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What are your "unwritten" rules of golf?


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This is my biggest pet peeve and it happens all the time when pace of play is slow.

It's just you. If you are waiting to hit, why should you care? If your group is actually hitting their tees shots then it would be in extremely bad taste and the following group should stop well back of you, but if you are just standing around waiting, then there's not a thing wrong with it.

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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i know some golf courses do have this rule, but only about 20% of them, roughly.

NO CELL PHONES!!!!!

hey, if your wife's expecting any second, sure. but that's a rare exception. but 99% of the time there's no reason to have your cell phone on. hey, we're out there playing golf escaping from the rat race. turn your damn phones off.

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It's just you. If you are waiting to hit, why should you care? If your group is actually hitting their tees shots then it would be in extremely bad taste and the following group should stop well back of you, but if you are just standing around waiting, then there's not a thing wrong with it.

Really... you dont think it breaks etiquette to come up to someone elses tee box that you arent even playing with.

How would you know I am just standing there until you drove up... maybe I am lining up my shot, going through my pre shot routine, etc. If another group is on the tee box... you dont join them.

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I also think it's just you. You can tell if people are teeing off.. then yeah definetely wait.. But if its been slow all day and bogged down, at least at my courses, sometimes you HAVE to get up behind them or else you're so close to the other green you could get nailed. There isnt always a huge distance from tee box and green. And as long as Im just sitting there bullshitting waiting for the guys in front to get out of driving distance, I dont care if someone drives or walks up.. Hell half the time I shoot the breeze with them a little too. I'm in my mid 20s so I get a kick out of chatting with some of the old timers on the course from time to time. As long as they are totally quiet as we tee off.. which honestly I cant ever remember anyone NOT beeing, then I dont have a problem.. Plus it kind of simulates a little bit of a gallary so.. what the heck.

Oh anyway about asking the club.. I just found out two days ago that it is actually against the rules to ask someone what club they are using on the tour. BUT that is DEFINITELY not one of our rules on the course. I go with my friend the majority of the time, and we might have small friendly wagers, or just competing for best score, but overall we arent competing against eachother, we're competeing against the course. If I win but I shot a 102 Im not really going to be very happy. But if I get 4th and I shoot an 85 Im jumping for joy. We pretty much ALWAYS ask eachother what we hit.. Like someone said earlier about the long hitters, sometimes its just to say.. DAMN you hit your 9Iron that far? Im using my 7.. when asking the better players, and sometimes we DO switch clubs after someone similar to our distance hit their 8 and left it short. But it's no big deal, we go out to have fun and enjoy ourselves not to try and enforce every tour rule.

One of my groups unwritten rules used to be One mulligan per 9, but once I started shooting a little better and realizing that if you take a mulligan on a bad drive, you are cheating yourself cause you NEED to get practice hitting out of deep bunkers, trees and and deep rough, I stopped doing it.. Plus I dont want to one day be like WOW I shot an 82.. and then in the back of my head KNOW that I had a muligan in there. But a few of the guys i play with still take them. I dont really mind, except for when they use one on a par 3, to me that is REALLY cheap.

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When your first shot from the tee box didn't go further than the women's tee box you have to pay a beer to your flight

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I guess someone should send out a memo to all starters and tell them their job is being eliminated. According to you guys everyone should just line up on tee boxes.

The etiquette I have learned is you keep a proper distance in between holes.

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Yeah, asking what club somebody hit in any situation is illegal. It doesn't matter if your ball is 600 yards away. You are allowed to ask how far did you figure it to be, or how far to carry the bunker but not what club they hit, because this is considered to be attainable knowledge. They are allowed to tell you what club they hit but you are not allowed to ask. In college matches they tell you not to ask and if you get paired up with a real jerk and he decides to call you on it he can give you two strokes as soon as you ask, without an answer or anything.
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Play golf by the rules and don't give yourself any advantages that are not within the rules of the game

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When your first shot from the tee box didn't go further than the women's tee box you have to pay a beer to your flight

When your first shot doesn't go further than the women's tee box you are supposed to

drop your pants . That's our rule. Honest. It keeps people from playing the wrong tee's. I play from the #3's (2nd shortest) just because of my inconsistency and I want to be sure that I clear the #4's (ladies). I've been there when one of the older guys shanked one. Granted, I play in a retirement village, and a lot of those guys really don't have any more shame, but still it was quite shocking when one guy actually did it.

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Never question anyone's choice of club on a tee box,whether it be a driver or iron on a short par 4 e.g

This is a good one. I really hate when people question my club choice. Why do they care? I don't care what club they use, half the time I don't even notice.

I play with a guy from work quit often, real good guy but always seems to question my club choice. He hits driver on every single hole except par 3's. No matter what the hole is he swings away as hard as he can, and if you don't do the same he questions it. Not to be a jerk, but he is 9 strokes worse than I am...I would never dream of questioning a 2 handicap's club choice.
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i know some golf courses do have this rule, but only about 20% of them, roughly.

That's a little overboard for me I guess. Turn them off? Nah. All cell phones have silent ring features. That makes more sense. If I'm waiting for a group ahead of me, I'll check my phone to see if I have any text/voice msgs. And it doesn't hurt a single person....

A rule against taking a cell phone onto a course is a little much. Besides, all courses (to my knowledge) ask each patron to practice good golf etiquette (whether in writing on the scorecard, a sign, etc...). This should suffice....but to each their own. Of course, I do know how irritating it is to have a cell phone go off on the course...this is just my $.02.
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Oh anyway about asking the club.. I just found out two days ago that it is actually against the rules to ask someone what club they are using on the tour. BUT that is DEFINITELY not one of our rules on the course. I go with my friend the majority of the time, and we might have small friendly wagers, or just competing for best score, but overall we arent competing against eachother, we're competeing against the course. If I win but I shot a 102 Im not really going to be very happy. But if I get 4th and I shoot an 85 Im jumping for joy. We pretty much ALWAYS ask eachother what we hit.. Like someone said earlier about the long hitters, sometimes its just to say.. DAMN you hit your 9Iron that far? Im using my 7.. when asking the better players, and sometimes we DO switch clubs after someone similar to our distance hit their 8 and left it short. But it's no big deal, we go out to have fun and enjoy ourselves not to try and enforce every tour rule.

The only thing is, if you use the advice (even subconsciously) you got from you buddy about what club he hit, then you don't have a legitimate 85. Any time a player is playing stroke play, he is essentially playing the course. You can discuss club selection to your heart's content after both of you have played your shots, that is legal because it can no longer influence the way you play your shot. The prohibition is not just for advice, but the key is whether that advice influences a golfer in his play. The Rules definition of advice is:

Advice "Advice" is any counsel or suggestion that could influence a player in determining his play, the choice of a club or the method of making a stroke. Information on the Rules, distance or matters of public information, such as the position of hazards or the flagstick on the putting green, is not advice.

Any sort of advice that fits that description is a breach of Rule 8-1.

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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The only thing is, if you use the advice (even subconsciously) you got from you buddy about what club he hit, then you don't have a legitimate 85. Any time a player is playing stroke play, he is essentially playing the course. You can discuss club selection to your heart's content after both of you have played your shots, that is legal because it can no longer influence the way you play your shot. The prohibition is not just for advice, but the key is whether that advice influences a golfer in his play. The Rules definition of advice is:

I'm going to guess that this rule does not apply to caddys giving advice?

Am I going to have to rail against the inadequacy of some written rules for the modern duffer?
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When your first shot from the tee box didn't go further than the women's tee box you have to pay a beer to your flight

I like that. We always played that you had to pull your shorts down and hit the short ball with them around your ankles. I'm sure there are plenty of unwritten AND written rules about the quality of that decision.

Please note that as I'm now older, wiser, fatter and hairier I no longer subscribe to this penalty method.
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I'm going to guess that this rule does not apply to caddys giving advice?

One's caddy is part of the players side. The side includes the player, his partner(s) and all of their caddies. There are situations in college and high school tournaments where a coach can be designated as being authorized to give advice to his players. But fellow competitors (stroke play) or opponents (match play) can never give each other advice about how to play a stroke. It's even a penalty to ask what club was used, even if your opponent doesn't answer.

Rick

"He who has the fastest cart will never have a bad lie."

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Always help look for your opponents ball in the rough ,but dont look too hard!

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Watch your ball until it stops or you can't see it any longer. I usually play with my three best friends, and one of them never (and I mean never) watches his ball the whole time. He can be in the middle of the fairway and ask where his ball is. And sometimes, when we are not in the same cart, he will come all the way over to where I am, whether I'm getting ready to hit or not, and ask if I saw his ball.

Another rule, one of my friends (only plays with us sometimes) will search for his ball forever. I swear, sometimes I think he takes more pride in finding golf balls then shooting a good score. He will slice a ball deep in the woods, and you better believe he is going to find it. I can understand looking for your ball for a litle while, but this guy takes it to the extreme. And of course, he always comes out with more than his ball. This is a quote we usually here from him everytime we play: "Man at $.50 a ball, I just payed for my round in golf balls I found." We will have to make a time limit rule for him

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i know some golf courses do have this rule, but only about 20% of them, roughly.

I saw this on a course last year: There was a busted up cell phone in the trash at the longest par 3(it was one of them open steel mesh cans). I thought, kids perhaps... or someone got real mad. After my round, I was in the clubhouse and overheard the phone killer group. They had an unwritten rule(NO CELL PHONES!) and if someone in the group broke the rule... the guy next to hit, got to tee up the phone to see how far it would go(they of course, cleaned up the mess). And they were all still laughing about it in the clubhouse. After I found out what was up, I kind of chuckled too.

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Note: This thread is 5634 days old. We appreciate that you found this thread instead of starting a new one, but if you plan to post here please make sure it's still relevant. If not, please start a new topic. Thank you!

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