- 30/06/2025
In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by Golf Monthly's Rules Guru Jezz Ellwood to discuss the 6 Rules Most Golfers Don't Know. Even though the rules of golf were revised back in 2019 and most golfers were aware of the revisions that were made, it is still easy to miss some of the changes made, and therefore you could be proceeding under the wrong versions of the rules if you're not careful!
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00:00Hello everyone, Neil Tappan here from Golf Monthly and welcome to the London Club
00:03and this video on the six rules most golfers do not know. Now if you play
00:08golf long enough you will encounter pretty much all of these scenarios at
00:12some point and it pays to know exactly what to do. Now the advice in this video
00:15comes courtesy of Jez Elwood, he'll talk you through what you can and what you
00:19cannot do in all of these different positions around the golf course and now
00:23of course if you have any questions or comments about any of the things that
00:26we're talking about please do leave them below and we'll get back to as many of
00:29you as possible but let's get started now looking at the six rules most golfers
00:33don't know.
00:44Okay Jez, so I've missed a six footer here for my par, bogey on the 13th hole here on
00:51the international course at the London Club. I quite like to have a little
00:54practice and have another go at that, can I? Yes you can as long as you're not
00:59unduly holding up play there's no one in the fairway behind so that wouldn't be a
01:03problem here you wouldn't have the honour on the next tee so you don't need to rush
01:06up there so you can have another go at that putt. The rules of golf during a round
01:10allow you to practice in a very limited way. Right so I can practice my putts
01:14can I practice chips? You can practice, yep, sorry to interrupt. No if I've just
01:19duffed the chip can I have another go at that? Yeah definitely you can practice your putting or your chipping on or near the green you've just played or on or near the next tee you're about to play from.
01:27The one thing you can't do greenside is practice bunker shots. Right okay and the
01:32key thing is don't delay play. I would say if you're doing it all the time it's
01:36probably going to start to slightly frustrate your playing partners because
01:38you'll be slowing play down even if you aren't holding anybody up. Is that fair?
01:42Probably yes but as long as you're not holding play up there is no no restriction
01:47on practicing putting and chipping green you've just played or the tee you're just about to come play from.
01:52Yeah and in a scenario like this where you've just missed a makeable putt it's totally understandable and fine just have another go at that.
01:59As I say just make sure that you're not holding up play.
02:06Okay so the next one on our list relates to golf equipment and golf balls in particular and I think
02:10a lot of people think that they need to choose a golf ball an exact model and then play all of the
02:15holes during a round with that model and that's true but only for certain golfers.
02:19Yeah it's really only professional and perhaps elite amateur level where something called the
02:24one ball condition is in force which does mean you have to play exactly the same brand and model
02:28throughout the entire round. Yeah so I've got a Pro V1X and a Pro V1 in my hands here you'd have to
02:33choose which one of those you were going to play with and use it for the whole way round but for your
02:37average amateur myself and you included. Yeah very average.
02:40What are the rules for us? Well that rule doesn't that condition doesn't exist for us at club level so
02:46we can actually switch between brands and models as much as we like between the playing of holes.
02:52During a hole the ball would have to be damaged for you to exchange it but between holes you could
02:57switch from a distance ball on one hole where you've been trying to get it down there as far as
03:01possible to a softer ball on the next hole where you know maybe the green's a bit tricky and you've got
03:06to have a bit more control coming into the green. Okay what if you lose a ball on a hole so half of
03:10way through the hole you haven't damaged it but you've lost it. Yeah. Are you allowed to change
03:12the golf ball in that scenario? Yeah we'd be able to use a different model then.
03:15Yeah and just make sure in that scenario that you are always using a golf ball that's on the conforming
03:19list. What's the rule number? 6.3a is the rule number and as Neil says the conforming list is quite
03:25important because there are some balls out there which are deliberately designed to go as far as
03:29possible or as straight as possible and some of them don't conform. Yeah so there you have it some really
03:33handy advice on which golf balls you are and are not allowed to use.
03:42Okay so this one is all about moving your golf ball accidentally and there are some circumstances
03:47on the golf course Jez when actually you're penalised and some when you're not penalised.
03:51Let's start with the first one so let's say your golf ball's in here my golf ball is in here I can
03:56actually see it but but the rough is so bad here that in order to find it you're probably going to be
04:01swishing around with your feet and your golf club what happens if you accidentally move it in that
04:04scenario? Okay well in that scenario now from 2019 there'd be no penalty for moving it there would
04:09have been before. Right. And I think this is perhaps what's caused a bit of confusion this and another
04:14couple of things. Now if you move it when searching for it no penalty you must replace it where it was
04:20to the best of your ability and play on. Okay Jez so what happens if you accidentally move your golf ball
04:25on the green or on the tee? Okay well these are the two more instances where you wouldn't be penalised.
04:31On the teeing area you wouldn't be penalised if you moved your ball on a practice swing because the
04:35ball isn't in play at that point. Right okay. So you would just tee it back up and play. On a putting
04:40green it's now the case that if you move your ball accidentally or your ball marker and there's no
04:45penalty you replace whichever one of the two it was and play on without penalty. Right okay. But.
04:51Yes but those are the scenarios when you don't get penalised. What are the scenarios where you do?
04:56Okay well the scenario where you do get penalised is if you're in the general area or a penalty area
05:03in the rough or the fairway and perhaps you move your ball on the practice swing or absent-mindedly
05:07walk into it while you're going to get a club. I think a lot of people now think because they've got
05:11all these concepts of no penalty for accidental movement this is okay but it isn't. In those areas of
05:18the golf course if you move your ball accidentally there is still a penalty. Yes. And you must
05:23replace the ball that's covered under rule 9.4b. Yeah. Penalty shot replace the ball. So it's the
05:28putting green the tee and if you're searching for it other than that there will be a penalty. Right
05:32Jez I'm gonna have a go at this. Yeah good luck. It's not the most inviting of shots. There's water
05:36behind there. I don't know. Oh get down. Oh that could be. Okay so this one is about what happens
05:50if the golf ball accidentally hits you after you've hit it. So there are two scenarios I think where
05:55this is most likely to happen. In the bunker where you hit one thin it hits the face comes back and hits
06:00you or if you're taking on a risky recovery shot through the trees perhaps you hit a tree and it comes
06:04back and hits you. Jez there's been a bit of a change to this rule over the years and there I
06:08think we we think there's a bit of confusion as a result of that. Clear it up for us. I think some
06:13people are living in different eras perhaps and they remember that back in 2003 when Jeff Maggott
06:18contending for the Masters hit a bunker face and it bounced back and hit him he got a two-shot penalty
06:22which effectively killed his chances. And that rule was then changed in 2008 to a one-shot penalty for
06:29the ball accidentally striking you after you've hit it and then in 2019 with the latest revisions it's
06:34now no penalty so the rule has evolved significantly over a quite a short period of time. Yeah there
06:40you go it's really important to know so there might be some people out there that think that there
06:43is a penalty if somebody tries to add a penalty to your score in that scenario you can inform that
06:49actually in 2019 that rule changed and there is no penalty if the ball accidentally hits you after you hit it.
06:59Right okay so we have a scenario here that just I know a few people have written to you about and
07:05asked you what do you do in this in this specific instance so my golf ball the approach to the green
07:10has sort of plugged here and it's on a slope and the greens are cut nice and tight they're really fast
07:17now I've mended the pitch mark put my marker down if I put the ball back on that spot yeah that ball is
07:23going to move it is now there I just there's just that's just that's going to happen because it's
07:29such a steep slope yeah do I play the ball from there you don't and what you do is you have another
07:35go at placing it and if it then still won't stay which it won't pretty unlikely
07:44so now you have to place it at the nearest spot where it will stay at rest and I think the thing people
07:50perhaps don't realize imagine this is a really steep tier that spot could be quite a long way away
07:55yeah I mean even in this scenario this is a fairly steep tier the greens are so fast I think I would
07:59be quite a long way over there actually yeah if I just rolled a slightly different way that could
08:03have gone 25 feet away yeah and of course it may stay at rest here halfway down the slope because it
08:08wouldn't have the same momentum you just don't know you've got to find the nearest spot where it will
08:12stay at rest not nearer the hole yes and when you're on the green that can be um on the green or in the
08:18general area so it could be in the fringe and I think you know sometimes not in this particular
08:22instance but the angle might be that you end up being able to place it on the top tier and get in
08:27a bit of a lucky if the green was a bit further behind me more green over there and that was the
08:31nearest point where it would stay at rest rather than 25 feet down there you could have a bit of a
08:35lucky break and end up with a single tier putt rather than a interesting so in this scenario I think
08:41my nearest spot would be about here because that's the fringe right if that's staying at rest
08:46then and that is your nearest point um then that all would now be in play and play on and play on yeah
09:02okay so the last one on our list to look at is a rule that I had never heard before as the the title
09:06of the video would suggest yes you're gonna have to talk me through this one okay so you'll find this
09:10rule 21.1c one of the exceptions to this rule and it's about stable for scoring so you've got to
09:16imagine a scenario you're on the fifth hole of a stable foot and you realize you've got 15 clubs in
09:21the bag oops yeah now you know most golfers know that that's quite a serious penalty in fact it's two
09:26shots per hole up to a maximum of four shots in total so two holes where you could potentially lose
09:31two shots right so I would lose four shots in that scenario but in a stable foot let's say you've
09:37just started blob blob yeah you would have had those four shots added to your first two holes
09:42yeah the first two holes at which the breach occurred yes but in stable foot that's not the
09:45case well it's not the case because as you say if you blob those two holes um you then get two more
09:51shots added to that score it's still a blob isn't it so you're effectively not being penalized so to
09:55keep things fairer um the points are actually deducted from your overall stable foot points total at the
10:02end two points at each hole at which a breach occurred yes so 35 points goes down to 31 yeah
10:08regardless of the fact that you started blob blob yeah exactly so it's just to kind of keep things
10:13fair in a system where um excess shots get ignored effectively in a stable today because once you've
10:18reached a certain level then you're not scoring yeah I mean this one fairly niche as Jez said but
10:23it's worth worth knowing there are penalties attached to carrying too many golf clubs even if in a stable foot
10:29you start with two blobs so there you have it that's our look at the six rules most golfers do
10:34not know if you've enjoyed the video please do hit the like button and if you have any comments leave
10:37them in the box below we'll get back to as many people as we can but that's it for now from the
10:42london club we'll see you next time
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