26Before you hit your tee shot on the next hole or if it's the last hole before you return your school card
04:31Okay, and if you don't correct your error in time, I'm afraid it's the
04:35Oh
04:36Dear so, I mean beware it's scenarios like this
04:40It is possible that you could play a wrong ball and it would be incredibly frustrating to get peen lights for that
04:46So watch out
04:51Okay, so we've manufactured a situation here
04:53So you're gonna have to go with us a bit on this but it's not uncommon and it's well worth knowing
04:57So my golf ball is on the edge of the collar and the fairway. There's a loose impediment a twig
05:03Next to it. So I'm gonna move that twig
05:05Yes, because I know that I can under the rules I can move loose impediments you can
05:11But in this case it was perhaps an unwise thing to do because your ball is now moved it's moved an inch
05:16It has now I think a lot of people
05:19Now for various reasons think there's no penalty for accidental movement of your ball in the general area of the golf course
05:25Which is where we are. Yes, fairway rough fringe, whatever
05:27But there is still a penalty if you cause your ball to move and in that scenario there
05:31It was clearly your movement of the twig that made the ball move
05:35Therefore you are penalized one stroke out and you must put the ball back where it was
05:39Why is that why the confusion do you think well?
05:42I think because you're no longer penalized for accidental movement of the ball on the putting green
05:46You're no longer penalized for accidental movement of the ball when you're searching for it
05:50I think people have maybe read too much into that and think that you can actually just
05:56Accidentally move your ball anywhere and it's fine. Just replace it carry on
05:58Well, you do replace it and carry on but there's a one-stroke penalty accompanying it. Yes, so be careful again
06:04Like all of these just be careful of what you're doing
06:06Make sure that that loose impediment you're about to move is not going to cause the ball to move then you should be fine
06:15So this one is all about something you have to do on your scorecard after your round
06:20Yes, what are we talking about here?
06:22Well, I mean the critical thing we were looking at here is that you must sign the scorecard to attest
06:27The score that you've just compiled. I guess sometimes you come off the course. You're a bit flustered
06:32You've made a mess of the last someone distracts you when you're yeah, it's hot
06:36you want to drink your mind's not quite there and suddenly the cards in the box without your signature on it and
06:42Then you could have played your heart out for four hours and it will all be to no avail because you will be disqualified
06:48Yeah, and it's interesting because I think the more we head down this route of a lot of us using apps for scoring
06:54Maybe people get out of the kind of mindset of filling out a sort of an old-fashioned scorecard as it were
06:59But there are going to be tournaments when you need to do it
07:01And if you do do it, then you need to put your signature on it
07:03You do and the other thing Jez is with the individual scores like the main thing. What else do you need to do?
07:09well, I mean, you've also got to make sure your marker assigned it and that your
07:12Handicap is correct. So you're signing to say you played off the correct handicap and then beyond that the gross scores
07:17You've got to make sure they're correct for each individual hole. You don't do any of the maths. Okay, that's not your responsibility
07:24and the one to be really wary of here is you signing for score on an individual hole that is lower than that which you
07:31actually
07:32Achieved because if you do that if you do that again, I'm afraid it's for fruitless hours and the big DQ against your name
07:38Yeah
07:38So as with a lot of these just make sure you take that care and attention
07:43Your scorecard is a very valuable thing. If you get it wrong, it could be really costly. So there you have it
07:48That's a look at our five rules penalties golfers really need to avoid
07:52If you think there's anything probably more important actually in there that people miss out and the sort of careless mistakes rules related that they might
07:59Make on the golf course leave some comments below if you'd like the video, please do hit the like button as well
08:04But that's it for now from the London Club. We'll see you next time