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We exist to help golfers get more out of the game they love. Our team of passionate golfers and experts produce authoritative in-depth reviews of the latest golf equipment to help you buy better, tips and advice to improve your game, ideas for golf courses to play and places to stay and coverage of the game at every level from grassroots up to Tour.
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SportsTranscript
00:00In this video, we are talking about air shots and what happens under the rules of golf if
00:05you attempt to hit the ball and you fail to make contact.
00:08I guess, Jez, there's two scenarios.
00:10There's one where the ball's sitting perfectly well and you attempt to hit it and you miss
00:14it, which is probably something that high-handicapped golfers might do from time to time.
00:19There's also another scenario where your ball's sitting up in the rough, like in this scenario.
00:24Fluffy stuff.
00:25You're trying to make good contact with the ball.
00:27Then it'll be a chip shot around the greens and the club just goes straight underneath
00:31it and you don't make contact with the ball.
00:33Now, what happens in that scenario?
00:35Are you penalised?
00:36Well, you're not penalised as such, but the important thing here is whether you were intending
00:43to hit the ball.
00:44A stroke is defined as the forward movement of the club made to strike the ball.
00:48So, if that was your intention, it makes no difference whether you make contact with the
00:52ball or not.
00:53It is a stroke.
00:54Therefore, the penalty, which isn't really a penalty, is just another stroke on your score.
00:59It counts.
01:00It counts as one.
01:01It basically counts.
01:02Yes.
01:03If you tried to hit the ball and missed it, it counts.
01:04Now, there are a couple of other things to talk about here.
01:07One of the scenarios that we thought about was if your ball's in a tree.
01:09Yes.
01:10Go on.
01:11Talk me through this one.
01:12A different piece we did in the magazine.
01:14If the ball's in a tree, you can't reach it, so you decide to hit another branch to
01:18make the ball move.
01:20Yes.
01:21Does that count as a shot?
01:23It doesn't count as a shot, but what it does mean is that you get penalised for moving your
01:28ball at rest under Rule 9.4.
01:29Right.
01:30Okay.
01:31The net result is the same.
01:32It's another shot on your scorecard.
01:33So you can't hit something else to make your ball move and expect to get away with it.
01:38Okay.
01:39And then what's the last scenario we're going to talk about?
01:40Well, the last extremely niche scenario that I doubt many people have ever come across in
01:45their time in golf is…
01:46If you have, let us know.
01:47If the club head separates from the shaft on the backswing, crufty on the backswing, and
01:54you then miss the ball on the way down with the remains of the shaft, that would not count
01:59as a stroke.
02:00However, if the club would separate on the downswing, by that point you have made a forward
02:05movement of the club with the intention of striking the ball, it would count as a stroke.
02:09Niche.
02:10Niche indeed.
02:11But hopefully, in this scenario, now air shots do happen.
02:15Hopefully, gentle advice there will explain exactly what you're doing.