Golf 101: Rules of the Game
The basics of golf are fairly easy to learn, but knowing about hazards, penalties, and other scenarios can be tricky. In this guide, you’ll learn the rules for the situations that will cost you penalty strokes—golf rules.
To Tee or Not to Tee
The tee-box is the only place on the golf course you can put a wooden peg called a tee in the ground to help improve your lie. When you hit from the tee-box, you must play from between the corresponding tee markers (the blue, white, or red tees) or no more than two clublengths behind them. If you hit from in front of the markers, it’s a two-stroke penalty.
Hazards: As Bad as They Sound
Hazards are the danger zones of the golf course. If you knock your ball into one, you usually have to add extra strokes to your score just for the privilege of hitting another shot.
There are several different kinds of hazards:
- Water hazard. Marked off by yellow stakes, this is a pond, lake, stream, ocean, creek, or river that’s between you and the green.
- Lateral hazard. Marked with red stakes, these line the perimeter of the hole and shouldn’t be between you and the green if you draw a straight line from the tee to the flag.
How you play from each of these hazards is slightly different:
- Playing from a water hazard (yellow stakes). If you go into one of these, determine the spot where the ball went into the water. Drop your new ball as near as you can to this spot without moving closer to the hole (that means you have to hit over the water again if your first ball didn’t make it!). Or you can back up as far as you want on the line of flight the ball took into the water. Which means that if there’s 50 yards of rough in front of the water you just blasted a ball into, you can back up 75 yards into the fairway and hit your next shot.
- Playing from a lateral hazard (red stakes). The only difference between a lateral hazard and a water hazard is that you can drop your ball two clublengths from the spot the ball crossed the edge of the hazard, but no closer to the hole. You can’t back up as far as you want, like you could if you hit the ball into a water hazard. The penalty is still the same—one stroke. So if you hit your third shot into a lateral hazard, add one shot to your score for the penalty. Then you’re hitting your fifth shot with a new ball.
Whenever you have to drop a new ball, the procedure is fairly simple. Hold the ball at shoulder height with your arm extended, palm facing the ground. Open your hand and let the ball fall. Don’t try to guide it or put any spin on the ball. If the ball starts rolling back into the hazard, you can stop it, pick it up, and drop it again.
Out of Bounds: Stroke and Distance
The three worst words in a golfer’s vocabulary are “stroke and distance.” Not only do you have to take a penalty stroke when you hit a ball outside the white stakes that line the outer edge of the course, but you have to go back to the spot you hit the out-of-bounds shot to hit the next one instead of being able to drop near where it went out of bounds. It really is a painful penalty, because you lose both the penalty shot and the yardage you advanced on the shot.
When Moving Your Ball Won’t Cost You a Stroke
You can pick up your ball and drop it in a better position in two common situations: when it stops on a cart path, or on ground under repair. To get relief, pick up your ball and wipe it off. Find the nearest point (no closer to the hole, of course) that you can take a clear stance (meaning you aren’t standing on the cement path, or in the ground under repair area). Move one clublength away from that spot and drop your ball.
Other Nefarious Schemes That Inflate Your Score
Aside from hitting your ball into a hazard or out of bounds, the two main ways you’ll accumulate penalty strokes are through lost balls or unplayable lies.
If you hit a shot into the woods next to the fairway and the area isn’t designated out of bounds, you can wade in there and try to find the ball. One of three things might happen:
- You might find the ball and try to hit it out into the fairway.
- You might find the ball in an unplayable lie, which means you don’t have a chance to get a club on it or advance it in any way. If this happens, you can pick up the ball, take a one-stroke penalty, and drop it two clublengths from the spot, or you can go back and hit it from where you played your last shot (which is much more painful, because you lose the yardage).
- You might look for five minutes, not be able to find the ball, and declare it lost. Then you have to go back to the location where you hit the lost ball and take a stroke penalty. A lost ball is the least pleasant of the three outcomes.
Another way to accumulate a penalty shot is to move your ball accidentally while you brush away any loose impediments before you get ready to swing.
For example, you’re allowed to sweep away twigs, stones, or other debris from around your ball as long as you aren’t in a bunker or hazard. However, if you brush a twig away and your ball happens to be resting on it, you get a one-stroke penalty if the ball slides off the twig and rolls a few inches. So be careful.
Tending the Pin and Other Greenside Bromides
After all of the players in your group have hit their shots on or near the green, those who are closer to the hole should place a small coin or plastic ball marker in place of the ball. That way, whoever is farthest away can hit a shot at the hole and not worry about his or her ball crashing into somebody else’s.
To mark your ball, take your coin or marker and place it on the ground 3 or 4 inches behind your ball. Slide the marker toward the ball until it’s almost touching. Let go of the marker and pick up your ball. Tap down the marker with your putter. After you’re on the green and you have your ball legally marked, you can pick the ball up and clean off any mud or dirt.
According to golf etiquette, the person farthest away from the hole plays first. Wait until it’s your turn to play before you replace your ball on the marker. Set the ball down on the ground just barely in front of the marker and then slide the marker away.
If you’ve marked your ball and someone else is farther from the hole than you, it’s your job to take the flag out of the hole. When you walk toward the cup, make sure that you don’t step in someone else’s line. That’s sacred ground! When you get to the hole, ask whether anyone wants the pin tended. If your partner has a really long putt, he or she might want the flag in the hole to help aim. If someone does want the pin tended, grab the flag near the top with your arm fully extended, keeping your feet as far from the hole as possible. After your partner hits the putt and before the ball gets near you, quickly take out the flag and move away from the hole.
Now you know what to do in a sticky situation. Have fun, and happy golfing!
From The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Golf, Second Edition, by Michelle McGann, LPGA tour member, and Matthew Rudy, Golf Digest
