- 24/05/2025
In this video Neil Tappin and Jezz Ellwood take a look at the rules of golf. They de-mystify 6 rules that can catch regular golfers out. The mistakes in this video are all easily avoidable - but you need to know what they are first. This should help you steer clear of any unwanted penalty shots.
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00:00Hello and welcome to The London Club and this video in which we're going to take a look at
00:03six avoidable golf rules mistakes. Now these are all things that golfers tend to do on the course
00:09that can end up costing them penalty shots. Now those players aren't necessarily trying to break
00:14the rules or gain an advantage but just by not knowing each of these rules in enough detail
00:18they can end up causing themselves a real problem. Now I'm going to be joined in this video by golf
00:24monthly rules guru that's Jez Elwood and he's going to talk you through exactly what you need
00:27to know in each of these scenarios to help you out on the golf course to help you avoid
00:32making any unwanted rules mistakes. Right let's get started.
00:41Okay so Jez I've hit quite a good shot in here. This is the 12th hole at The London Club. I've
00:45carried the water. It doesn't matter that I've only carried it by a few inches. Fair enough.
00:49But I do have this little sprinkler head on my line and the lie is very tight. I'm very keen to putt
00:55this. I'd be doing everything that I could I think to try and get relief in this scenario. Tell me what
01:01I can and cannot do. Well the only way you'll get relief in that scenario there is if there's a local
01:06rule. Okay. You might think this is puttable therefore I want to putt so I should be entitled
01:11to putt but the rules don't quite see it that way. They would say yes you get relief if you're standing on
01:18it or if your ball is on it but if it's just on your line between you and the flag there is no automatic
01:24relief unless it interferes with your error of intended swing. Unless I was sort of doing some
01:28sort of weird. You would have to contort things a bit to try and claim that. That's not happening.
01:33Your first point of call now is the scorecard if you're desperate to putt it and if the scorecard
01:39doesn't have the local rule that allows additional relief for this scenario then you would you could
01:44putt it if you wanted to but you'd be going straight through the sprinkler head and if the local
01:48rule does exist it will typically say sprinkler head within two club lengths of the green which
01:55that is and if your ball is within two club lengths of that sprinkler head which it is and the
02:00sprinkler head is directly on your line then you would be entitled to the nearest point of relief
02:04away from that. No I actually haven't looked at the local rules here so I don't know whether I get
02:08relief here in which case I'm going to just play it because I don't want to die. Again if you've forgotten
02:12to check the local rules and none of you have access to them out on the course then best to play it as it is.
02:16Best to assume that the local rule doesn't exist. This is going to be a test. This will be a test but
02:24well we'll see.
02:29Well it's not brilliant but it's almost a gimme. It's almost a gimme. I think I'll take that.
02:40Right so we have a situation here that can cause players some problems. So I've hit my ball
02:46down the right hand side of this hole and I've found as you can see a nasty little spot. Very
02:50nasty tuft. But we've found my ball or at least I think I've found my ball. I now need to identify it.
02:57Now the process involves marking the position of the ball doesn't it? It does and the problem,
03:02the avoidable mistake a lot of people make is not marking it position first. Right okay. And if they do
03:09that then unfortunately that attracts a penalty. This rule changed a few years ago so that you
03:14didn't have to call your your playing companions over to observe the process but you do still have
03:20to mark the ball before you lift it. Right so you don't have to be here to watch. I don't have to be
03:24here though. But I do need to mark the position. I do need to put it back exactly where it was originally.
03:27So I put my tee in into this grass which I can just about see right underneath the ball. Lift up my ball
03:33and I can see from the markings that it's mine. Yeah. But there's also a bit of mud on my ball here
03:38Jess. Can I clean that? Well you can clean that only if you need to to be able to identify the ball
03:44and looking at that probably don't. No you can clean it and see it on that side. So that is another
03:48breach that will cost you a penalty if you were to clean that ball more than was necessary.
03:52Again that would be a penalty stroke and it's rule 7.3 penalty stroke for both breaches whether you
03:58fail to mark the position or whether you clean it more than is necessary to identify it.
04:03Yeah. So put this one back exactly where it was. Right in this tuft. Yeah. Good luck with that.
04:10And I'll have a go at this. It's one of those rules that is easy to get to get wrong. Just make sure
04:16you always mark the position of the ball before you identify it. Find out that it's yours and put
04:20it back exactly where it was. Okay so for this one you're going to need to use a little bit of
04:29imagination. So imagine that this the yellow penalty area stake on the ground in front of us
04:34is not that. Instead it's a white line drawn on the ground to mark out of bounds. Yeah. The question
04:41that we're looking to answer in this part Jess is when is a golf ball inbounds and when is it out of
04:46bounds. And the reason that we've put the ball in this very very specific position here is that
04:50depending on the direction of play this ball is either inbounds or out of bounds. Yes. Demystify. Please.
04:56Okay well let's assume first that this here the side I'm on is the coarse side edge. So I'm out
05:03of bounds and you're inbounds. That's right. Now if any of the ball is overhanging the coarse side
05:09it's inbounds. So if you look closely here you can see that some of the ball is over the edge of the
05:14coarse side edge of the boundary. So although that ball is on the line it is inbounds. Yeah and I would be
05:19able to play this in that direction. You could and you could stand out of bounds to do so and that
05:24wouldn't be a problem. Oh that's good to know. If we flip it round so this is now the coarse side
05:29over here. So yeah. If you look over the top of it none of the ball is overhanging that edge. So
05:35although that ball is also on the line that would be out of bounds if we were playing that way. And
05:40oh the heart is broken in that scenario isn't it. By what half a centimeter. As much as you might be
05:45standing there looking at it trying to figure out a way to call that as in in play it's not it's out of
05:51bounds. It is and your only option then is to go back and replay under stroke and distance if you
05:56haven't already played a provisional ball which you would then have to move across and play if you had.
06:01Yeah so it's actually it's pretty clear but all the thing you need to understand is is any of the
06:07golf ball overhanging the core side. If it is you're inbounds. If it's not you're out.
06:21Oh. Oh that was to win the hole. Yeah that was tough but um I hope you're not just going to go ahead
06:28and tap that in. I was. Match play I'm now the ball further from the hole the order of play in match
06:36play is the player further from the hole. As it is in stroke play but in stroke play ready golf allows
06:42you to do whatever you you want almost. Yes. But in match play it's a different kettle of fish if you
06:47go ahead and tap that in you've played out of turn. Yes. I could in theory ask that you replay the shot in
06:56the correct order by which time it might be a little bit harder to hole possibly. Harder to hole.
07:01Which is the reason for the rule really. A frostier relationship between. Yeah well undoubtedly yes.
07:05If I make this then your little insurance policy potential is gone. As you say it's an awkward
07:12scenario that you you want to avoid so um best just to remember that in match play you have no
07:19no right to hole out if your ball is closer to the hole than your opponents. Yeah this one is on me
07:25I needed to go straight up and mark this one to avoid any kind of awkward situation between us
07:30that's the best thing to do isn't it. Yeah it's definitely the best thing to do so just remember
07:34while in ready in stroke play ready golf would perhaps encourage you to walk up and tap that in
07:39it's not quite the same in match play. Okay go on then Jez knock yours in. Okay or miss it.
07:48Oh no. Oh no. So I've got that to win the hole. You can have that. Thank you.
08:04Tricky shot this. It's the wind. I have to lean on this a bit to get it there.
08:08Okay right well. Okay now allow me to just stop you there before you hit that. Yeah. We have a
08:22scenario here and we get I get a lot of emails about this people who think that there is now no
08:29penalty for you accidentally moving your ball anywhere on the golf course and that's not the
08:34case. There are some exceptions now that weren't there before but if you move your ball like you
08:39did there when you put the club down behind it the ball moved an inch didn't it. Yep it's come off this
08:45tuft is now in a much worse line. It is. I'm quite looking forward to hitting it off there. Yeah well
08:48you will get to hit it off there in a minute. Okay that's good. Because what people often fail to do
08:52a they don't realize it's still a penalty for accidental movement but it is under rule 9.4 but you also
09:00have to now replace the ball before you play it. Right. So you've now got to try and replace it
09:04back on that tuft that it was invitingly sitting on. It was. And then play it. So there's a penalty
09:11for causing the ball to move but if you had played it from the place it rolled to there's a worse
09:16penalty the general penalty for playing from the wrong place. So that would be two strokes in stroke
09:20play or instant loss of hole in match play. It's an interesting one there. So I mean the general rule of
09:26thumb Jess would be if you've moved the ball anywhere on the golf course it's got to go back to where it
09:29originally was right. That's the case yes. Yeah. Yeah. If you've if you've if you're deemed to have
09:34caused it to move. But if you've if it's happened on the putting green no penalty. No you still have
09:38to replace it. But you have to replace it. But if it's happened here. Yeah. Ah. Yeah that's probably
09:44the only other issue that has changed since the rules had the big makeover in 2019 is you're no longer
09:51penalized if you cause the ball to move when you're looking for it. Okay yes. But again you have to
09:56replace it in the spot it was in. Estimating it to the best of your ability if you can't be 100%
10:01sure exactly where it was. And you know if you weren't stood here I think in that scenario I
10:05would probably always call over my playing partner at least one playing partner to say look this has
10:09just happened. Yeah. I'm now not improving my life by moving I'm putting it back to where it originally
10:13was. Yeah. Penalty shot. Yeah. And then get on with it. So now you've got to you know you'll know this
10:18time that it's best not to put the club down behind the ball before attempting to play. Yeah I've now made
10:22I've made a tricky shot. It's somewhat harder because I'm in a now in a bad mood as well.
10:28So let's give it a go. Oh no it's gone left. This is going to end up quite a big score I'm afraid.
10:38Just short of the gorse but you're probably chipping for a bogey at best I would think.
10:53Oh it's down. Gone left. It's quite thick in the rough over there. It is at the moment isn't it.
11:00I think I'm going to have to hit another one.
11:05Okay so I see you've teed it up a bit more but what you haven't done is something that's fairly
11:10important at this point if you're playing in a competition and that is to make it
11:14obvious that this is a provisional ball and you only want to use it if you can't find the original.
11:19Right so me just saying in that scenario I'm going to hit another one that's not good enough?
11:25No you've either got to say I'm going to hit a provisional or you've got to indicate very
11:28clearly that the ball you're hitting is one that you only want to use if you can't find the original
11:34and I think if you look into the decisions or the interpretations whatever they're called these days
11:39it says phrases like I'm going to hit another one just in case are good enough. Right okay.
11:43But if you just say I'm going to hit another one that ball would automatically become the ball in play
11:47even if you find your original ball in a perfect line. When it comes to the rules of golf clarity
11:53is everything and so I would always advise people just to say I'm going to hit a provisional. It
11:57just avoids any kind of doubt in a situation like this. Yes. And the other thing I would say is that
12:02we often get comments on our videos saying oh why are you taking this is all a bit over the top this
12:08is all a bit much who cares. Well that's fine if you're just playing in a friendly isn't it? You do what you like in a friendly.
12:12Whatever I mean if you're playing in a friendly and I said I'm going to hit another one here. Yeah.
12:15You're not going to suddenly invoke a penalty on me. Well I might do. I'd hope you would. We wouldn't
12:19play much friendly golf together after that. No. But this is this is not for people who are just
12:24bunting around with their mates. This is just trying to help people who might find themselves
12:28playing in a competition. Someone calls them up on something like this and they get a bit aggrieved
12:33but it's really a matter of just knowing what you have to do. Yeah or they're playing for their handicap.
12:38Those things that's where it's important that you know rules like this and you don't end up making
12:43avoidable mistakes. So there you have it. That's our look at avoidable golf rules mistakes. If you
12:48do have any questions please feel free to leave some comments below. We understand that at times the
12:53rules of golf can feel quite complicated. They're there for a reason and it really does pay to know
12:57them in as much detail as you can. That's it for now from The London Club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
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