Hit An Air Shot In Golf? Here's What The Rules Say

"Air shot" is not a term used specifically within the Rules of Golf, but we all know what people mean by it – an attempt to hit the golf ball that fails to make any contact whatsoever, whether that's missing the ball completely or your club passing right underneath it when it's perhaps sitting up in a fluffy lie. This can even happen to the world's best sometimes, particularly when there's thick rough close to the putting green as there often is in the US Open.

But does it count as a shot or stroke when you try to hit the ball but merely make contact with that mix of nitrogen and oxygen that surrounds us? Despite "air shot" not being one of the definitions in the Rules of Golf, those Rules are nonetheless unequivocal on this - it's a resounding, yes!

The reason is that a stroke is defined in the Rules of Golf as being “the forward movement of the club made to strike the ball”. Once you have made a pass at the ball with your club with the intent to strike it, it is going to count as a stroke on your scorecard whether or not you actually make contact with the ball, other than in a couple of very rare scenarios that are pretty unlikely to ever darken your golfing doorstep.

The two scenarios when an "air shot" would not count as a stroke are...

1) When, during the backswing, a player's clubhead separates from the shaft and the player completes the downswing with the shaft but does not strike the ball. Note the distinction between backward and forward movement of the club, though. If the same thing were to happen on the downswing, the stroke would count, as the forward movement of the club would have started!

2) If a player’s ball is lodged in a tree branch beyond the reach of a club and the player moves the ball by striking a lower part of the branch instead of the ball. But before you get too excited, in this scenario Rule 9.4 (Ball Lifted or Moved by Player) would apply, so rather than it counting as a stroke, you would be penalised one stroke under that Rule for moving your ball at rest. The net result would effectively be the same - one shot on the scorecard - but technically it was not a stroke under the Rules, but rather a penalty for a Rules breach.

So there you have it - although "air shot" is not mentioned as such in the Rules of the Golf, it does count as a stroke on the scorecard.