The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer.

We’ve all had it. We get onto a green, we’re addressing for a shot, or we’ve lifted and replaced, and the ball starts moving.

It’s easy to get into a panic, and it’s easy for your playing partners to get the wrong idea. But when a ball or ball-marker accidentally moves on the putting green, there are two specific sections of Rule 13.1d that can come into play.

You’ll need to know both, so let’s get stuck in…

Golf rules when a ball accidentally moves on the green

When you’ve accidentally caused the ball to move on the putting green

Think Dustin Johnson at the US Open back in 2016 and you’ll get the clearest example of this in action. DJ actually got penalised that day but a local rule was soon issued that then found its way into the Rules of Golf revamp in 2019.

Rule 13.1d (1) now says there is no penalty if you, your opponent in match play, or another player in stroke play accidentally moves your ball or ball-marker on the green.

You simply replace the ball on its original spot – estimate if you don’t know where that is – or place a ball-marker to mark that original spot.

There is an exception that a ball must be played as it lies when a ball begins to move during a backswing, or stroke, and the stroke is made.  

If the ball has been moved by natural forces

We’re talking about wind, water, gravity or anything else that’s natural which intervenes and shifts your golf ball.

When this happens, where you will play from next depends on whether you’d already lifted and replaced the ball on the green. If you had, you must replace it on the spot from which it moved. If you don’t know where that spot was, you take your best guess.

There isn’t an option to play it from where it lies. If you do so, or if you forget to put the ball back and make a stroke, you will have played from a wrong place and will incur the general penalty (two shots or loss of hole in match play) for a breach of Rule 13.1d (2).

If the ball had not been lifted and replaced then it’s very easy. Just play it from its new spot.

You can read all of Steve’s Rules of Golf explained columns here.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer.

I’m totally lost on a golf course without yardage markers. Most of the time I’ve forgotten to charge up my GPS, I’ve left a laser at home, and at least I’ve got a guide on how far it is to the pin. How did we survive before technology?

But sometimes these yardage markers, or those big poles that show the way when you’ve got a tee shot or an approach that’s a bit blind, can get in the way.

So what do you do then? Can you shift them? Do you have to put up with it? What about if they’re not interfering with your swing or stance but are on the line of your shot?

I’ve had a couple of emails asking about what relief options are available in these circumstances, so let’s get stuck in…

Relief from movable obstructions and immovable obstructions

A lot of the time, if you’ve got a marker post causing you trouble it will simply be a movable obstruction.

You’ll find it in a socket or a sleeve in the ground, or you can just take it out without damaging the obstruction or the course.

Rule 15.2a (1) says you can remove movable obstructions anywhere either on or off the course and you “may do so in any way”.

If your ball moves while you’re shifting such an obstruction, you won’t get a penalty and you just replace the ball on its original spot.

Sometimes, though, clubs can deem their marker posts to be immovable obstructions. Now we’re dealing with abnormal course conditions – covered in Rule 16.1.

You can’t move them – the clue is in the name – but you can still get free relief if your ball touches them, or they physically interfere with your “area of intended stance or intended swing”.

If your ball is on the green, you can also have relief if an abnormal course condition on or off the putting surface intervenes on the line of play.

But “if the abnormal course condition is close enough to distract the player but does not meet any of these requirements, there is no interference under this rule”.

So if your club committee defines marker posts as immovable obstructions, and one is right in your line but interference doesn’t exist, then suck it up because you can neither shift it out of the way nor take a free drop.

I not a big fan of marker posts as immovable obstructions, because it just causes an unnecessary issue on the occasions where one does end up in the way, but clubs do it for all sorts of reasons and ultimately it’s up to them.

As always, make sure you look at the Local Rules to work out how your club is handling marker posts before you start picking them up and possibly risking a penalty.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer.

I was thinking about opening my wallet – the moths needed releasing – while perusing the ‘visitor’ rules at a prospective golf club.

I’ve got a weird fascination with some of these pages. They simultaneously manage to make me chuckle and choke at the same time.

At this establishment, there was a request to use the clubhouse rather than the car park in which to change into your gear and the exhortation caught me a little off guard.

I’d honesty thought this wasn’t a thing anymore, particularly since the clubhouse temporarily became out of bounds during the Covid pandemic.

I resolved to delve deeper and found there were others of the same mind – and they expressed it more forcefully too.

Now that I’ve spent some time – probably far too much – looking over this issue and reading what golfers think, several defences emerged to justify the act.

Let’s look at some and put them in their place. I change my shoes in the car park all the time. Tell me: what’s the problem?

Why shouldn’t we change our shoes in the car park?

We want you to come into the clubhouse

Is this part of your cunning plan to get me to buy a post-round drink? It’s not a difficult puzzle to solve, though, is it? If I fancy a drink after a round, it’s because I fancy a drink after that round.

I’m not such a slave to alcohol that the mere sight of a beer pump has a Pied Piper effect on me and compels me to order a pint of mild.

Atmosphere’s an under-rated factor too. Is the clubhouse lively or is it so dead an undertaker’s got a permanent office on the premises?

Either way, a compulsion to remove one set of shoes for another within those walls isn’t going to make me any more likely to hang around.

It’s more comfortable in the golf locker room

Have you been in some visitors’ areas recently? They’d give me nightmares if I was claustrophobic.

Think about some of the away dressing rooms you’ve seen at football grounds. Pretty dingy, right? Now compress that into the size of a shoe box – barely big enough to hold the pair you’re looking to store – and you’ll get the drift.

If that’s what you call a comfortable welcome, you can forget it.

I’ve been in a tiny visitors’ locker room where the club stored all the crap for which they couldn’t otherwise find space.

Old paintings, delivery pallets, they were piled high. Yet, I’m the one being chastised for poor etiquette for saying: ‘I don’t really fancy that, I’ll just slip my Eccos on out here, thanks very much’.

You’re at risk of losing your property too. I don’t necessarily mean from thieves – though some might see a golf locker room as an easy target.

I’m so absent minded, I’ve left pairs of shoes at clubs as I’ve changed in the locker room, gone upstairs for a pint, and then headed to the car without remembering to dive back in and retrieve them.

When you change your shoes right by your boot, nothing’s getting left behind.

You’ll leave a mess in the car park

I’m not sure how this trumps people leaving the same mess in a locker room, but here’s a thought: just use the air gun first as you’re leaving the course?

Is it just shoes that make a mess? Don’t trolleys carry more muck around? Should we ‘change’ them in the clubhouse too?

Look, I’ve no more desire to half fill my motor with left-over grass clippings than leave them littering the car park. Tidy up after yourself as you come off the course and there’s no problem.

We’ve got to protect standards

That old chestnut. The car park is for parking, they say. It’s not conduct becoming of our establishment. Get over yourselves, I say.

It’s a car park, not Harrods. And if your course is any guide, you appear much more tolerant of unraked bunkers and unrepaired pitch marks. Priorities, people. Priorities.

What do you think of this golf club etiquette? Does it matter where you slip on your golf shoes, or should Steve be locked in a golf locker room never to be let out? Let him know by leaving a comment on X.

The article below was written by Steve Carroll of National Club Golfer.

It might still be hitting a ball around a course but match play and stroke play can feel like completely different games.

This was brought home when I made my international refereeing debut in August, as part of the team that officiated a match between England and Switzerland Under-16 girls at Pannal.

I’ve carried my rule book around plenty of stroke play tournaments now, but this was my first match play event and the foursomes game I followed in the morning, and singles in the afternoon, asked very different questions.

Did you know, for example, that players can agree how to decide a rules issue in match play – even if it turns out to be wrong? And if a referee isn’t assigned to a specific match, they’ve got no authority to get involved barring a couple of exceptions?

If a referee is assigned to a game, though, that official has to step in on any issue that comes to their attention in time.

As I was shadowing these players at Pannal, hoping they kept to alternate shots and kept out of any rules trouble (I need not have worried – the standard of play was incredible), I started thinking about some of the specific differences between match play and stroke play.

Some of those match play golf rules – when you concede a hole being the one that springs most prominently to mind – are obvious. But there are other subtle changes it may pay to be aware of the next time you go into head-to-head match combat in your club knockout.

Key golf match play rules

There is no penalty in match play for playing from outside the teeing area

This is a costly error in stroke play – it’s the general penalty (two strokes) and you’ve got to correct the mistake. You’ll even get disqualified if you’ve not done that before “making a stroke to begin another hole”.

That’s not the case in match play. It is still a breach of Rule 6.1b (1) and your opponent can cancel the stroke and make you play again.

But if they don’t do that promptly – so “before either player makes another stroke” – then the stroke counts, the ball is in play, and you move on.

The honour is absolutely a thing in match play

All we hear about these days is ‘ready golf’ and speeding up the game. But in match play you and your opponent must play in a particular order. You can toss a coin to see who goes first and then whoever’s won the hole, or had the honour at the previous teeing area if it was tied, keeps it and goes first.

After a hole is started, the ball that is farthest from the hole is played first. Just as with the teeing area, a shot that is played out of turn can be cancelled by your opponent.

You can play out of turn by agreement to save time, but you’ve given up the right to cancel the subsequent stroke.

Make sure you both know what the match score is — and where you get your handicap strokes

You are both expected to know what the score in the match is. If you get this wrong, and you’ve both mistakenly agreed to it, you need to fix it quickly.

Rule 3.2d (3) says you can correct a match score before either of you takes a shot at the start of another hole or, if you’re on the last, before the result of the match is final.

If you don’t do this, did you know that “wrong match score becomes the actual match score”?

Let’s spell out what this means in the rules. If you’ve messed up the score on the 6th, and only realise on the 10th, it’s now irrelevant. You’re stuck with the current score you’ve agreed.

There is an exception to this and it’s when a player requests a “ruling in time” and it’s discovered the opponent “gave the wrong number of strokes taken or failed to tell the player about a penalty”. Only then is the match score corrected.

It’s a similar situation when applying handicap strokes during a match. Rule 3.2c (2) says players are responsible for knowing the holes where they “give or get handicap strokes”.

“If the players fail to apply or mistakenly apply handicap strokes on a hole, the agreed result of the hole stands, unless the players correct that mistake in time”.

Don’t touch your opponent’s ball

When a ball is lifted or moved by another player in stroke play, they are defined as an outside influence. There is no penalty.

It’s very different in match play and it’s outlined in Rule 9.5. If it’s known or virtually certain that an opponent has lifted a player’s ball at rest, deliberately touched the ball, “or their actions caused it to move”, they get a one-shot penalty.

There are a couple of exceptions to this: It’s fine if your opponent is lifting the ball when conceding a stroke, hole, or match.

It’s also OK if you ask them to lift it. They won’t get a penalty, either, if the movement is caused accidentally.

You can choose to ignore a penalty

Do this in stroke play and you’ll probably get kicked out of the club. But in match play, where you don’t have to protect the rest of the field, if you know or believe that your opponent has breached a Rule that comes with a penalty, Rule 3.2d (4) reveals “the player may choose whether or not to act on the breach”.

It’s very unlikely you are going to let your opponent off scot-free if you see them breaching a rule in the cauldron of battle, isn’t it? But the rules do allow you to do it.

What you can’t do, though, is both agree not to apply the Rules or a penalty you know applies. If that sounds a bit contradictory, there is a clarification in the Official Guide to the Rules of Golf that gives out some crucial information.

An example of when there is not an agreement is outlined in the following: A player sees their opponent lift a ball without marking it first. The clarification says that they tell the opponent it’s a breach but they are not going to act on it.

“It was the player’s sole decision not to act on the breach and, consequently, there has not been an agreement.”

Where it changes, in the same example, is where the breach is revealed and then the player and opponent conclude they “don’t want to apply penalties in situations where is no clear advantage from the breach of the rule”.

Now, because there has been an agreement where both players have agreed not to apply the rules, both are in trouble. They would be disqualified.