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One Rule You Ignore

I will add one I forgot. You can change balls on each tee box. My group doesn’t care. You can play with 18 different brands for all we care.
 
... Lift, clean and replace when it is really muddy. Especially when a course over waters leaving mud in the middle of the fairway or just short of the green. But this only applies to the fairway and tightly mowed areas around the green. If mud is on the ball in the rough that's a penalty for me hitting a poor shot. I was playing in Phoenix and Trilogy at Power Ranch turned on their sprinklers in the middle of our round fr 4 holes. Balls either plugged or just came out of their plug with a huge glob of mud on it.
 
I play most of my rounds on a course that has very poor bunkers. They have standing water for days after a rain and the sand is left hard as a rock when they dry out. I will move my ball out of the bunker along the line of the shot no closer to the green. When I play a different course bunkers are in play.
 
All depends on who I am playing with. I absolutely will not risk damage to myself for my clubs from rocks or roots. Most of the guys I play with will not play out of divots. Heck most of them will move it off bare spots of dirt in the rough and put it on the closest grass. I am also not taking a penalty stroke when I hit one off the tee dead straight down the middle and never find it because it recently rained and that hole is so wet it plugs 5ft deep. I will take a free drop on the line it was going as long as it was obvious it was dropping in the fairway(we have a really bad one at my home course that is a blind shot to a lower fairway and never drains). Almost never play honors on the tee or farthest away goes first. Typically the guys I play with play ready golf and the guys that are always the faster players are hitting first regardless. That even happens on the greens at times. Heck I have finished a hole while waiting on someone who decided to look for a ball in waist high rough with thick clover underneath for 15 minutes. We don't play for money. The biggest wager usually with groups I play with is a Mountain Dew. As long as everyone is in agreement its all good we are just there for fun.
 
I will move my ball out of a divot.

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Kay-Dee said:
1. My friends and I, about 20 years ago, adopted the "liberal lateral drop". If your ball goes, out-of-bounds, into a hazard, or is lost. You drop the ball into the fairway at the point closest to where you last saw it, and add a stroke. No going back to the tee, no stroke and distance, no keeping your ball between the hole and the place it crossed the margin. Just drop in the fairway, add a stroke, keep playing.

2. We move a ball off a tree root. No one needs to risk injury.

3. If your ball lands in an area with lots of pebbles, rocks or stones, you get a free drop. We don't get free equipment like the pros and it's not worth gashing up your clubs.
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This pretty much sums up how my group plays
 
SHIFTY said:
I will move my ball off a tree root, and not give myself a penalty. Or anyone else who does it, as golf clubs aren't cheap.
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Or risk the injury
 
We always play with a breakfast ball. Dont always need one but it's there if we do.
 
Pretty much the same as others. Free relief from any lie that would cause injury or major damage to equipment. Most everything else is just a drop and a stroke.
 
I can overlook rolling for a rock/tree root. I post scores played as a single, a big no no according to the USGA.
 
aljaklaw said:
I don't play Golf so OB/lost/hazard is just a stroke and drop
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SHIFTY said:
I will move my ball off a tree root, and not give myself a penalty. Or anyone else who does it, as golf clubs aren't cheap.
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Both of these for me

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I will move a ball away from a tree root, or any rocks. Not a club length but enough to get a clean swing.
 
White stake- Return to the tee box and re-tee.
Take the distance with penalty to maintain the pace of play.


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I don't play competitively. I play mostly as a single and often with tons of different people as I get placed wherever the next single fits in. I do to play to a cap and pot just for sake of self evaluation and just to belong. That said, I have no reason at all to ever have a vanity cap nor a sandbagged one. The only thing that matters to me is my own game vs the courses I play. I try to play by the rules best I know how just so that my cap (self evaluation) is an honest one. Not for anyone else but only my own sake.

I play from any lie (roots, divots, rocks, whatever) or I take penalty drop from such a place if its imo unplayable. My theory is that I hit it there so why shouldn't I suffer the consequences? I don't place my ball back to bad place when it gets lucky , so why should I place it to a good place when I get unlucky? But that's just me.


The one thing I began doing at some point is for lost balls I take one and drop but its situation dependent. Here is my opinion of it. We don't have the gallery nor volunteers nor tv cameras tracking our balls for us. So when I hit one that I feel I am certain is well in play or in a fairly open area but simply cant find it (perhaps simply in some rough) I only take one stroke and drop. Even if under an open fairly clean tree canopy. basically any ball that I am comfortable knowing it would pretty easily be found with a little help. Too many are simply overlooked imo that are not in real trouble and not deserving of stroke and distance. But when I do hit one more errant and I am confident is deeper into more heavily wooded areas or too far off (deeper into) problematic areas and/or off the beaten path just a tad too much then I take a 2 stroke penalty drop. Imo there are just too many balls that would easily be found with just a tiny bit of help. The pros sometimes hit very errant shots and the ball is found for them before they even leave the tee box. Yet we can often be searching for a shot which may be not even half as bad and sometimes even outright good ones. Something just not right about that imo. So with that said. When I hit a shot to an area Im confident its very findable with even a little help I take only a stroke. But if hit badly I will take 2 strokes to make up for the distance part of the penalty. And I feel like Im being fair with this approach.
 
I have a couple. If we're not playing for money and we hit it out of bounds we'll sometimes take a drop instead of re-tee. Also if there is any chance that we may damage the club because of a rock, tree root, etc. we'll move the ball.
 
Our group likes a little side action so we try to follow most of the rules. However, we give lots of putts and still post stroke scores. The other common one is moving the ball without a penalty if you're on a root or sub-optimal surface such as gravel. Wrecking a $100+ iron or wrist for $10 is silly.
 
I post solo rounds all the time.
 
I try to play fairly true to the rules. I will roll the ball away from something I think will hurt me or my clubs. There are times where I will take a drop and add a stroke vs going back as I should for the sake of pace of play. I will also post solo rounds.
 
I ignore any instance when I cause the ball to move prior to making a swing like when I address the ball and it moves or oscillates. It’s unintentional and don’t think it should count as a stroke.
 
Kay-Dee said:
1. My friends and I, about 20 years ago, adopted the "liberal lateral drop". If your ball goes, out-of-bounds, into a hazard, or is lost. You drop the ball into the fairway at the point closest to where you last saw it, and add a stroke. No going back to the tee, no stroke and distance, no keeping your ball between the hole and the place it crossed the margin. Just drop in the fairway, add a stroke, keep playing.

2. We move a ball off a tree root. No one needs to risk injury.

3. If your ball lands in an area with lots of pebbles, rocks or stones, you get a free drop. We don't get free equipment like the pros and it's not worth gashing up your clubs.
Click to expand...

Sounds a lot like our group. We’re out there to have a good time and keep things moving.
 
Kay-Dee said:
I will add one I forgot. You can change balls on each tee box. My group doesn’t care. You can play with 18 different brands for all we care.
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Let me ask you this. I golf with someone once every other month or so, older friend, helped me a lot with Golf. He tees off with a SuperSoft then changes ball to the ProV1 on approach shots.

I don’t care at all. Would you?


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Smallville said:
We always play with a breakfast ball. Dont always need one but it's there if we do.
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I’ve played with a group of friends who allow the rolling breakfast ball.

So if you stripe it on 1. You can save the breakfast ball for any tee shot in the round that you need. Could come in handy on Hole 17 haha.

Not sure if it’s frowned upon or not. Nor do I really care. If the group agrees to it I’m good with it. And it’s getting logged In the handicap.


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Main one I violate is that I'll play LCP sometimes even when the course is under "summer rules".
I didn't pay $80 to slap a muddy ball around.
 
I always post the scores from rounds of golf played without a partner. And I always will.
 
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