7 Easy Ways to Use the Rules of Golf to Lower Your Scores, According to a USGA Rules Expert | How

There is an old saying: knowledge is power. Well, we’ve found a corollary for golfers: knowing the rules of golf can be a powerful advantage for anyone who wants to avoid giving up too many shots during a round. Although most people view the Rules as limiting what golfers can do on the course, a broader understanding of the do’s and don’ts of golf allows players to take advantage of the opportunities the Rules also provide – and avoid your scorecard explodes in the process.

That’s why we reached out to Jay Roberts, assistant manager of Rules: Technology, Content and Education for the USGA. Over the past 22 months, Roberts has made videos for the governing body – 55 of them and now viewed more than 130 million times – in an effort to help ordinary golfers understand the rules of golf and use them to their advantage in certain circumstances.

Below are seven rules scenarios that Roberts shared with us, along with an accompanying USGA video, where a fuller understanding of the rules can help you get yourself out of some tough situations and achieve lower scores.

The video shows a player whose ball is in the rough position, but a sprinkler head interferes with his stance. Below Rule 16.1a player is entitled to free relief from abnormal course conditions, including fixed obstacles. The clarification of the video references specifically explains that taking a delay can result in the player receiving better (or worse) conditions. So a golfer’s ball that was in the rough can be dropped onto the fairway. The Rules treat the fairway and the rough the same because they are both part of the “general area”), provided the ball is within one club-length of the nearest point of complete relief. .

“The reason I think this video has done so well is because it has a shock factor to it – wow, I can’t believe this is allowed,” Roberts said. “One of the biggest misconceptions about this is that people think this ‘enhances your lie.’ Improving your lie has a specific meaning in the rules of golf. Your ‘lie’ is where your ball is stationary and includes any growing or attached natural object that touches or lies close to the ball, such as a tuft of grass. Improving your lie means stepping on that tuft of grass behind your ball to make it easier to make good contact on your next shot. But if you pick up the ball to avoid the situation, you don’t have to lie anymore until you drop the ball. This does not ‘improve’ your location; the Rules simply allow you to play from a different spot than where your ball originally came to rest. That’s the big difference there.”

The situation highlighted here is a player whose drive is stuck a few yards behind a tree. The golfer tries to play for a hook with his second shot, but pushes it to the right and it goes out of bounds. Below Rule 14.6 if your ball goes OB, you must take a stroke-and-distance penalty. But if you drop your ball to put it back in play, this rule allows you to fall within a full club length of where you played your original shot. Taking that full club length could be huge in giving you a better lie/stance/angle so you can be more successful on the next shot.

“This is one of my favorites,” Roberts said. “For whatever reason, people in this situation don’t realize they have a shelter area. A few weeks ago I was playing with my father-in-law, and he was lying awkwardly just above a bunker, with the ball well above his feet, one foot in the bunker and one out. And he hooked the OB. He drops it right next to where he was playing and gives himself the same tricky shot to try again. But if he had used his relief area, one club length, he would have had a normal shot for his hitting and distance game. So there’s just the inability to remember that you’re getting a full relief area. Take advantage of it… Move to better ground. Get a better angle for your putt. Use that relief area.”

This is a bit like dodging an immovable obstacle, in that relieving it could mean improving the conditions of your shot.

Most golfers know that they can get free help if their ball comes to rest in an area marked as ground under repair. However, fewer people realize that they can also get relief if their ball is not within the GUR area marked with white paint, but their feet are when they position themselves to play their next shot underground. Rule 16.1. Where this can come in handy is in situations where your ball has landed in a grass hole or a thin spot in the fairway. Or maybe if your ball is in a rough position. As in the previous example, you have one club length to drop the ball and if that means it lands in a better spot than before, that’s a welcome change.

“For whatever reason there is a mental disconnect in the golfer’s mind that simply standing in the grass with a circle around it does not warrant a free relief,” Roberts said. He noted that during a member-guest event at his club, there was an area marked as GUR and that after the opening round he had three different people come up to him to ask if standing in the white area still entitled them on lighting.

“This just emphasizes what it means to have interference, whether it’s with your lie, stance or swing, because you can take advantage and take advantage of the relief if you want to.”

You sit in a bunker and play a shot, only to hit it thin, hold it over the green and watch the ball sail out of bounds. The shot-and-distance penalty requires you to fall into the sand, but everything is messed up with your previous shot. The good news is Rule 12.2 allows you to clean things up before you fall. It is explained that there are no restrictions on raking a bunker after a ball has been played from the bunker. As long as the ball is out of the bunker, you can rake before taking your drop and putting the ball back into play in the bunker.

“While not a common situation,” says Roberts, “this one is both intriguing and helpful to your game if you need it. Who wouldn’t want a cleanly raked section of the bunker from which to play their next shot?! This can be especially useful if your original ball was in a divot/footprint or was just plain messy.”

This video shows a scenario where a golfer’s drive leaves his or her ball next to a tree. There is no way to make a true right-handed swing at the ball, so the right-handed golfer decides to play the shot left-handed. However, in taking his stand, his foot is on a doldrums and the question arises: can he get relief?

The answer is yes, because under Rule 16.1 Playing an abnormal stroke does not prevent you from delaying, as long as the stroke you are trying to play is not “manifestly unreasonable.”

Also interestingly, after you have gone through the proper steps to find the nearest point of full relief and put your ball back in play, you can continue to play the next shot with your normal right-handed shot. And even more amazing, if you position yourself to play the right shot, but another obstacle interferes with that shot, the player can take evasive action again.

Golf fans who watch match play tournaments such as the Ryder Cup or US Amateur on TV have likely seen competitors practice their putts on the green after a hole has been completed. Commentators often leave the impression that this is fine in match play events, but not in stroke play tournaments. Yet that is actually a big misconception.

Rule 5.5 makes no distinction between the two formats, but only limits where practice putting and chipping is permitted to the putting green on the hole just completed, any practice putting green (Rule 13.1e) on the course or the next tee. The main caveat: do not unreasonably delay the game and do not play shots from a bunker.

So why don’t you see tour pros doing this on the PGA Tour or LPGA? Because the tours use a Model Local Rule I-2 that prohibits players from practicing putting or chipping.

As part of the 2019 USGA/R&A rule modernization, the governing bodies made courses available Model local rule E-5 as an option for recreational golfers who hit a ball out of bounds. Instead of replaying from a tee box that gives you the jitters (maybe there’s a forced carry or a dogleg that just doesn’t suit your swing), you can safely put your ball in play on the fairway, approximately at the spot where your first ball went OB.

E-5 can only be used if your course allows it, and may not be used in competition. It requires you to estimate where your ball has gone out of bounds and then find a point on the fairway closest to that ball reference point. From the fairway reference point you can create a relief area one club length into the fairway, drop your ball there and continue playing. The downside is that you have to add two penalty strokes, so if you play that shot from the fairway, you are making your fourth shot. But think about it this way: using E-5 is the same as taking stroke-and-distance dodge, but guarantees that your next ball is in play.

For more rules like this, check out the USGA’s free online video course at www.usga.org/Rules101

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