Golf is a game of integrity, and the vast majority of players display an exemplary level of honesty, combined with a decent understanding of the Rules. But there are always going to be those who break the Rules, often unknowingly but, in rare cases, wilfully.
Here we take a look at five Rules that are easily broken, and that are very difficult for players and committees to police.
Three-minute search
Without using a timing device, it’s very difficult to be sure on the three-minute search. In amateur golf, at a club level anyway, barely anybody would start a watch timer as they commenced searching for a ball.
By the time you might realise a ball is missing and is going to require some hard searching to locate, you may already have spent 30 seconds casually looking. How long is left if you start timing at that point? If you’re not timing, what does three minutes feel like?
At club level, the three-minute search is undoubtedly one of the most difficult Rules to police.
Improving conditions affecting the stroke in the undergrowth
Did you just break that branch?
(Image credit: Kevin Murray)
This is covered by Rule 8.1 and, at a simple level, it is rather easy to police. Basically, if you’re in the bushes or trees, you can’t intentionally break, move or bend any growing or natural objects to give yourself a clearer swing at the ball.
So, you can’t aggressively back yourself into a tree to make a stance, snapping branches as you clear yourself a spot that wasn’t previously there.
But you could move branches around during the search for the ball without penalty, then you could move a loose stick if it’s not attached.
In amateur, club level golf, it’s very difficult to see where the line has been crossed.
Did the player make a practice swing that knocked a branch off? Had that branch they moved actually been loose, or was it loosely attached.
It’s an often broken Rule because players sometimes take all sorts of liberties to find a way to extricate themselves from trouble. Clambering into a spot where there was no way to play a shot and giving themselves a way to do it by some wilful snapping and crushing of undergrowth. That’s not on.
If you improve conditions that affect your stroke in that way, it’s the General Penalty (two shots in stroke play and a…
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