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.
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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 faffing
02:10around somewhere and you think. Right. You haven't asked them to mark it. You haven't asked them to
02:13mark it. You're pretty sure you're not going to hit it and then the thing goes off in your hands and
02:16you do hit it. Yeah so it's just an avoidable mistake but it can cost you can't it? Cost you,
02:21it costs you two shots in stroke play. You have to then replace the ball that was struck where it was,
02:26your ball stays where it is. So I guess that may help you perhaps in a way and that it would have
02:32stopped it going further past the hole but you've cost yourself. And in match play? In match play no penalty.
02:37Again the ball is replaced and everyone just carries on with their business as if nothing happened.
02:42A lot of these just be wary of what could potentially happen in a situation like this.
02:46If there is another ball somewhere near the hole then ask that player to mark it.
02:50Definitely because it's a needless shot given away just like that.
02:57Okay so for this one I'm going to talk you through the following scenario which I think is
03:01probably fairly common actually. Definitely yeah.
03:03This is just to the right of the 17th green, quite heavy rough around here. Let's imagine I've blazed
03:08my tee shot out to the right and I'm in here somewhere and I come down and I see a golf ball
03:13in the rough. I can see it's a tight list, fantastic, mine's a tight list, brilliant. It's exactly where
03:18I think it is so I'm going to play it. What am I in danger of doing here, Jess?
03:21Well I think people do this quite a lot, don't they? You're in danger of playing a wrong ball.
03:25I think maybe people are so relieved they found a ball where they think theirs was going to be that they don't
03:30and perhaps follow the checking procedures carefully enough before then playing it.
03:34Okay so that begs the question then, what is the checking procedure? So I come down,
03:39Yep. Instead of just going off to my golf bag to grab a club I'm going to actually have a look at
03:42this but how do I do it? Okay so you can't see that it's yours from where it's lying,
03:46you can't see the marking so you're allowed to lift it to identify it but you must mark the position of
03:51the ball first. With T-peg? T-peg ideal, lift it up, check it's yours, you can't clean it other than the
03:58extent necessary to be able to identify it as yours, there's nothing on that one anyway.
04:02Pop it back. Pop it back down and then play on if it is indeed yours but if it isn't yours
04:07that's when we run into trouble so if you haven't gone through that checking procedure and just gone
04:10ahead and played it. Yeah and so quickly, Jess, what's the penalty for playing a wrong ball?
04:14Okay well the penalty is the general penalty so in match play it would be loss of hole,
04:18in stroke play it would be two shots so it's quite severe but you also have to then correct the error
04:23in a timely fashion in stroke play and that means before you hit your tee shot on the next hole
04:28or if it's the last hole before you return your scorecard. And if you don't correct your error in
04:34time I'm afraid it's the old DQ. Oh dear, so I mean beware, in scenarios like this it is possible
04:42that you could play a wrong ball and it would be incredibly frustrating to get penalised for that so
04:46watch out. Okay so we've manufactured a situation here so you're going to have to go with us a bit
04:54on this but it's not uncommon and it's well worth knowing. So my golf ball is on the edge of the collar
05:00and the fairway, there's a loose impediment, a twig, next to it so I'm going to move that twig.
05:05Yes. Because I know that I can under the rules I can move loose impediments. You can,
05:11but in this case it was perhaps an unwise thing to do because your ball has now moved.
05:15It's moved an inch. It has. Now I think a lot of people now for various reasons think there's no
05:21penalty for accidental movement of your ball in the general area of the golf course which is where we
05:25are. Yes. Fairway, rough, fringe, whatever, but there is still a penalty if you cause your ball to
05:29move and in that scenario there it was clearly your movement of the twig that made the ball move therefore
05:36you are penalised one stroke. Ouch. And you must put the ball back where it was. Why the confusion do you
05:41think? Well I think because you're no longer penalised for accidental movement of the ball on the
05:45putting green. Yes. You're no longer penalised for accidental movement of the ball when you're
05:49searching for it. I think people have maybe read too much into that and think that you can actually
05:55just accidentally move your ball anywhere and it's fine just replace it carry on. Well you do replace
06:00it and carry on but there is a one stroke penalty accompanying it. Yes so be careful. Again like all of
06:04these just be careful of what you're doing. Make sure that that loose impediment you're about to move
06:09is not going to cause the ball to move then you should be fine.
06:15So this one is all about something you have to do on your scorecard after your round. Jez what are
06:21we talking about here? Well I mean the critical thing we were looking at here is that you must sign
06:26the scorecard to attest the score that you've just compiled. I guess sometimes you come off the course
06:31you're a bit flustered, you've made a mess of the last, someone distracts you when you're on the
06:35place. Yeah it's hot you want a drink. Your mind's not quite there and suddenly the card's in the box
06:40without your signature on it and then you could have played your heart out for four hours and it
06:45will all be to no avail because you will be disqualified. Yeah and it's interesting because
06:49I think the more we head down this route of a lot of us using apps for scoring maybe people get out
06:55of the kind of mindset of filling out a sort of an old-fashioned scorecard as it were but there are
07:00going to be tournaments when you need to do it and if you do do it then you need to put your signature on it.
07:04You do. And the other thing Jez is with the individual scores like the main thing what else
07:08do you need to do? Well I mean you've also got to make sure your marker has signed it and that your
07:12handicap is correct so you're signing to say you played off the correct handicap and then beyond
07:16that the gross scores you've got to make sure they're correct for each individual hole you don't
07:20have to do any of the maths. Okay. That's not your responsibility and the one to be really wary of
07:25here is you signing for a score on an individual hole that is lower than that which you actually
07:32achieved. Because if you do that? If you do that again I'm afraid it's four fruitless hours and
07:37the big DQ against your name. Yeah so as with a lot of these just make sure you take that care
07:42and attention your scorecard is a very valuable thing if you get it wrong it could be really costly.
07:47So there you have it that's a look at our five rules penalties golfers really need to avoid. If you
07:53think there's anything probably more important actually in there that people miss out and the sort of
07:57careless mistakes rules related that they might make on the golf course leave some comments below
08:02if you've liked the video please do hit the like button as well. But that's it for now from the
08:05London Club. We'll see you next time.