As has been the rule for quite a while, you’re limited to 14 (as a kid I was an A.J. Foyt fan so the number resonates with me) clubs total in your bag. In my bag, there’s typically a driver, a 3 and a 5-wood, a hybrid, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9-iron, a pitching wedge, a gap wedge, a sand wedge, a lob wedge and a putter. 14 clubs. If you wanted to play golf with 14 drivers or 14 putters, that’s fine. It’s also fine to play with 3 clubs, and there is no USGA requirement to have a golf bag.
I’ve never seen anyone count clubs in a bag in the Ruggles Evening Golf League, but if you want to create a stink, count clubs after a round of golf with your opponents and you may well end up winning your match if you discover a number greater than 14. All of the clubs should be conforming (as discussed in the last blog entry). Whether you used the clubs or not, the total number limit cannot be exceeded UNLESS (there’s always an unless) a club was mistakenly added to a bag that is not the player’s. Someone else’s clubs don’t count.
So, say you start out with more than 14 clubs and you make it to the first tee and discover that you have too many before you make a stroke. Is there a penalty? No, there is not, but you must take the extra club or clubs out of play and let your opponents or playing partners know that those clubs will not be used during the round. One good way to denote this is to turn them upside down in the golf bag or put them on the floor of the cart. If time is available, it’s probably best to take them back to your car.
Penalties are applied when a player discovers that the limit has been exceeded after play begins. The most famous example of this that I still remember was in the final pairing of the final round of the Open Championship back in 2001 when Ian Woosnam discovered that his caddy hadn’t removed one of the drivers he was toying about using that day on the driving range. He had 15, and it was discovered just prior to the 2nd tee (of course, after birdie on the previous hole). Which leads me to a discussion of how the penalties get invoked for violating the club limit rule. Since Ian had not started the 2nd hole, he was only assessed the general penalty (2 strokes in stroke play) for the 1st hole. If it hadn’t been discovered until the start of the third hole, it would be a two stroke penalty for the 2nd hole as well. Now, you’re saying, if you play a round of 18 holes, then you’d have 36 penalty strokes – two for each hole played. Not so fast. There is a limit on the penalty per round – 4 strokes in stroke play.
The penalties are similar (but different) for match play. While playing a hole and the discovery of the breach has been made, the players play out the hole, determine who won the hole, but then assess the penalty to the match score “Player A is two up”, etc. For instance, player A and player B are playing a match on their first contested hole. Player A finds out that he has more than 14 clubs. He announces the fact, selects the club to be taken out of play, and plays out the hole (which he loses). Instead of being “One Down” in the match, after one hole he is now “Two Down”. Ain’t that a kick in the pants? If the discovery is made after five holes have been played there is a limit to the number of match holes penalized (a maximum of 2). Instead of being 3-up after 5 holes, that player would be 1-up after 5.
You may start a round with fewer clubs than 14 and make a visit to your car (if there is no delay in play) to fill your bag to capacity. You cannot, however, borrow a club from another player on the course.
You cannot share or borrow clubs in competition (there are a few match play scenarios in which you can, but I prefer not to discuss those here). You see it all the time when people practice together. “Is that a new driver? Mind if I use it on this tee?” In competition, you’d then be playing with one additional club, and you’d be assessed the general penalty of two strokes. Don’t do it in the Ruggles Evening Golf League either. Your opponents would be well within their rights to assess you the penalty.
As discussed a bit in the last blog entry, you can’t replace clubs damaged during the round UNLESS that club was damaged by an outside influence. For instance, your club is laying on the ground and someone not in your group in a golf cart drives over it on the way to the next hole. Again, if you replace that club, you can’t delay play to do so.
Balls, balls, balls! This should sound pretty familiar – the ball you play (like your clubs) shall conform to the equipment rules. For conforming golf balls, go here Conforming Golf Ball List | United States Golf Association (usga.org). I generally play the same ball each night in the league, but it is certainly possible to dig into your bag and dig up a ball you found somewhere that doesn’t conform to the USGA rules. And, like clubs, I don’t think anyone’s going to scrutinize your ball to determine if it’s conforming in the Ruggles Evening Golf League. Like the number of clubs in your bag, however, if someone challenged you during play and it turned out you had non-conforming balls, you’d likely be assessed a penalty – and just like non-conforming clubs, it would be disqualification.
It's also taboo to play with balls that have been deliberately altered. I don’t know why you would want to do so these days, most manufacturers have already designed their balls for optimal flight, but there was once a time when balls before dimples when the discovery was made that a scuffed ball flew further. I won’t get into boundary layers, Reynolds numbers, drag coefficients, spin rates or any of my other remembrances from my aerospace engineering classes, but the dimples now solve the scuffing conundrum. Heating balls is prohibited (other than keeping them in your pocket or keeping them out in the sun), and so is adding substances to the ball’s surface (other than cleaning agents which are OK if you wipe them off).
But how about a ball that’s been damaged during play of a hole? Do you have to continue to play it? The answer is “It depends”. Scuff marks and scratches? Finish out the hole. Cuts or cracks? You may substitute a ball. If you suspect damage, you may pick the ball up and inspect it (BUT AFTER FIRST MARKING THE ORIGINAL LOCATION). Failure to mark means a one-stroke penalty to your hole score.
This doesn’t happen much at all these days, but there is a rule balls that break into pieces after a stroke. The stroke is cancelled and you must replay your shot from the same location.
If you run out of balls, can you borrow from anyone playing the course? The answer is “Yes”, but that ball still has to conform to the equipment rules.
Can you put a line on your ball to aid in lining up for a stroke? Yes, you can right now. It's a very popular practice, especially for professional players, and I will make a prediction that line may be outlawed in the future...
There’s lots of other equipment that can be found in a golf shop that isn’t a club or a ball. In general, you can take any of that stuff out to the course in your golf bag, but some of it you cannot use during a round. For example, many people buy alignment sticks and use them on the range or during practice to align the feet or the clubface. Using these things is a great way to get your directional bearing for your shot, but on the golf course during a competitive round, taboo. You’re “artificially eliminating or reducing the need for a skill or judgment that is essential to the challenge of the game”. (That’s the language used in Rule 4.3.) By the way, even lining up your stance with a club laying on the ground while you make a stroke or even take a stance is taboo and something we’ll get to in Rule 10. It’s also prohibited to use equipment in an “abnormal way” to make a stroke. A common example of this is using your putter like a pool cue to make a putt. There is even a prohibition for the croquet style of putting (swinging the putter between your legs as you straddle the ball location). If it doesn’t look like golf, it’s not allowed. Anchoring the putter (to your chest or chin or your belly) is also no longer allowed. Occasionally you’ll see a guy these days resting a long putter against their forearm – that’s OK for now, but I’d expect tinkering in the years ahead on that one.
Let’s talk a bit about information technology. Before the age of cell phones, GPS, wind speed sensors and laser range finders, players had to figure out how to play golf shots. They estimated their distance from the green using known marks, they guessed at elevation changes, wind speed and direction. I can distinctly remember playing many rounds of golf in my teens and twenties by sheer instinct and experience. Today we have information spilling out of our ears, and it’s still a hard game. However, one can probably argue that we should be able to play faster and more consistently if we use what’s available. Even before 2019 when the USGA first allowed distance measuring devices (except in elite events), REGL allowed the use of laser range finders or GPS devices for estimation of distance. Those devices are still fine to use, but the latest of these devices CAN also advise you on club selection and relative distance based on elevation change. Those features are NOT to be used in a competitive round as they eliminate the need for skill and judgement. Portable wind-speed measurement devices are also taboo. You can consult weather.com for local conditions on wind speed and direction, you just can’t measure it on the course.
How about listening to music while you play a round? That’s OK, as long as it isn’t being used to set your swing tempo for instance and you aren’t bothering your playing companions. Wathing YouTube videos during a round? Ok, as long as you aren’t using it to get advice on how to play a stroke.
It’s a crazy world we live in. There’s so much information out there that many people try to maintain their connections every waking moment. For me, 4 hours on the golf course is time well spent away from the insanity.
There’s some additional areas that Rule 4 addresses (gloves, training aids and medical issues) which I’m not going to address here. My next blog entry will probably be regarding Rule 5 which is a bit more exciting – Playing the Round.