Diary Of A Secret Club Golfer: I Think Every Club Golfer Should Have To Pass A Rules Exam

Playing in a competition at my club in spring of this year, my playing partner’s ball came to rest up against an internal fence that protects players on our practice ground.

“I’m up against the fence.” They called across to me. I acknowledged and turned back to assess my shot, assuming they would know what to do next. I was wrong. When I looked across again, they had walked 50 yards back from the fence and were preparing to drop.

“Wait! What are you doing?” I shouted. “I’m taking back on the line relief,” came the somewhat confused reply.

They clearly thought they were doing the right thing. They weren’t trying to wilfully cheat. But they were about to break the rules and give themselves a significant advantage.

I went over to explain that the fence was an immovable obstruction, so they were entitled to a one club-length drop from the nearest point of complete relief, that point being where the fence no longer interfered with lie, stance or swing.

“But that’s not far enough back for me to get over the fence!” My playing partner protested!

I had to explain that was irrelevant, they weren’t entitled to line-of-sight relief from an immovable obstruction. They also weren’t aware of this.

This was someone who has been a member of my club for as long as I have – quite a while – and has been a reasonably regular prize winner over the years.

How many comps have they narrowly won via an unwitting rules infringement? Conversely, how many times have they done themselves out of a result because they didn’t know of helpful rules options they were entitled to make use of.

Not A One-Off

Unfortunately, this individual is not a one-off at my club. I’ve seen so many examples of it – people taking two club length drops rather than one, people taking liberties when it comes to establishing nearest point of relief, people not declaring provisional balls, building stances in bunkers, snapping branches to get a swing at a ball in a bush, sharing clubbing information… you know the script.

Across the country, far too high a percentage of club golfers are unknowingly breaking the rules on a weekly basis because they don’t have even a basic understanding of what the rules book contains.

It may seem pedantic; it may even be a little bit boring. But if you’re going to play competitive golf, you must be able to effectively self-police and apply the rules correctly.

For that reason, I think that all club golfers who want to compete in club competitions should have to pass a rudimentary rules test.

I’m not saying players must know the exact rule that applies in any given scenario on the course, but they should have a vague idea of what to do and they should be able to quickly check the rule book or R&A Rules app to confirm it.

It would be one for individual clubs to put in place, but I don’t think it would be unreasonable for clubs to require playing members to display via an open-book exam that covered basic ground –like lost ball, unplayable ball, free relief, penalty areas etc – that they have an entry-level grasp of the rules.

The R&A already provides a tool to facilitate this. On the governing body’s website there is an online rules seminar you can complete in under a day.

There’s an exam at the end, and you get a certificate that you can save and print out if you pass. Clubs could require that players wishing to enter competitions should have this certificate.

That might be overly onerous. But clubs could devise a simpler quiz asking, maybe, ten straightforward multiple-choice questions requiring playing members to get at least 50% of them right.

Ostensibly it should be easy for anyone who had ever played golf competitively, and those who know the rules would breeze it. And those who have never bothered to learn anything about the Rules would be embarrassed into doing a bit of revision to make sure they passed.

It might not erradicate ignorance around the rules at club golf level, but it might just reduce it slightly.

Rules Quiz