In this video, Neil Tappin is joined by resident rules expert Fergus Bisset to run through the 5 rules mistakes that will cost you a one-shot penalty. These would be classed as relatively minor breaches where it wouldn't seem like you're gaining a massive advantage over the field, yet they do still unfortunately incur a penalty under the rules so be sure to watch them all to make sure you don't have to add any unwanted shots to your scorecard.
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00:00Hello and welcome to The London Club and this video in which we're going to take a look
00:03at the five golf rules mistakes that everyone should know but that will only cost you one
00:09stroke if you make them. They'll only cost you one stroke because for the most part
00:13they are deemed to be a sort of minor infraction in the rules but they are well worth knowing
00:19because these are mistakes that we can all make. I'm joined in this video by golf rules expert
00:23Fergus Bissett. And finally this video is being sponsored by our very good friends at HalloFresh.
00:28We have an amazing offer for anyone watching this video and more on that later. Get out there,
00:33onto the golf course and get started. Right Fergus, so I have just hit my approach shot into this green
00:40and I've hit it terribly thin, really quite thin. Okay. And before I go about the delicate process of
00:46trying to get this one up and down, I quite want to see whether I've caused any sort of terminal
00:50damage to my golf ball. Okay. And now I know I'm now in danger of incurring a one-shot penalty if
00:56I'm not careful. Come to the rescue. Tell me what I can and can't do. Okay. Rule 4.2c part one.
01:03It trips off the tongue. It does. Now, if you were not reasonably sure that there had been damage
01:11to your ball, you would not be able to lift it. You could incur a one-shot penalty for lifting it
01:15if you didn't really believe that there was some damage to it. Oh, really? Oh, right. So the fact
01:19that I have to hit this terribly thin is okay. That's okay. So you're okay. Now, you have to mark
01:24your ball before you lift it. Okay. If you didn't mark it like that and you lifted it, you would incur
01:31a one-shot penalty. Okay. So I'm okay so far. So you're okay. Now, you can have a look at it. Now,
01:36it looks pretty clean. But if your ball had some dirt on it, you would not at this point be able
01:42to clean it. If you cleaned it, even to have a look, if it was cut or cracked, you would get a
01:48one-shot penalty. Is that right? Okay. So you can't clean the ball. Don't need to clean the ball.
01:51Don't need to clean the ball. There's no dirt. And actually, the golf ball is looking perfectly okay.
01:56Perfectly okay. In which case, you would replace it carefully and play on. There would be no penalty.
02:03My ball, the original position of my ball was right next to the marker like so. Yeah. You have
02:10to put it back exactly as it was. So I have to put it back like that. So anything else than that
02:14is wrong. Any other spot, you have to put it back on the exact spot. Correct. So clearly, if I put it
02:19back there, that's incorrect. That's incorrect. That would be in contravention of 14.2b2. Okay.
02:27You would be incorrectly replacing a ball. Now, in this scenario, what if I go, okay, well, I put it back in
02:32the wrong spot. So I'm just going to pop it into the right spot. That's now in the right spot,
02:36isn't it? It is in the right spot. However, it's still an incorrect replacement of the ball. You
02:41have to replace the ball by hand on the exact spot. Do you? So in that case, you again, would be one
02:48stroke penalty territory. Right. So before picking up the tee, I need to pick it up, pop it back down
02:54again. Yeah. Okay, we're all good. Yeah, that's on the exact spot. No penalty. You have no one stroke
03:00penalties. Okay, fine. This is looking, the grass underneath this ball is looking very tight though.
03:05Yeah. Oh, not bad. That's a slightly fat. Slightly fat. It's trundling down there quite
03:14well, actually. I'll take that. Okay, so there you have it. If you're unsure whether you might have
03:18damaged your golf ball, you are allowed to check, but just make sure you mark it. You place it back
03:23exactly as it was and that you don't clean it. You'll avoid a one stroke penalty.
03:27Right. So I've got two words for you, Fergus. Slow play. And actually, slow play can cost you
03:33penalty shots or in this specific scenario, penalty shot. Explain to me, Ferb, what we're talking about
03:40specifically. Okay, so I've just missed a putt. I'm a bit frustrated about that and I want to have
03:45another go. I'm allowed to do that. Yeah, you're allowed to do that. Rule 5.5b, you're allowed to have
03:49another go. But rule 5.6a, you are not allowed to unreasonably delay play. Okay. If there was a
03:57group behind waiting to play their shot and I spent five minutes desperately trying to hold this putt,
04:02I would be unreasonably delaying play. I'd be in contravention of that rule and it'd be a one shot
04:07penalty. Yeah, so this specifically relates to practicing on the golf course, doesn't it? So
04:11why do you think it's only a one shot penalty then? Well, I think it's just a minor blip that first time.
04:15You've just made a mistake. You maybe haven't noticed the people behind you. You weren't intentionally
04:19unreasonably delaying play. So it's a one shot penalty. But if you keep doing it, if you're sort
04:24of so oblivious to the group behind you, you just keep doing it through the round, what happens in
04:28that scenario? Well, it can escalate. If you break that rule for a second time, say you did the same
04:33thing on the next green, it's general penalty. So two shots. If you did it another time, the following
04:39green, you'd actually be disqualified. Okay. So I think in all of these rules, we are talking about what
04:43happens when you are playing in competition, not when you're playing friendlies with your friends.
04:46However, I think with this particular scenario, I think we both agree that any time you're unduly
04:52delaying play is not a good thing. Try and keep up with play. If you can do that in competition,
04:57then you'll avoid any of these penalty related scenarios.
05:02Okay. So I've just taken a free drop away from an immovable obstruction. Now, Fergus,
05:06you told me that I've incurred, in the process of doing that, a one-shot penalty. Enlighten me,
05:12what exactly did I get wrong here? Because it felt like I did a lot of stuff correctly.
05:16You did do a lot of stuff correctly, but I'm afraid you were in contravention 14.3b,
05:22taking an incorrect drop. Now, you ascertained your nearest point of relief. You did that correctly.
05:28Well done. Thank you. You marked that. Very good. You used the driver correctly. No club cover on it.
05:36Perfect. Measured it. Marked the spot at the end. One club length. One club length.
05:40Thereby establishing your relief area. You dropped the ball in that relief area. Correct.
05:47Unfortunately, you dropped the ball at shoulder height. And not at knee height. And not at knee height.
05:53So, knowing how particular the rules are about these things, again, it does lead me to think,
06:00why is that only a one-shot penalty and not a two-shot penalty? Why is that not the general penalty?
06:04Good question. I think a one-shot penalty is given when the breach of the rules is deemed to gain only
06:11minor advantage. Now, in this instance, the advantage you have gained is not possibly enough,
06:16but you have actually not gone by the rules. So it would be unfair to give you a two-shot penalty for
06:22doing something that didn't give you a huge advantage. Now, you know, you could have re-dropped
06:30and incurred no penalty. If you had remembered. If I hadn't have played the shot. The problem was
06:34that you played the shot. Okay. And then that is when the one-shot penalty comes into play.
06:39So it's a minor raffle and knuckles for that particular incursion of the rules. It's not the worst
06:44defense anyone's ever committed, but it's enough to get you a penalty shot. Right, we're going to take a
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08:19you can focus much more on your golf. Okay, so for this one, we are talking about accidentally moving
08:25a ball that is at rest. And there's probably two scenarios that I can think where that would be most
08:30likely probably, which would be mindlessly wandering around and you accidentally kick your ball.
08:36Or, a scenario like this, where you're about to hit your shot, you put the club behind the ball and
08:39you accidentally, as I've just done there, nudge the ball, it's gone, it's rolled off its axis,
08:44it's close to the hole than it was before. Tell me, Fergus, I can just replace that without penalty.
08:50No, I'm afraid not. But I can on the tee. You could, if you had done it on the tee,
08:55you haven't started the hole yet, you would just put the ball back on the tee. If you knocked it off,
08:58there's no penalty there. But unfortunately, you have started the hole. Rule 9.4b, ball has been
09:05moved at rest. It's a one-shot penalty and you must replace the ball where it was. If you played it
09:12from there, that would be ball played from the wrong place, which would incur a further general
09:16two-straight penalty. A two-straight penalty. So, we're back to our position, back to our thing about
09:21moving the ball back. I don't need to mark the position, I'm putting it back to where it was.
09:24Replace it by hand. Which is here. Yeah. So, probably there. Does the same thing
09:28apply that we talked about earlier in the video? If I use my club just to nudge it back?
09:32Again, yes. So, you'd be in danger of having one-shot penalty for moving a ball at rest and then
09:39incorrectly replacing the ball if you rolled it back. So, yeah, be careful when you're doing that.
09:43Do you know, this is a rule that I play a lot of golf with my 10-year-old son. He often puts his club
09:50behind the ball a bit too close and he'll just nudge it and he looks at me and I say to him,
09:54I think you might have incurred a penalty shot there. He looks to me as if to say,
09:58what are you talking about, Dad? How is there any advantage from that?
10:00I think, and that again is what we're talking about. The advantage is minor. That's why it's
10:07only a one-shot penalty. So, as long as you put it back, it's a one-shot penalty, but it is still a
10:10penalty. Yeah, another one that's really well worth keeping an eye out for.
10:15So, for our last one-shot penalty rule, Fergus, we've gone for one of the most common rules,
10:21scenarios people might face on the golf course and that's hitting a ball out of bounds. Now,
10:25you are going to have to use your imagination slightly. Imagine that down the right-hand side
10:29of this hole over my left shoulder is a row of white stakes and I've just sprayed one way right,
10:35Fergus. Yeah. Explain to me why we're talking about that in this video.
10:40Well, I think people would think that going out of bounds is a monumentally awful thing to do,
10:46isn't it? You really feel like you've thrown shots away and it feels like two penalty shots,
10:52doesn't it? Yeah, because you're teeing another one up.
10:54But in fact, the penalty is only one shot, rule 18, a ball out of bounds. One penalty shot applies and,
11:01of course, how to proceed if you do hit one out of bounds is that you have to re-tee from the
11:07position that you've hit before. So, it's stroke and distance. The one penalty shot is all that
11:12there is though and then you're playing your third shot from here. So, it seems extremely harsh but,
11:18in fact, it's one of the few scenarios where you only incur one penalty shot for your misdemeanor.
11:23But, as you say, it feels like a two-shot penalty and also worth pointing out, as we often say,
11:28the old provisional ball rule is worth mentioning in this scenario because if you're not 100% sure it's out...
11:32Yes, then you've got to hit a provisional ball. You've got to announce it's a provisional ball.
11:37You might well find your one down there. You might not. But if you've hit your provisional,
11:40you'll at least have something in play. Yeah. So, next time you spray a ball out of bounds,
11:44think to yourself, oh, it's not so bad. It's only a one-shot penalty.
11:48So, there you have it. Those are the five golf rules mistakes that will only cost you one shot.
11:53Now, one shot is still a lot. They're well worth avoiding. If you do have any questions at all
11:58about any of the content in this video, post them below. We'd love to hear your thoughts
12:02and, of course, hit the like and subscribe button as well. But that's it for now from
12:06The London Club. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.