Do you improve your lie when you play?

[Prairie Golfer]

Good question and I respect your comment, but that never happened in my experience. What should one do if there is a 2" deep body of water on the fairway or in a sand trap or if the ball comes to rest on an asphalt surface (that has happened to me)?

http://www.usga.org/playing/rules/rules.html The Rules of Golf Learn it! Love it! Live it!

[mdvaldosta]

It all depends on if it's allowed. Sometimes during the winter, maybe if it's practice. Or if standing water is roped off in the fairway. Unless allowed, you play it as it lies!

[DavidFehertysBike]

Exactly how far are you hitting this chip shot?

Not really. Even if i backdated on a current round and added myself a stroke for an unplayable lie drops on the four or five times i felt that i had to move the ball, my index probably wouldn't have moved that much. Its no indication of how good of a golfer i am. I just find that sort of course condition infuriating.

[flopdarock]

how many times do ppl actually land in horrendous lies in a round?
how hard is it to take an unplayable once or twice... it wont make or break your round most of the time...
even if you land your ball on top of a boulder... either climb on top and hit it... or drop a stroke...
everything is pretty much covered in the rules and its pretty cut and dried...
ive seen guys on tour take unplayables where i would try to hit it...
and ive seen guys on tour take a shot where id take an unplayable...
ive played rounds in the high 70's and everything was going my way...
i still play rounds in the high 90's low 100's because things dont go my way...
either way i play by the rules and i think my karma will reward me for those added strokes by giving me a few during a good round...
so im all for improving my lie if its unplayable... but taking an unplayable and add it to my score isnt a big deal... either my round is already in the toilet or a few strokes wont mean too much and i gettem back eventually

[Crey23]

Not really. Even if i backdated on a current round and added myself a stroke for an unplayable lie drops on the four or five times i felt that i had to move the ball, my index probably wouldn't have moved that much. Its no indication of how good of a golfer i am. I just find that sort of course condition infuriating.

See I have an issue with this. Golf, as in Life, not everything is pretty fairways. You have to, play the hand you're dealt (or the the lie your laid???

) If you decide to move the ball fine by me, but take your stroke and be done with it. There are rules to the game, and while most of us are just hacker (And I am beginning to think that independent of index by post like this), we should try to respect the rules, that's what makes this game great. It measures all players, independent of talent or pity in some cases, with the same measuring stick. This trully allowes an amature to gauge were he/she is overall. But by doing this, you are not only cheating yourself, but everyone you play with, and more importantly the the game. OÍ'll get off my soap box now!

how many times do ppl actually land in horrendous lies in a round?

Now, with all that I have said above, I wonder how many time we amature players don't take the penalty stroke, and end up hitting 2 or 3 more just to cerrect the errant stroke in a bad possition. I do hate to move the ball. I don't even like to touch it unless I'm seding it flying with my clubs...but I do stop once in a while a ponder moving the ball to a better location (within one club length of current location), and take the stroke, I just don't do it, and sometime which I had.

For example, a few weeks ago I was having the round of my life, had three holes left, well on my way to break 100 for the first time (only been playing 5 months) and on 16, I hit a very bad drive. I tee off with a 3w that I had nver used before. had a short drive stuck in some pretty thick rough, and instead of moving, i swung at it...it moved the about 3 feet and got me out of the rough, into a tree covered area with a tree about 6 ft in front of me. Again should have move it, but "nah...I'm good today, I'll play around it..." I hit my hybrid, attempting to hit right of the tree...well hit the right on the right hand side, bounced off into the hater hazard. What would have costed me one stroke it costed 4 strokes over par at the end. This event, so lat in the game, ruined my last three holes, which I played 10 shots over par, finishing the round at 108. I still get ticked off, when I think about it!!!

[TheNatural]

improve lies ? YES i do. well first theres scramble tournaments. HAHA. other than that the pros play by the rules...so we should too. NOT ALWAYS TRUE. nearly all of the tracks played by the pros are in perfect shape, except a divot here and there etc...

We get dogtracks with mud riddled fairways, exposed rock and gravel in fairways(not by design) sand bunkers that play like wet concrete. I try to play a ball as it lies all the time...tree roots, high grass, hardpan, but I wont risk life and limb or club if a course is in poor shape. I cant remember taking better lies at the LPGA Championship course (BulleRock) it was excellent. just my 2 pents. Outside of a tourney a golf pro would say yes this swath of exposed gravel onour fairway is under repair please move your ball. Hell they wanted me to improve my lie on a green that was turfed by a 4wheeler this winter...they asked that we putt from inside the turf marks only. Course under repair can sometimes be any part of the course thats void of grass

[WilsonWedgeMan]

yes, but only if it's lying on hardpan dirt. that may happen once/twice per round. I'm not a pro, I'm playing for enjoyment. my score,in reality, isn't good anyway,so why not protect what little clubs I have.it's about the enjoyment at my level, I'll leave the purists to strictly obey the rules. kkudos for them for it,it's just not that important to me.

[md2002]

i play it as it lies... but i absolutely refuse to screw up my clubs on some course's fw's... like a local muni here where hardpan with giant sandpaper pebbles are common or tree roots are in the rough... so ill take an unplayable... others ive played with will "clean and place" their balls off of the ugly spots

I'll move it if I'm going to hit a rock or something on my swing. I'm not damaging my clubs because there is a rock sticking out of the ground. Of coure if I stayed on the fairway I would have that issue.

[putput]

I generally do not change my lie for one good reason: if i change it now i will never learn how to make a bad situation into a good golf technique.

I have a high enough handy cap now that 20% of my hits land in a bad situation, the only way to get myself out of them is to learn how to hit them better, unless its literally unplayable (a fat tree in front of me) I will play it from anywhere. I find it more fun that way anyway, you have to get a good laugh out there.

[WilsonWedgeMan]

I'll move it if I'm going to hit a rock or something on my swing. I'm not damaging my clubs because there is a rock sticking out of the ground. Of coure if I stayed on the fairway I would have that issue.

I'm with ya!!!

[wachesawgolfer]

Fluffing up the lie or moving the ball onto grass really does not help that much and probably contributes to lack of improvement as much as anything in golf. I voted no.

[wolfridge]

I free-drop occasionally because my score card says I can.

It says on the score card that the ditches along #1 #7 #9 #13 and #18 are free-drops because of the rocks from the dirt road that criss-crosses my home course. With my slight push, I end up there a lot when I'm hurrying my game and don't take it into account. I wouldn't want to swing out of them, I'd take an unplayable, but the course owner was tired of taking them, so he wrote the ditches into the course rules.

So yea, I play winter rules (fairway only of course) in the spring when the course is in really really bad shape, but as soon as the grass greens up and the fairways sort of flatten out, we play as it lies. Rough is ALWAYS as it lies regardless of season or condition.

[WilsonWedgeMan]

Fluffing up the lie or moving the ball onto grass really does not help that much and probably contributes to lack of improvement as much as anything in golf. I voted no.

I can't see where scraping up your clubs adds to improvement, nor do I see where moving a ball to a hittable spot causes lack of improvement. I haven't seen too many golfers able to get a clean hit on a ball lying in hardpan,it only hurt their club sole. I'm talking HARD dirt w/ rocks & gravel..that's what's on our local course. the only thing harder is the road I drove to the course on....

[Fourputt]

I can't see where scraping up your clubs adds to improvement, nor do I see where moving a ball to a hittable spot causes lack of improvement. I haven't seen too many golfers able to get a clean hit on a ball lying in hardpan,it only hurt their club sole. I'm talking HARD dirt w/ rocks & gravel..that's what's on our local course. the only thing harder is the road I drove to the course on....

Well, I've hit from gravel, asphalt, and even concrete roads/cartpaths. Sometimes the nearest point of relief is not even playable... it really isn't that hard to adjust for a lie like that... much the same as a fairway bunker. You just pick the ball cleanly and try not to take a divot. I've never done irreparable damage to a club on any of those shots. But then I don't buy my clubs to look at them, I buy them to play golf with them.

[Crey23]

I generally do not change my lie for one good reason: if i change it now i will never learn how to make a bad situation into a good golf technique.

Right there with you.

What fun would it be if all I play a good lies? I play for the challenge, if I want to play easy, i'll play on playstation....

[tjy355]

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU BUNCH OF NANCIES!! The wailing is hurting my ears. "I don't want to scratch my club!" "There shouldn't be bare spots near the green..." "not fair to have an uneven lie..." "Eww, it's MUDDY!" Someone please call the WAAAmbulance.

It's GOLF for pete's sake! Half the fun is trying to fabricate a shot from a bad lie. Think: "WWSD?" (What would Seve do?).

Ya tee it up and then don't touch it again until you pull it out of the cup!

[Crey23]

I can't see where scraping up your clubs adds to improvement, nor do I see where moving a ball to a hittable spot causes lack of improvement. I haven't seen too many golfers able to get a clean hit on a ball lying in hardpan,it only hurt their club sole. I'm talking HARD dirt w/ rocks & gravel..that's what's on our local course. the only thing harder is the road I drove to the course on....

No one is talking about, moving a shot were you may damage your clubs, or put yourself in harms way, I think those are self-explanatory, should not even be take into consideration.

My gripe is when a player moves the ball, bcs the grass is too thick or tall. Or bcs he/she want to drive forward, but you have trees on the way. These kind of releave, is non-sense. How are you going to learn how to master the game, if all shots are fairway like? Again, for me the game of golf is playing within defined parameters that challenge my abilities. I like the challenge, I like to have to think "how I'm I getting out of this one?" This does not mean, that don't get frustrated, and sometimes feel like chiucking the entire bag into the closes lake, and it certainly does not mean that I have not taken relief the times that was laying on a cart path, or having the ball sitting between roots of a tree, what it means is that I do decide to "take relief", I will also add my extra stroke, and move one. I hate players that boast low scores, but play 20 mully's in a round. That is just plain sad!

[tricky]

I'm relatively long for a golfer of my handicap, but my handicap is a function of my accuracy and consistency. I regularly end up in some horrible places, from which I always play the ball as it lies. I'm much more guilty of failing to take the smart penalty drop than most, even reversing stance and playing left handed to get out of some troublesome spots - to the extent that I considered carrying a left handed club (I am left handed, but play golf right handed because the clubs are more easily available...and because I can). I don't really consider a divot on the fairway, or the ball sitting down a bit in the rough, to be a bad lie. I am accustomed to a lot worse......

Improving the lie without adhering to the rules of golf is cheating, and it drives me nuts when people do it even during recreational/friendly play. I will agree that you can move your ball (unless in competition) if you really want to, but I expect you to ask me - even when it's within the rules ("I think such and such applies, are you okay with that"). Any touching of your ball while it is in play should be in consultation with your playing partners, if out of nothing more than courtesy.

I don't have a problem with people applying winter rules, when the course is under winter rules, although I only personally clean and improve the lie if my ball has a massive great big blob of mud on it. Generally it's less of a consideration to me, as I'm not on the fairway often enough.

All of these horrible lies and ball conditions, that I have to put up with, is what drives my current focus for improvement. I'm playing the game more this year, and I'm not looking for more length, or a better short game (just yet). What I am doing is trying to improve my accuracy, so that I more regularly put the ball in places that I'm happy to play it from.

With a bit of consistency, which should come from playing a bit more often, I can see where I can make huge improvements in my game (through taking a bit off my swing to improve consistency, and better course management, and then subsequently through improved touch in my short game - infrequent play means this is currently garbage). I just don't think I would be able to learn to improve if every shot was effectively off a tee......