What Are The General Penalty Rules In Golf?
Neil Tappin is joined by rules guru Jeremy Ellwood to look at some of the simple rules related mistakes golfers are making. They offer 5 rules penalties every golfer needs to avoid covering what happens in some crucial scenarios on the course.
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00:00Hello and welcome to the London Club and this video looking at the five rules
00:04penalties that every golfer really needs to avoid and these are all things that are
00:09careless mistakes that golfers might make and I think if you play the game for long enough over enough years
00:14You'll probably end up making a few of these mistakes at some point and they can cost you penalty shots
00:19But hopefully after watching this video, you'll be able to avoid them, right?
00:23Let's head out now onto the heritage course here at the London Club. Look at our first golf rules mistake
00:30Okay
00:32So the first one on our list relates to equipment and in particular these things your laser rangefinders now
00:39I've already zapped the flag here and I found out that it's a hundred and ninety nine yards
00:43We're on the 17th hole of the heritage course of the London Club
00:45It's one nine nine, but it's downhill and this set tells me it's playing one nine two very handy in practice
00:51Yes, but but if you're at this stage of around in a competition and you've had that slope function on for the whole round
00:58I'm afraid you would be
01:00Disqualified now rule four point three a gives you one strike and you're out almost you the first offense first breach
01:06Whatever you want to call it of leaving the slope function on is a two-shot penalty or a loss of hole in match play
01:12But if you then zap another yardage on the next hole that second offense and any ones beyond that
01:19Mean you are no longer gonna you are no longer playing in this competition
01:22No
01:22and so you've got to be careful because on the side of the range finders is often a little
01:27Switch that you can toggle on and off here. It says slope addition when it's in slope
01:31I'd need to just push that down now. I'm at a slope and I can use this in competition
01:36It's the sort of thing that you can accidentally leave leave on you can and you know
01:40If you realize too late then it is as you say bad news. Yes beware
01:48Okay, so this one Jez is
01:51Really carelessness, isn't it carelessness lack of patience lack of ability to control the putter
01:57Which is one of my problems. Talk me through what's going on here
02:00Well, we're talking about a scenario on the putting green both balls on the putting green in stroke play you putt and you hit another
02:06ball at rest because
02:08Someone's raking a bunker and faffing around somewhere and you write you have nothing to mark it
02:12I'm asking to market you're pretty sure you're not gonna hit it and then the thing goes off in your hands and you do
02:17Yeah, so it's just a an avoidable mistake, but it can cost you can't it?
02:20Cost you a cost you two shots in stroke play you have to then replace the ball that was struck where it was your ball
02:26Stays where it is
02:28So I guess that may help you perhaps in a way and that it would have stopped it going further past the hole
02:33But you've cost yourself and in match play in match play no penalty again
02:37The ball is replaced and everyone just carries on with their business as if nothing happened a lot of these just be wary of what?
02:44Could potentially happen in a situation like this if there is another ball somewhere near the hole then ask that player to market
02:50Definitely because it's a needless shot given away just like that
02:57Okay, so for this one I'm gonna talk you through the following scenario, which I think is probably fairly common actually
03:03This is just to the right of the 17th green quite heavy rough around here
03:07Let's imagine I've blazed my tee shot out to the right and I'm in here somewhere
03:11And I come down and I see a golf ball in the rough. I can see it's a tight list
03:15Fantastic minds tight list brilliant. It's exactly where I think it is. So I'm gonna play it. What am I in danger of doing here?
03:21Yeah, well, I think people do this quite a lot. Don't know you're in danger of playing a wrong ball
03:25I think maybe people are so relieved
03:27They found a ball where they think theirs was going to be that they don't perhaps follow the checking procedures
03:33Carefully enough before then playing it. Okay, so that begs the question then what what is the checking procedure?
03:37So I come down. Yeah, instead of just going off to my golf bag to grab a club
03:41I'm gonna actually have a look at this, but how do I do it?
03:43Okay, so you can't see that it's yours from where it's lying. You can't see the marking
03:48So you you're allowed to lift it to identify it
03:50But you must mark the position of the ball first with t-peg t-peg ideal lift it up check. It's yours
03:56You can't clean it other than the extent necessary to be able to identify it as yours. There's nothing on that one
04:02Anyway, I'll be back down and then play on if it is indeed yours
04:05But if it isn't yours, that's when we run into troubles if you haven't gone through that checking procedure and just go on ahead
04:11Yeah, and so quickly just what's the penalty for playing a wrong ball, okay
04:15Well, the penalty is the general penalty. So in match play it would be loss of hole right in stroke play
04:19It would be two shots
04:20So it's quite severe
04:21But you also have to then correct the error in a timely fashion in stroke play and that means
04:26Before you hit your tee shot on the next hole or if it's the last hole before you return your school card
04:31Okay, and if you don't correct your error in time, I'm afraid it's the
04:35Oh
04:36Dear so, I mean beware it's scenarios like this
04:40It is possible that you could play a wrong ball and it would be incredibly frustrating to get peen lights for that
04:46So watch out
04:51Okay, so we've manufactured a situation here
04:53So you're gonna have to go with us a bit on this but it's not uncommon and it's well worth knowing
04:57So my golf ball is on the edge of the collar and the fairway. There's a loose impediment a twig
05:03Next to it. So I'm gonna move that twig
05:05Yes, because I know that I can under the rules I can move loose impediments you can
05:11But in this case it was perhaps an unwise thing to do because your ball is now moved it's moved an inch
05:16It has now I think a lot of people
05:19Now for various reasons think there's no penalty for accidental movement of your ball in the general area of the golf course
05:25Which is where we are. Yes, fairway rough fringe, whatever
05:27But there is still a penalty if you cause your ball to move and in that scenario there
05:31It was clearly your movement of the twig that made the ball move
05:35Therefore you are penalized one stroke out and you must put the ball back where it was
05:39Why is that why the confusion do you think well?
05:42I think because you're no longer penalized for accidental movement of the ball on the putting green
05:46You're no longer penalized for accidental movement of the ball when you're searching for it
05:50I think people have maybe read too much into that and think that you can actually just
05:56Accidentally move your ball anywhere and it's fine. Just replace it carry on
05:58Well, you do replace it and carry on but there's a one-stroke penalty accompanying it. Yes, so be careful again
06:04Like all of these just be careful of what you're doing
06:06Make sure that that loose impediment you're about to move is not going to cause the ball to move then you should be fine
06:15So this one is all about something you have to do on your scorecard after your round
06:20Yes, what are we talking about here?
06:22Well, I mean the critical thing we were looking at here is that you must sign the scorecard to attest
06:27The score that you've just compiled. I guess sometimes you come off the course. You're a bit flustered
06:32You've made a mess of the last someone distracts you when you're yeah, it's hot
06:36you want to drink your mind's not quite there and suddenly the cards in the box without your signature on it and
06:42Then you could have played your heart out for four hours and it will all be to no avail because you will be disqualified
06:48Yeah, and it's interesting because I think the more we head down this route of a lot of us using apps for scoring
06:54Maybe people get out of the kind of mindset of filling out a sort of an old-fashioned scorecard as it were
06:59But there are going to be tournaments when you need to do it
07:01And if you do do it, then you need to put your signature on it
07:03You do and the other thing Jez is with the individual scores like the main thing. What else do you need to do?
07:09well, I mean, you've also got to make sure your marker assigned it and that your
07:12Handicap is correct. So you're signing to say you played off the correct handicap and then beyond that the gross scores
07:17You've got to make sure they're correct for each individual hole. You don't do any of the maths. Okay, that's not your responsibility
07:24and the one to be really wary of here is you signing for score on an individual hole that is lower than that which you
07:31actually
07:32Achieved because if you do that if you do that again, I'm afraid it's for fruitless hours and the big DQ against your name
07:38Yeah
07:38So as with a lot of these just make sure you take that care and attention
07:43Your scorecard is a very valuable thing. If you get it wrong, it could be really costly. So there you have it
07:48That's a look at our five rules penalties golfers really need to avoid
07:52If you think there's anything probably more important actually in there that people miss out and the sort of careless mistakes rules related that they might
07:59Make on the golf course leave some comments below if you'd like the video, please do hit the like button as well
08:04But that's it for now from the London Club. We'll see you next time