Rules and Etiquette

Many new golfers are intimidated by the seemingly endless rules governing one’s behavior on the golf course.  Here is a summary of the most important things you should know before you head out on the golf course.  Notice I have listed “Rules of Courtesy”, “Rules of Fun” and “Rules of Golf”.  As far as I am concerned, when you are starting out in golf, play by the rules of courtesy and fun.  When your skill level improves you can start obeying all the rules of golf.

Rules of Courtesy

• Keep up to the group in front of you.
• Leave the course as you find it – Replace your divots, repair your ball marks on the greens, rake the sand traps when you are exiting them.
• Be quiet when someone is preparing to play a shot.
• Only play a shot when everyone is in a safe position.
• Be ready to play your shot when it is your turn.
• To keep play moving, play “Ready Golf”.  This means, if you are ready to play your shot and everyone is in a safe position, you can play, even if you are not furthest from the hole.
• When you finish a hole, move to the next tee immediately and mark scores there.
• If you are using a pull or power cart, keep it well away from the edge of the greens.  Most courses will have signs or white lines telling you where to drive.
• When you walk on to a green, take note of where the next tee is and leave your golf bag on that side of the green.  This way, when you finish putting, your clubs will be right on your way to the next tee.
• Don’t take more than one practice swing unless it is on the first tee to warm up.
• If you hit a ball into the trees, bush, deep ravine, black hole, etc., don’t spend too much time looking for it.  If you don’t see it after a few moments, drop another ball and play on.
• On the green, be aware of the location of other people’s balls and try not to walk between their balls and the hole.
• If you hit your ball in the general vicinity of another golfer, yell “FORE” loud enough to alert them of the impending danger.  We don’t know why you yell “FORE” either but it probably has something to do with a golfer getting hit because there wasn’t enough time to yell “Hey, look out, my ball is coming towards you!!”

Rules of Fun

• As long as you and your group are having fun, being respectful of the golf course and keeping up to the group in front of you, there really are no other rules!
• It’s only a game!!

Rules of Golf

There are actually 34 “Rules of Golf” so we have left a few out but these are the really important ones.

• Play the course as you find it.
• Play the ball as it lies.
• If you can’t do either of the above, do what’s fair.
• You should begin play on each hole by teeing your
  ball behind your designated tee-markers.
• You must mark your balls position with a small,
  coin-like object before picking it up on the green.
• The person who has the lowest score on the previous
  hole has “The Honour” and is supposed to tee-off first.
• The person whose ball is furthest from the hole is said
  to be “Away” and is next to play.

For complete rules information, visit http://www.usga.org/Rule-Books/Rules-of-Golf/Rule-01/.

I hope this helps you have more fun.  Let the new golfers in your life know about the different kinds of rules and let them decide how they want to approach the game.

Manage your game for better scores!

It has been my experience in teaching golfers who don’t seem to score as well as they should and watching my partners in Pro-Am events that course management is one of the areas that most golfers can improve on.  I have seen business people come from the office where they manage hundreds of employees and millions of dollars step onto the golf course and totally mismanage their golf games!

Before we get to the actual meat and potatoes of course management, there are a couple of things you can do to make good strategy more applicable.

1. Work towards having a repeatable ball flight.  Trying to hit it straight is the hardest way to play golf.  You should strive to hit shots that curve in the same direction most of the time.  If your golf shots curved 30 yards left to right every time, golf would be pretty easy.  You would just need to aim 30 yards to the left of your target and then swing!  If you aim straight at your target, most times, your shots will curve away from the target!
2. You need to have good alignment so you can set up towards your target every time and have the confidence that you are correctly aligned.  Practicing with alignment aids at all times will ensure your eyes will recognize proper alignment on the golf course and using a consistent pre-shot routine will help you aim on line all the time.  If you need help with either of these areas, see a CPGA Professional for assistance.
3. You need to know how far each of your clubs travels in the air.  If you don’t know, spending a little time finding this out will really help you with your club selection and confidence on the course.  Again, a CPGA Professional can help you with this area.  Note: The yardages for each club should be an average distance.  When I do my personal yardages I hit 10 balls, throw out the long 2 and the short 2 and then average the other 6.
4. Finally, practice your short game as much as you can because being a good chipper and putter will make managing your game a lot easier.

Okay, now for the tips on course management:

1. Hit the fairway.  Especially off the first tee, take a club you know you can hit the fairway with.  No, you can’t use your putter!  If you are having trouble with your driver, try to find some time to practice on the range don’t keep using it to whack your ball into the trees.
2. When you get into trouble, get out of trouble as quickly as you can.  Get the next shot back into play at all cost.  I know “God doesn’t like a coward” but he doesn’t much care for quadruple bogies either!  A conservative shot back into play will usually save you shots over the Hero Shot.  Trees are 90% air but remember, so are screen doors!
3. Take enough club.  If you take the time to find out your yardages for each club then this will be easy.  If you don’t know your yardages yet, take enough club so that you don’t have to hit your Sunday Best to get it there.  Ask yourself, “would I be hitting this club if I was hitting over water”?  In certain situations, like when the green is very sloped or the flag is at the back of a green, being short is a smart play, if not, take enough club and swing a little smoother.
4. Use the 70% Rule.  Don’t try a trouble shot you can’t pull off 70% of the time.  If you have played a bit of slice all day long, try to resist the temptation to hit that high, towering hook, around a tree and over that lake to a tight pin!!  If you have hit your iron shot on the wrong side of a green side bunker and the hole is cut very close to the bunker on the other side, take your lumps and try to make a longer putt rather than getting too cute with the pitch.  When you are in a defensive position, play a defensive shot.
5. Focus on as small a target as you can find and pick the appropriate target.  I ask my amateur partners all the time, “where are you aiming this shot?”  The usual response is “the fairway” or “the pin”.  To hit more consistent shots on the golf course and make your bad shots more manageable, you need to tighten your focus and aim at a very specific target.  The more precise you become with your aim, the better your shots will become.  If you were to play darts and simply try to hit the board every time, you would probable hit the board most of the time but you would miss it from time to time as well.  If you focused in and tried to hit the Bull’s Eye, you would never miss the entire dartboard.  So…pick a specific target for each shot.  A specific tree, a rake, a church steeple, anything will do, just make sure it is as small a target as you can find on your target line.
6. You also need to pick an appropriate target.  People always sigh and moan when the pin is placed really close to a bunker or water.  My usual response is that the middle of the green never moves.  In other words, pick a target that is realistic for your skill level, you don’t have to aim at the pin all the time.  Aiming at a target that is less threatening will increase your chances of making a confident swing.

Let me know if these tips have helped you.

Business and Golf are a lot alike

Expectations can be very dangerous things, whether it is in business or when playing a game of golf. In business, high expectations coupled with poor performance will generally lead to a stressful situation. In golf, high expectations combined with poor performance will lead to frustration, sometimes bordering on hysteria! It has been my experience that far to many golfers arrive at the golf course with high expectations and quite frankly, they have no reason to. They are typically too busy to practice, exercise or follow a stretching program, will arrive at the golf course 3 minutes before their tee time, take two or three “Zorro – Like” practice swings and then proceed to play poorly.

What compounds the frustration is they have typically excelled at other sports over the years or are successful in business and expect to perform at a high level on the golf course. The bottom line is – without practice, none of us have any right to complain and/or get upset about our play. I have learned this lesson, AGAIN, this year. I used to play a lot and reached a fairly high level but like anyone, when I neglect my game, I don’t play well. When you add to this an injury or diminished flexibility I was doomed.  Yet, I still expected to play well.  Doesn’t make much sense does it?

I see a different kind of irrational mentality on the lesson tee. A golfer will book a lesson and show up expecting to be “fixed” in 30 minutes. Of course, they have been playing for 20 years, have a few glaring errors in their technique which have been with them from day 1 and they don’t have the time or inclination to practice but they figure I can fix them right up! I can help them lower their scores in many ways but without at least a little bit of practice, their golf swings will remain more or less the same.

Without practicing you cannot improve and you should not EXPECT to improve. If you only showed up at your business for 4 hours a week, how would your bottom line look? Exactly! Show up at the golf course for only 4 – 5 hours a week, or less, and you can expect the bottom line on your scorecard to be a little scary as well! You will find that golf is a lot more fun if your expectations are in line with your “investment”.