Your Golf Rules

[RacersEdge]

When you play, how closely do you play according to the official rules of golf? Do you play by the book, or allow mulligans, no lost ball penalty, taking putts as "good" from 3 feet, rolling the ball in the fairway, etc.? Be honest.

[touchfaith]

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When you play, how closely do you play according to the official rules of golf? Do you play by the book, or allow mulligans, no lost ball penalty, taking putts as "good" from 3 feet, rolling the ball in the fairway, etc.? Be honest.

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Ummmm, no. None of that stuff is golf. Honest.

I'll pick up a <2"er if it's flat and pace of play dictates, but other then that, you are only cheating youself.

Golf is expensive...see as much of the course as you can...

[BadBoyBenny]

No mulligans. Putts are good if they are in the leather. Plugged shots in the fairway are lift clean and place. Everything else is by the book.

[eric5148]

By the book except:

1. If I lose a ball I don't go back to the tee to hit my 3rd shot, I just drop it nearest to where I think it went. I doubt any recreational player has ever gone back to the tee after losing ball, that's a ridiculous rule for non-tourney rounds.

2. The course I usually play is a cheapo 9 hole park district course. The sand is so full of rocks and crap, and it's never raked, so we play lift-rake-and-place in bunkers.

[brassnuts]

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1. If I lose a ball I don't go back to the tee to hit my 3rd shot, I just drop it nearest to where I think it went. I doubt any recreational player has ever gone back to the tee after losing ball, that's a ridiculous rule for non-tourney rounds.

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How about when you can't find your ball but you know it's like right there? Do you assign yourself any penalties? I don't if I know my ball is just somehow burried in the rough or something.

[DangerGoodson]

my dad taught me at an early age that you don't pay good money to try to make impossible shots, so I take some liberties (i.e. help poor lies out, use the foot wedge when buried under a tree, Etc.)

[JTrout]

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my dad taught me at an early age that you don't pay good money to try to make impossible shots, so I take some liberties (i.e. help poor lies out, use the foot wedge when buried under a tree, Etc.)

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That's the saddest thing I've read in a while.

Use your sand wedge, not your foot wedge.

[eric5148]

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How about when you can't find your ball but you know it's like right there? Do you assign yourself any penalties? I don't if I know my ball is just somehow burried in the rough or something.

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As opposed to when you know your ball disappeared into another dimension? A lost ball is a lost ball.

[Equal]

[ QUOTE ]
By the book except:

1. If I lose a ball I don't go back to the tee to hit my 3rd shot, I just drop it nearest to where I think it went. I doubt any recreational player has ever gone back to the tee after losing ball, that's a ridiculous rule for non-tourney rounds.


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I have. Of course, it's my mistake, as I should have hit a provisional off the tee is there was a chance my first tee shot would be lost.

[brassnuts]

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How about when you can't find your ball but you know it's like right there? Do you assign yourself any penalties? I don't if I know my ball is just somehow burried in the rough or something.

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As opposed to when you know your ball disappeared into another dimension? A lost ball is a lost ball.

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I meant as opposed to when there's a chance the ball went OB. The rough is pretty long at some of the courses I play at. Unless you walk right over ball, a lot of times you can't find it.

[RacersEdge]

Yeah, I think the lost ball can be a joke sometimes - you hit a good drive, but it rolls into the first cut of rough - maybe it's a blind tee shot too. If it was on the tour, a fore caddy would flag it easily. But you might look for it for 5 minutes and still not find it. If you slice it deep into the woods, that's different.

I always thought it was silly to have the presence of someone else locating your ball for you to affect your score.

[judgesmails]

I follow the rules and do not take any "gimmees". I usually have a bet on the match, so this forces strict attention to the rules.

It does bother me a great deal when others in my group abuse the rules. Taking mulligans, giving themselves 4 foot putts, not counting penalty strokes, etc. I just don't understand why they even bother to keep score as their score is meaningless with such blatant cheating. Who do they thing they are fooling anyway?

[Drac]

I used to play with mulligans and do other things that weren't really "golf" when I first started (admittedly, I didn't know some of what I was doing was wrong/illegal) to play. After a couple years I realized that I would never get any better if I didn't really play the game it was supposed to be played. How do you know if you're really improving if you cheat? I'm a terrible player but why cheat and make my score 94 instead of 97? The only exceptions we use are your opponents can call your putt good if it's in the leathers (we'll always putt it out if it's for a par or better) and if we're holding up a group behind us looking for a ball that's just off the fairway but "buried" in the rough we'll let somebody drop another ball for no penalty. If we have plenty of time and you can't find the ball we usually make people take a penalty. I find that I'm much more satisfied with a good score now because I know it's 99% legit.