Rules for the Golf Team

[iacas]

I'm going to give a quickie "rules seminar" to the high school golf team I'm assistant coaching. Here are the notes I compiled on what rules I should cover. If you have some additional rules you think are good, let me know...

Lost Ball - Stroke and distance, not "drop another ball and add a stroke." Lost ball in hazard somewhat different.

Unplayable Lie - Options available to player (mostly: line from ball to hole, not line ball took to get to the unplayable lie).

Provisional - When to hit one and when hitting one is not allowed (i.e. "subversive 'practice'" we always called it).

Ground under repair - What to do about it. How to recognize it.

Free Drops - When do you get 'em? (Ball embedded, etc.)

Red vs. Yellow Water Hazards - How the rules differ.

Bunkers - What you can and cannot do (cannot angrily swing at sand after leaving ball in the bunker, cannot rake bunker if your ball is still in it, etc.).

Line of Putt - Partner cannot be on line of putt while player is making a stroke.

Playing Out of Order - What to do about it.

Teeing off in Front of Markers - Don't, but if someone else does, what to do.

Casual Water - Falls in the "free drops" thing above.

Trees - Don't break anything when making practice swings - that's illegal.

What else belongs on the list? What rules do you see people most frequently getting wrong?

[DBake]

Maximum of 14 Clubs

I was looking in the USGA rule book but I can not find it, Asking a playing partner what club they hit I believe is a penalty.

Be a good idea to go over any local rules you may have at your local course

Also, do not forget movable and immovable obstructions...

[Rafcin]

Asking a playing partner what club they hit I believe is a penalty.

It's not. Asking a question doesn't create the "unsolicited advice" situtation. Answering the question however does.

Oldest trick in the book for "dirty golfers" IMHO Provisional ball + two balls in play in case of questionable ruling should get on your list.

[NCGolfer]

Provisional - When to hit one and when hitting one is not allowed (i.e. "subversive 'practice'" we always called it).

Please tell them that they also must announce the provisional as well. If they don't tell their playing competitors that they are hitting a provisional, then that ball

must be played even if the original is found. The only other rule I would address is the identification of your own ball. If it is plugged or has mud on it they must tell their competitors that they are going to touch the ball to identify it before doing so...same goes for checking a ball to see if it is damaged. Good list though!

[iacas]

It's not. Asking a question doesn't create the "unsolicited advice" situtation. Answering the question however does.

You can ask - and answer - in high school play. You cannot ask your opponent, and he cannot give. But your partner - the guy on your team that you're playing with - you two can talk about anything.

[iacas]

I've attached a PDF version of the document I prepared for them. It's at the bottom as an attachment. The full text (sans formatting - I don't have the time today) is here:


Rules

The Rules of Golf are there to help you as much as they are to penalize you. Knowing the rules will help you to avoid stupid penalties, to help your opponents avoid stupid penalties (or not), and to save strokes when possible.

Carry a current rule book in your bag at all times. They’re free or inexpensive. Find one.

Lost Ball
The left side on the back used to be O.B. It’s not anymore because there’s really no need. When you lose a ball anywhere except in a water hazard, it’s the same penalty as hitting the ball O.B.: stroke and distance.

You’re permitted five minutes to search for your ball. After that - even if you find it - you must return to the place from which you hit your last shot, add a penalty stroke, and play again. If you substitute a ball and play a stroke, that ball is in play, even if you find your original ball within 5 minutes after playing the substitute.

If a ball is lost in a water hazard, then you may proceed under normal water hazard rules.

Water Hazards
Yellow = Water Hazard, Red = Lateral Water Hazard
a) play another shot from your original location
b) drop anywhere on a line extending from the point at which the ball crossed the hazard to the hole, no closer to the hole
c) Lateral: play a shot within two club lengths (no closer to the hole) from the last place it crossed the hazard, even on the opposite side
d) play from a drop area, if provided (sometimes on yellow)

Unplayable Lie
At any time (except when in a water hazard) you may declare your ball “unplayable,” add a penalty stroke and:
a) replay from the location of the previous stroke
b) drop a ball on the line from the ball to the hole, no closer to the hole
c) drop a ball within two club lengths of the spot, no nearer the hole

Provisionals
If you believe a ball may be lost, in a water hazard, or unplayable, you are allowed to hit a provisional ball (to avoid having to walk back and play it later). You must announce your intent to play a provisional ball prior to doing so. You may not hit a provisional ball if you can clearly see that your ball is not in jeopardy, as that would violate the “no practice during a round” rule.

Ground Under Repair and Other Free Drops
Ground Under Repair is typically marked with a white circle. You’re allowed a free drop at the spot that provides nearest relief no closer to the hole.

The same is true of any artificial obstructions on a course, which would include signs (but not hazard stakes), stakes holding up trees, garbage cans, ball washers, carts, piles of dirt, cart paths, etc.

Other Free Drops:
1. If your ball embeds in a closely mowed area “through the green” (not tees, not greens, not hazards), you’re allowed a free drop within one club length (no nearer). It must be in its own pitch mark, not someone else’s. You may clean the ball.

2. If your ball or your stance is influenced by an “abnormal ground condition” you’re allowed a free drop (one clublength, no nearer) at the nearest point of relief. An “abnormal ground condition” is any casual water, ground under repair, cast or runway made by a burrowing animal, reptile, or bird. If your ball is in a bunker, you must drop in the bunker if at all possible. You may clean the ball.

3. If your ball is on the wrong putting green, drop within one clublength of the nearest spot that’s not on the putting green and is no nearer the hole. Fringe or rough. You may clean the ball.

Bunkers (and Water Hazards)
Bunkers and water hazards have many of the same rules.

1. While your ball is in the hazard, you cannot ground your club at any time in a hazard, but brushing the top of the grass in a lateral water hazard is not “grounding” the club. If you take a practice swing, don’t touch the ground (or sand). Ideally, do so outside of the hazard.

2. If you hit the ball from one bunker to another, you’re permitted to take a practice swing or, more likely, rake the first bunker. If you leave the ball in the same bunker, do not rake or angrily strike the ground or you’ll be penalized.

Partners
High school matches are played with a “partner” - the guy on your team. You may talk with your partner about anything - club selection, line of a putt, etc. You may not talk about such things with your opponents.

Your partner cannot stand on the line of your shot while you’re playing the shot. This means your partner cannot watch the line of your putt. Your opponent may, however.

Any penalties incurred on your behalf by your partner are your penalties. If your partner kicks your ball, you get the penalty. If you make a swing at your ball and it glances off of your partner or any part of his equipment (or yours), you incur the penalty.

Playing out of Turn, In Front of Tee Markers
If any player plays out of turn, the opponent may not request that the player re-play the shot in stroke play. However, if the player does this to gain an advantage, he can be disqualified.

Order of play in stroke play is not a partner rule, so if you are away, you cannot elect to let your partner play first (for example: your partner has a meaningless 10-foot putt and you have an 11-footer for birdie on the same line).

If the player tees off in front of the tee markers, he incurs a penalty of two strokes and must play a shot from inside the teeing ground. You are obligated by the honor code to notify your opponent of his error when you notice the infraction (pre-swing, even).

Teeing Ground: two club lengths backwards from tee markers to form a rectangle. You can stand outside teeing ground to play a ball teed up inside the teeing ground. If you’re between clubs on a par three, take the longer club and tee up two (driver) club lengths back from the tee markers.

Miscellaneous Rules
1. Do not break anything on a practice swing. If you’re under a tree and you take a practice swing and you break a limb - or even knock a leaf off - it’s a two-stroke penalty for “improving your lie or intended area of swing.”

2. You are allowed to identify your ball anywhere. Announce your intent to your opponent, and move grass or the ball just enough to properly identify your ball. When you are done, re-create the original lie.

3. If a ball that did not lie on the putting green strikes another ball, the stationary ball is replaced and the moving ball is played as it lies. If this occurs on the putting green, a two-stroke penalty is assessed to the player who struck the putt.

4. Two-stroke penalty for striking the flagstick when the ball was played from the green.

5. At any time you may declare your ball damaged during the playing of a hole - if your opponent agrees - and replace it with a new one.

6. If you move or step on a ball while looking for it (accidentally), re-create the original lie in the original position without penalty.

7. If you are moving a lose obstruction (twigs, rocks, leaves, etc.) within one clublength of your ball and your ball moves, it’s a one-stroke penalty and you must replace the ball. In fact, almost any time your ball moves as a result of something other than a stroke but by your action, you must replace it or incur further penalties up to DQ.

8. You haven’t “addressed” the ball until you’ve grounded your club. When it’s windy, don’t ground your putter. In the rough, don’t ground your club. If the ball moves and you haven’t technically addressed the ball, there is no penalty. If you have, it’s one stroke and you replace the ball.

[iacas]

Continued from above (it wouldn't let me post more than 10,000 characters or something):

Mental Game

General Notes
A match is not the place to work on your golf swing. If something goes awry, fix it on the range, not on the course. Many pros will come to a golf course not knowing whether they’re playing a fade or a cut that particular day. They play the course with whatever shot they hit in warmups. Nine holes is far from being enough time to fix a golf swing.

“Swing Thoughts” get in the way, but if you must think of something, make it a positive swing thought and keep it to one. “Slow and steady” is a good swing thought, “don’t rush the downswing” is not. Golfers playing their best golf often can’t tell people what they were thinking during the round because they weren’t really thinking of a whole lot. When good players play well, they have no idea how the rest of their foursome is doing either.

Confidence is one of the biggest things you can have on your side. Go with your gut - your first instinct is usually right. It’s better to play a riskier shot confidently than any shot with doubt. If you miss a few putts, tell yourself that the law of averages means you’ve gotta make a big one sooner or later. If you make a few, tell yourself that you’re on fire.

If it’s raining (or windy, or the course is crap), realize that everyone is playing in the same conditions. When my opponent would complain about the weather it was as if he was handing me the match, too busy worrying about the conditions and not about scoring well.

Visualization and Memory
Develop a good memory for your great shots. Quickly forget the bad ones. Fred Couples, prior to hitting any shot, thinks about the best shot he’s ever hit with the club in his hands. Work visualization into your target-finding - picture yourself swinging the club, the ball flying through the air, landing, and bouncing. Phil Mickelson pretends to make a straight putt before he strokes any testers around the hole, and making the “real” putt is a lot easier because he’s just holed one from the same distance. If you can make a good shot in your mind, it’s almost as if you too have already done it. Then your real shot becomes simply about repeating something you just did.

Other Swings
Don’t watch other players swing. Watch for the ball as a courtesy, but don’t watch the swing. It’ll often throw you off.

Getting Upset
Pros - who practice hours each day and play for a living - rarely get upset over a bad shot. Why should someone who’s never broken 90, 80, or 70 get upset?

The only thing you can do in golf is play your next shot. That’s it. As soon as the ball leaves the clubface, you have no control over it. None. Find it and hit it. If you make a good stroke at a putt, you’ve done all that you can do - some putts fall, some putts hit a spike mark and lip out. Accept the good and the bad and realize that the only thing you can ever control is how you make the next stroke.

Pre-Shot Routine
Your pre-shot routine begins for most when you pull a club from the bag. Don’t stand around with a club in your hands - it’s a sure way to lose focus when it’s time to play. Pre-shot routines can include a practice swing or two to generate the proper feeling or to think of something mechanical, but after that, move into target mode.

Differentiation
Your body cannot differentiate between negatives and positives. If your last thought over the ball is “don’t hit it in the sand” your body hears “sand” and does all it can to hit the ball there. Your last thought should be the precise target - always positive.

Full Shots
Golf is a target game, and as such, the target is critical. As a part of your pre-shot routine, select a very small target. “The middle of the fairway” is 5 yards wide - choose something five inches wide and 400 yards away. The smaller the target, the more likely you are to hit the ball in that direction.

Once you’ve selected a target, think of nothing but the target. Trust that your body will generate a swing - even if it’s not your normal swing (i.e. a cut when you normally play a draw) that will get the ball there. Your body can react a lot faster during a swing than your mind can, especially if your mind is trying to determine whether your hands are at the right place at the top of your backswing. Trust that your body will try to send the to the target.

Short Game
Inside of a certain yardage, you should attempt to hole everything. Clearly if you’re behind a tree (etc.), this doesn’t apply, but for me, the yardage is 100. Inside of 100 yards, I’m attempting to put nearly every shot in the hole, whether it’s from the fairway, a bunker, the rough, or a putt. Trust that your wedge can stop the ball close to (or in) the hole and fire at the flag inside your “safe” distance. It might be 50 yards for you, and you may occasionally deviate, but be confident and go at it.

Putting
Attempt to hole every putt, and be confident in the fact that you can. There are no un-hole-able putts in golf.

Putting, as with much of the rest of the short game, should be about feel. Players cannot successfully putt thinking “get the ball to the hole” or “don’t leave this short” or “don’t blow this by the hole.” Practice a stroke behind or beside the ball while looking at your target (which may or may not be the hole, depending on the line and speed of the putt). Step up to the ball, look at the target a few times, and hit the ball to it.

Lining up your ball with the logo helps you to rely solely on feel while you’re over the ball. Since the line is clearly indicated, you don’t have to think about that - you can think only about feeling the stroke that will get the ball to the target.

You know how, during a “goof off round,” you can usually step up to four- and five-foot putts and just knock them in while standing on one foot without giving it much thought? Your body knows how to hole putts. It can feel slope in feet and it knows how hard to hit the ball to make it fall. Trust that.

Eight Seconds
Your body can retain short-term “feel” for about eight seconds. Take practice swings or putting strokes, but hit your shot quickly - within eight seconds - to retain as much feel as possible.

Inside the Golfer’s Mind
http://golfdigest.com/instruction/in...12rotella.html

[Rickins]

Erik,

One I've seen broken a gazillion times is a player substituting one ball for another once they've reached the green. I usually hear, "I always putt with this ball."

Perhaps minor, but declaring the penalty itself might not be bad to cover so there aren't any disagreements on what the proper penalty should be. "My club touched the sand so I'm calling a penalty stroke on myself" sort of thing.

Rick

[iacas]

One I've seen broken a gazillion times is a player substituting one ball for another once they've reached the green. I usually hear, "I always putt with this ball."

I can honestly say I've never seen that or heard of it in any match or competition I've ever played.

[Rickins]

Erik,

Perhaps it's your "presence".

Honestly, (if it's not inappropriate to use the term) I've seen a number of guys pull out a ball with a big, red stripe (or something similar) around the circumference to putt with.

Not necessarily for matches or tournaments, though it almost led to a "throw-down" in one case. Not good...

Just my experience, but it seemed "catchy" 'til someone finally brought out the Rule book.

Rick