What Is The General Penalty? - Golf Rules Explained - video Dailymotion

Golf Monthly

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.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the London Club and this video looking at the five rules penalties that

00:05every golfer really needs to avoid and these are all things that are careless mistakes that golfers

00:11might make and I think if you play the game for long enough over enough years you'll probably end

00:15up making a few of these mistakes at some point and they can cost you penalty shots but hopefully

00:20after watching this video you'll be able to avoid them. Right let's head out now onto the

00:24heritage course here at the London Club look at our first golf rules mistake. Okay so the first one

00:34on our list relates to equipment and in particular these things your laser rangefinders. Now I've

00:39already zapped the flag here and I found out that it's 199 yards. We're on the 17th hole of the

00:44heritage course at the London Club. It's 199 but it's downhill and this tells me it's playing 192.

00:49Very handy in practice. Yes. But? But if you're at this stage of a round in a competition and you've

00:56had that slope function on for the whole round I'm afraid you would be disqualified. Oh no, I'm out.

01:01Yeah. Rule 4.3a gives you one strike and you're out almost. The first offence, first breach, whatever

01:06you want to call it, of leaving the slope function on is a two-shot penalty or a loss of hole in match

01:12play but if you then zap another yardage on the next hole that second offence and anyone's beyond that

01:18mean you are no longer playing in this competition. Oh no. And so you've got to be careful because

01:24on the side of the rangefinders is often a little switch that you can toggle on and off. Here it

01:29says slope addition when it's in slope. I'd need to just push that down now I'm out of slope and I can

01:35use this in competition. It's the sort of thing that you can accidentally leave on. You can and

01:40you know if you realise too late then it is as you say bad news. Yes, beware.

01:44Okay so this one Jez is really carelessness isn't it? Carelessness, lack of patience, lack of ability

01:56to control the putter I suppose really as well. Which is one of my problems. Talk me through what's

02:00going on here. Well we're talking about a scenario on the putting green, both balls are on the putting

02:04green in stroke play. You putt and you hit another ball at rest because someone's raking a bunker and

02:09faffing around somewhere and you think I'm not going to hit it. You haven't asked them to mark it.

02:13You're pretty sure you're not going to hit it and then the thing goes off in your hands and you do

02:17hit it. Yeah so it's just an avoidable mistake but it can cost you can't it? It costs you two

02:21shots in stroke play. You have to then replace the ball that was struck where it was. Your ball stays

02:27where it is. So I guess that may help you perhaps in a way in that it would have stopped it going further

02:33past the hole but you've cost yourself. And in match play? In match play no penalty. Again the ball is

02:38replaced and everyone just carries on with their business as if nothing happened. A lot of these

02:42just be wary of what could potentially happen in a situation like this. If there is another ball

02:47somewhere near the hole then ask that player to mark it. Definitely because it's a needless

02:52shot given away just like that. Okay so for this one I'm going to talk you through the following

03:00scenario which I think is probably fairly common actually. Definitely yeah. This is just to the

03:04right of the 17th green. Quite heavy rough around here. Let's imagine I've blazed my tee shot out to

03:09the right and I'm in here somewhere. And I come down and I see a golf ball in the rough. I can see

03:14it's a tight list. Fantastic. Mine's a tight list. Brilliant. It's exactly where I think it is. So I'm

03:19going to play it. What am I in danger of doing here Jess? Well I think people do this quite a lot. Don't

03:23know you're in danger of playing a wrong ball. I think maybe people are so relieved they found a ball

03:28where they think theirs was going to be that they don't perhaps follow the checking procedures

03:32carefully enough before then playing it. Okay so that begs the question then. What is the

03:37checking procedure? So I come down. Yep. Instead of just going off to my golf bag to grab a club I'm

03:42going to actually have a look at this. But how do I do it? Okay so you can't see that it's yours from

03:45where it's lying. You can't see the marking. So you're allowed to lift it to identify it but you must

03:50mark the position of the ball first. With tee peg? T-peg ideal. Lift it up. Check it's yours. You can't clean it

03:57other than the extent necessary to be able to identify it as yours. There's nothing on that

04:01one anyway. Pop it back down and then play on if it is indeed yours. But if it isn't yours that's when

04:07we run into trouble. So if you haven't gone through that checking procedure and just gone ahead and

04:11played it. Yeah and so quickly Jess what's the penalty for playing a wrong ball? Okay well the

04:15penalty is the general penalty. So in match play it would be loss of hole. Right. In stroke play it

04:19would be two shots so it's quite severe. But you also have to then correct the error in a timely fashion

04:24stroke play and that means before you hit your tee shot on the next hole or if it's the last hole

04:29before you return your scorecard. Okay. And if you don't correct your error in time I'm afraid it's

04:35the old DQ. Oh dear. So I mean beware. In scenarios like this it is possible that you could play a wrong

04:43ball and it would be incredibly frustrating to get penalised for that so watch out.

04:47Okay so we've manufactured the situation here so you're gonna have to go with us a bit on this but

04:55it's not uncommon and it's well worth knowing. So my golf ball is on the edge of the collar and the

05:00fairway. There's a loose impediment a twig next to it so I'm gonna move that twig. Yes. Because I know

05:06that I can under the rules I can move loose impediments. You can but in this case it was perhaps an

05:13unwise thing to do. Yes. Because your ball has now moved. It's moved an inch. It has now I think a lot

05:18of people now for various reasons think there's no penalty for accidental movement of your ball

05:23in the general area of the golf course which is where we are. Yes. Fairway rough fringe whatever but

05:28there is still a penalty if you cause your ball to move and in that scenario there it was clearly

05:32your movement of the twig that made the ball move therefore you are penalised one stroke. Ouch. And

05:38you must put the ball back where it was. Why the confusion do you think? Well I think because you're

05:43no longer penalised for accidental movement of the ball on the putting green. You're no longer

05:47penalised for accidental movement of the ball when you're searching for it. I think people have maybe

05:52read too much into that and think that you can actually just accidentally move your ball anywhere

05:57and it's fine just replace it carry on. Well you do replace it and carry on but there is a one stroke

06:01penalty accompanying it. Yes so be careful again like all of these just be careful of what you're doing.

06:06Make sure that that loose impediment that you're about to move is not going to cause the ball to

06:10move then you should be fine. So this one is all about something you have to do on your scorecard

06:19after your round. Jez what are we talking about here? Well I mean the critical thing we were looking

06:24at here is that you must sign the scorecard to attest the score that you've just compiled. I guess

06:30sometimes you come off the course you're a bit flustered you've made a mess of the last someone

06:34distracts you when you're on the box. Yeah it's hot you want a drink. Your mind's not quite there

06:38and suddenly the card's in the box without your signature on it and then you could have played

06:43your heart out for four hours and it will all be to no avail because you will be disqualified. Yeah

06:48and it's interesting because I think the more we head down this route of a lot of us using apps for

06:53scoring maybe people get out of the kind of mindset of filling out a sort of an old-fashioned scorecard

06:58as it were but there are going to be tournaments when you need to do it and if you do do it then you need

07:02to put your signature on it. You do. And the other thing Jez is with the individual scores like the

07:07main thing what else do you need to do? Well I mean you've also got to make sure your marker

07:10assigned it and that your handicap is correct so you're signing to say you played off the correct

07:15handicap and then beyond that the gross scores you've got to make sure they're correct for each

07:20individual hole you don't have to do any of the maths. Okay. That's not your responsibility and the

07:24one to be really wary of here is you signing for a score on an individual hole that is lower than that

07:30which you actually achieved. Because if you do that? If you do that again I'm afraid it's four

07:35fruitless hours and the big DQ against your name. Yeah so as with a lot of these just make sure you

07:41take that care and attention your scorecard is a very valuable thing if you get it wrong it could be

07:46really costly. So there you have it that's a look at our five rules penalties golfers really need to

07:51avoid. If you think there's anything probably more important actually in there that people miss out

07:56and the sort of careless mistakes rules related that they might make on the golf course leave some

08:01comments below. If you've liked the video please do hit the like button as well. But that's it for

08:05now from the London Club. We'll see you next time.

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What Is The General Penalty? - Golf Rules Explained

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