Carrying on with some basic ‘easy to understand’ golf rules that we all need to know well. To correctly drop a golf ball, you must release the ball from your hand at knee height, allowing it to fall straight down without touching your body or equipment before hitting the ground. The ball must then land and come to rest within the defined relief area for that required situation. Should it bounce away from the dropping area you can try two more times. If still unsuccessful — you can then place the ball. If you drop the ball incorrectly, you simply must re-drop it without penalty, but you incur a penalty if you play the ball from a wrong place after dropping it.
In golf, a ball is declared “lost” if it’s not found within three minutes of starting a search for it, or if it’s hit out of bounds. The consequence for a lost ball is stroke-and-distance relief: you must add a one-stroke penalty and replay your previous shot from where you hit it last by dropping another ball, as near as possible to the original spot. You can avoid this by playing a provisional ball if you suspect your ball may be lost or out of bounds. But remember you must tell your playing partners before playing it.
When starting a hole, generally the player with the lowest score on the previous hole plays first. After starting a hole, the ball farthest from the hole is usually played first. However, to avoid slow play the Rules of Golf allows you to hit out of turn if the situation makes sense and is safe to do so.
Out of Bounds: Following on from last week where I mentioned that you could throw into a water hazard a caddie and receive no penalty for doing so. Many of you have asked me if this rule would also apply to a playing partner? — the answer is ‘Yes’ so have no fear of incurring a penalty shot if you have someone in mind.