Shocks. (Wedge meets concrete.)
Fifteen years of golf, thousands spent on lessons and equipment, however he is grinding metal on asphalt because no one ever informed him about free relief from the carriage trails.
Most players assume that golf rules exist only to punish them. Wrong dead. Sometimes the rules are actually created to help you.
Where the weekend players throw strokes in the brain
After nearly 30 years of watching recreation players repeatedly make the same mistakes about the rules, I felt forced to share with you.
These are seven situations when you can either save shots or receive a costly sentence – by improving, of course, whether you know them or not.
1) FREE relief from carriage trails (plus everything else artificial)
The carriages trails offer you free relief. So do the sprayer’s heads, yard and marker shares, maintenance spills and any other man -made and permanent structure.
The process has died simple: Find the nearest place where you get complete relief from the intervention. Discard within a club length. No closer to the hole. Done.
It is surprising how many players revenge on the balls sitting against the sprayer boxes or try to chop concrete. The rules make a clear distinction between items belonging to a golf course (trees, slopes, rough) and artificial waste that should not be abducted with your purpose.
Do not drop it. To simplify, if people built it and stuck it there forever, you are the right to free relief.
Important exception: If your ball is in a penalty area (water risks, red/yellow stacked areas), you do not receive free relief from artificial objects. You either have to play it after staying or receiving a facilitation of the sentence according to the rules of the penalty area.
2) The wind that moves your ball is not your problem
A concept of the mind for most players: natural forces like wind, gravity or land resolution never count as punishment.
Run your ball to the top, gusta of wind and the ball moves three inches? Play it from the new point – zero penalty kick.
The same goes for greens. Mark your ball, replace it and see it to roll two meters down a slope you don’t notice? This is where you decide from now. Mother Nature moved it, not you.
When you accidentally move the ball, it depends on the location:
In green: No sentences for accidental contacts. Whether your paw accidentally touches the ball during a practical blow, or it slips out of your hands and hits the ball – just replace it where it was. No penalties.
Out of green: Accidentally moving your ball (kicking it, Club brushes it) is a one -stroke penalty, and you replace the ball. Exception: Without a penalty when looking for your ball.
Lower line: Natural forces = free passage. Your accidental contact = depends on where you are.
3) Cleaning your ball is legal more often than you think
Situation Situation FREE Situation = Automatic Ball Cleaning Privileges.
Taking relief from a basket path? Clean first. Falling from an unbearable lie? Clean it. Facilitation from penalty areas also allows you to wipe the mud before falling, too.
You can also replace your ball completely during any relief situation – change that ball slammed for a fresh if you want.
Why does this matter? Because the mud changes everything. A mud mud ball flies shorter, the curves unpredictably, and generally performs as waste. Pure ball = predictable ball.
Next time you are close to artificial intervention, check if cleaning is an option; Usually, it is.
4) Temporary balls operate for more than OB
Everywhere, your ball can disappear in the Bermuda triangle of the golf course model, such as deep, thick, long grass trees, all count: you have to hit a temporary ball. This “just in cases” stroke is not just worth the possible shootings hit by borders.
Remember: The three-minute search rule applies if you are looking at the limit or outside. Missing the right route with 30 yards in grass longer than ankle? You only get three minutes.
The beauty of a temporary ball saves you hassle to tread back to the top when the search fails.
Critical Details: Clearly announce: “I’m playing a temporary ball.” Say it loud enough for your group to hear.
Failure to do this will result in a violation of the rules that will make your outcome card look like a phone number.
Side Note: USGA has introduced a “relatively new” rule “Local Model” to maintain the game pace and game satisfaction for recreational players (Local E-5 rules).
This rule allows you to take two penalty kicks and fall on the road near the place where your ball was lost or went out of bounds, rather than walking back to re-seated.
You appreciate the lost place of the ball, find the nearest end of the road that is not closer to the hole, then throw it into two lengths of the end of that edge or anywhere between there and the rated place.
5) Movement of loose items (included in the sand)
This rule changed in 2019 along with several others. Most player players lost their memorandum.
Leaves, branches, stones, pine cones, dead insects … Move them wherever you want, including bunkers. Just don’t improve your lie in the sand as you do it.
Before this change, touching anything in a bunker meant an automatic sentence. Now you can clean the debris as if you do spring cleaning, as long as the sand under it stays in place.
This is a massive change for anyone who has ever had to hit the piles of leaf or from behind fallen branches. Suddenly, those points are movable instead of automatic trouble.
However, there is an exception to remember: if the debris is still attached to something alive (such as a branch associated with a tree), hands away.
6) The locked balls get free transitions, everywhere
Ball buried in his divot mark anywhere in the general play area? FREE relief, no questions.
This was once limited to “closely” areas, such as straight roads. Since 2019, it has been in force everywhere, except in the penalty and bunkers.
Perfect shot access that inserts six inches deep into soft soil? Mark the place, lift and clean the ball, toss in a club length no closer to the hole. Pasy easy.
7) Green repairs go beyond ball signs
Obviously, you fix the ball signs and holes plugs in green. But damage to carriages tires? Animal prints? Maintenance equipment tracks? All the right game for repair.
The 2019 rule change expanded what constitutes adjustable damage. The basic rule is that if it were not due to natural conditions or normal game, you can repair it.
However, you cannot adjust the air holes, natural dress patterns or weather damage. Unfortunately, those things have to stand.
But that spraying head flow that left a piece of mud along your placement line? Adjust. Your ball should not navigate about maintenance problems.
Why does this matter all
Golf is already punishing enough for the mistakes we make, so we should not create the extras through ignorance. Golf rules are usually not the enemy, but, on the contrary, tools that keep the game straight and movable.
Mastering these seven situations can seriously help your game. Most importantly, you will realize that sometimes the rules book works in your favor.
You just have to be smart enough to know when and how to use it.
Bonus Tip: For a Summary of this useful item, click Here
office 7 times golf rules can surprise you first appeared in MygolfSSS.
