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Are you a beginner golfer? In this video, we simplify the rules of golf for you. We cover the most common situations you'll face on the course, including what happens when you miss the ball, how many clubs you're allowed to carry, and what to do when you think you've lost your ball. Learn from our rules expert and improve your on-course etiquette and knowledge.
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Now if you're new to the game you're learning everything about the sport but
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let's not let the rules of golf be the one thing that confuses you and spoils
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your enjoyment of this great game. So in this video we're going to bring you the six golf rules every beginner needs to know. Whether it's etiquette in bunkers
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provisional balls, looking for your ball, all that sort of thing. By the end of this
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video you will know exactly the rules of golf that will help you get your
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way around the course if you're a beginner golfer. We've got Fergus Bissett, our rules expert, he's going to answer all your questions and we're here at the
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beautiful Trump International Golf Links, the new course, it's an absolutely incredible venue
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Let's get into the video. Ah, now Fergus, beginner golfers, people new to the game are probably quite familiar with
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that scenario. You try and hit the ball, you miss it, but surely you're in luck, that doesn't
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count as a shot and you can have another go, no questions asked. I'm afraid it does count as a
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shot in this we need to look at the definitions within the rules what actually is a stroke and it
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is the forward movement of the club made to to strike the ball now if you have purposefully
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attempted to hit the ball as I believe you did there I would agree with you I did I did try and
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hit the ball then I'm afraid that that counts as a stroke whether you make contact with it or not
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you would now be standing up to play your second shot in this situation there are instances where
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you can pull out of a shot if you deliberately miss the ball if for instance you're put off by
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something and as you're coming that you can't stop the swing but you deliberately miss the ball
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that won't count as a stroke Tiger Woods famously used to be able to stop mid-swing that's right he
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just stopped sort of there he did and that wouldn't count as a stroke however in this instance you
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have deliberately attempted to make a strike at the ball and it counts as a stroke I'm sorry to say
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So what if you were sort of swinging down and as you swung down you noticed the ball had fallen off the tee
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So you're sort of saying if you sort of pulled out to stop your attempt at hitting the ball as it's fallen off the tee, that wouldn't count as a shot
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You're correct. Okay. So again, beginner golfers, take note of that. If you try and hit the ball, unfortunately, whether you hit it or not, it counts as a shot
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Now Fergus, beginner golfers, I think it's fair to say, would be tempted to experiment with lots of different clubs in certain areas of the bag
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while they're figuring out what's right for them. But that could leave them liable for some penalty shots under the rules of golf
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Can you explain exactly what the rules say in terms of the number of clubs they have in the bag
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OK, well, it's Rule 4.1b, and it basically says that you cannot have more than 14 clubs in your bag
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That's the key number. You can't start around with more than 14 clubs in your bag
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You can't add clubs as you go around so that you've got more than 14 in your bag
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yeah if you do have more than 14 in your bag and you discover that and you haven't declared at the
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start of the round then you're going to face a penalty now i see you've got two putters in there
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how many have you got do you have two putters as you can see here which gives that actually the
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total is now 15. yeah and you didn't declare that at the start of the round no because we're on the
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10th hole here at the new course at trump international so i'm afraid you're going to face
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the maximum penalty for not declaring that you have more than 14 clubs in the bag and it would
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would be four shots in stroke play and it would be two holes lost in match play
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We're playing stroke play, so I think you're going to be adding four to your score
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What are the steps I need to take to declare, so say I realise I've got 15 clubs
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what are the steps I need to take to declare a club out of play so that I don't incur any
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additional penalty shots Well it would be quite simple At the start of the round before you teed off if you noticed you were carrying this extra putter yeah you would just say to me I got this extra putter in the bag I will not be playing with it during the round it is out of play that fine you can then carry it as long
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as you don't play with any shots with it then that's all right if you've noticed after one or
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two holes then you can do the same you can declare it if you if you manage to notice after one hole
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and declared it you would only face a two shot penalty. If it's two holes into the round it's
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four shots or loss of two holes. I think it's good practice if you do realise and say you want to take
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your two iron out of play maybe sort of turn it around in your bag so you're not tempted to use it
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Yeah that would be what you would do at the start of the game. I'm carrying this two iron
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I put it like this because I'm not playing with it. So there you go if you're a beginner golfer
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make sure you count your clubs before your tee off you're only allowed 14 and if you have
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More than that, you could incur some penalty shots. Joel, what are you up to
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Oh, I'm commenting on a Golf Month YouTube video. And don't forget, if you've got a comment on this video
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if you've got any questions about the rules of golf, Fergus is our man, our rules expert
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He will answer them for you. And while I'm here, I'm going to subscribe to the Golf Month YouTube channel
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because it's great. All sorts of videos on there. Equipment, tips, rules, what's in the bags, you name it
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It's all there. And if you're liking this video, make sure you click the like button. It really helps us out
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Shall we get back to the video? Yeah, let's do it. ah i guess it's in a bit of trouble over there could be it's one of those situations where
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i'm not sure where that's gone yeah and as a beginner golfer i think they make the mistake of
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not taking the appropriate action on the tee now yeah that's going to sort of cause some dire
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consequences down the line down the hole so what should beginner golfers be doing in this situation
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where you hit your tee shot, you're not really sure where it's gone? Well, I think the key thing to do when you really don't know what's happened
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and it could be lost or it could be out of bounds, in this case it could well be lost, is to play a provisional ball. It's Rule 18.3A
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It allows you to do so if you think that your ball might be lost. What you do is you would say to me, Fergus, I'm playing a provisional ball
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It's quite important that you declare that you're playing a provisional ball. If you don't declare it or make it clear that you are playing a ball provisionally
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then the next ball that you hit from this tee would be counting no matter whether you find that
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one or not. However if you play a provisional ball and declare it then either one might come to your
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rescue down there. If you find your original ball you can play that if not you can go to the
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provisional and you'll be playing your fourth shot from down there it would effectively have
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been three off the tee. Yeah and I think this is really important for pace of play right so you
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don't want to have to get down there realize you can't find your ball obviously if you're a beginner
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a golf you'd be tempted to just drop one down there but under the rules of golf technically you're not allowed to do that you have to play another one from the tee so it just saves you
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having to walk all the way down there walk all the way back it saves that long walk back the
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long walk back which nobody wants to make it's quite embarrassing so they get always
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remember to declare a provision when there's certain phraseology that you have to use right
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when you're saying it it's easiest just to say i'm playing a provisional yeah there are certain
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things that you could say that would make it clear that that it was a preventable you couldn't just
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say I'm playing another you couldn't say that but if you but if you said I'm playing another just in
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case that implies that you're playing okay it's a tricky one so I think that my advice is always say
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I am playing a provisional ball there you go so if you think you've potentially lost your ball say
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you're hitting a provisional hit another one and then you haven't got to do that dreaded walk back to the tee from the fairway and holding everyone up right Fergus beginning the golfers are quite
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likely I would say to hit their golf ball into some undesirable areas shall we say and I would
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that we are in one of those right here. This is where I hit my ball into Talk us through some of the rules that apply when it comes to looking for your ball because at the moment I can find it Okay well I think the key thing to know here
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is rule 18.2a and it's the fact that you have three minutes to find your golf ball from the
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point where you reach the area where you think it is and begin to search for it. So actually either
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you or your caddy if you're lucky enough to have a caddy. Be nice. Not in this instance
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At the point where you arrived in this area where you think your ball is, you begin to
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search, you've got three minutes and you've got to be really careful with that because it's not a long time
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No, it goes pretty quickly. That amount of time will go quite quickly. And if you haven't found it within three minutes, then that ball is lost and your only option
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is then to go back and play under penalty of one shot
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from where you played the original shot from that ended up in here. Yeah, I think it goes without saying that if you think you've hit your ball
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into somewhere like this, you should have hit a provisional ball. Should have hit a provisional ball, probably, yeah
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Sometimes, you know, you just don't expect to end up in a situation like this
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And in that case, it might be the walk back. You've got that three minutes, make use of it, but don't overstretch it
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There you go, so if you do hit your ball into a nasty spot, you've got three minutes to find it
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If you don't, it's back to the tee or you're playing in provisional. Right, so Fergus, I think it's fair to say that beginner golfers would be quite keen to ask questions
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or seek information from people that they're playing golf with, try and learn about the game
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and help them around the course, especially if that person is of a higher skill level than them
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So what do the rules allow and don't allow you to do in terms of the information you can glean from others
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when you're playing on the golf course? I think that the key thing here is advice and it's rule
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10.2. You are not allowed to ask for or give advice to a fellow competitor. Advice is basically
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influencing how a player might play a shot or a hole. So you can't ask somebody what club to hit
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hit. You can't tell somebody what club you've just hit. You can't sort of say, oh tell me
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how this slope is going to affect the shot, that would be advice. Anything which would
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influence how you might play the shot or your strategy for the hole is not allowed. That
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information would incur a penalty, a general penalty which is two shots and stroke play
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and loss of hole in match play information that you talk about so
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we could share the yardage and on this shot it wouldn't it wouldn't be advice if you were to say
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to me what yardage is it and i would look and tell you that 100 yards that that's not advice
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that that's public information so it's possible for anyone to find out what what a yardage is
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but how how should i play this shot that's advice so that's the distinction there a really key
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distinction there yeah because i think it's very highly likely that a beginner golf would want to
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know how far away the flag is that's okay that's okay and presumably they're allowed to ask okay
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well how far is it to cover the bunker things like that is that allowed yeah that that would
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any distance any distance related information uh that that's common information um that that would
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be available on a stroke saver that there's no no harm in sharing that but if you were but you
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You couldn't say, oh, I need to cover this bunker. What club should I have to hit to cover that bunker
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That's advice. And that would be incurring a penalty Really interesting So some very key distinctions there in terms of information and advice and I think beginner golfers should definitely take note of the information that Fergus has given us there I think it time for the right time we hit
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a shot in this lovely hole here, this tenth hole at Trump International. We've got about
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80 yards. Let's see if we can make a fist of it
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That's got to go, Fergus. It does. It's short. It's in the dunes
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Yeah, didn't measure it. I should have used my range fonder. Or ask me the yardage
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Or I should have asked you, shouldn't I? Yeah, I was allowed to do that. Silly me. So do you have it
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I hope that helps. And remember, you can ask how far this shot is, but you can't ask what club to hit
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Right, Fergus, we've moved into a bunker. And I think it's fair to say that beginner golfers
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from my experience, probably break more rules here than they do anywhere else
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on the golf course when it comes to touching the sand ground the club practice swings all that
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stuff yeah talk us through exactly what you can and can't do in the bunker uh when it comes to
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the sand around your ball okay rule 12.2b here and you've pretty much described it all you you can't
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sort of test the sand for a start you can't kind of push your club down into the into the
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sand to see to see what the condition of the sand is like no for a start you can't grind your club
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either behind or in front of the ball yeah you can't take a practice swing that touches the sand
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so you can have a practice swing but as long as you don't that's fine that's fine yeah that's not
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that's not fine that all of these things would incur the general penalty of two shots and straight
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play loss of hole in match play if you were to do it there is an exception uh you can touch your club
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into the sun and you were doing it just as we started this you can lean on it to support or
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if you were climbing down into the bunker you could use it as a as an aid to get in otherwise
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generally speaking don't touch the sand with your club don't even actually touch it with your hand
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that would be a penalty for testing the condition of the sand as well so really quite a a tricky one
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for beginner golfers but but i think basically until you hit the shot don't put your club in
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the sand yeah and let but if you really did want to take a practice swing you can go into another
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bunker this is an interesting one yeah you could if there was an adjacent bunker that wasn't the
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same bunker as this at all and the and time permits yeah you could go and have a quick a quick go and
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just get a feel for what what a bunker shot felt like uh but not in the bunker that your ball lies
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no uh so i'm there's no bunker nearby so i'm not going to have a practice swing i'm going to have
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to just go straight into this so i'm allowed to wiggle my feet in right fergus a wee bit but not
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building your stance. Okay that's about as much as I can do. Don't touch the sand, don't
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ground your club, don't touch the sand on your way back as well. That's another thing
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that golfers do. And then we'll have a go. Nicely done. But you know by this point I think
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you've broken about every rule in the book so yeah. But a nice shot nonetheless. Thank
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Thank you. There you go. There you have it. Those are the six golf rules all beginner golfers need to know. I
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hope you enjoyed this video and if you like your rules content, if you're a stickler for
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the rules in your group at the weekend, check out our other videos. We've got rules on bunkers
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on playable lies, penalty areas, you name it, when you lose your ball, what to do, all
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the different scenarios on the golf course. If you want to find out the rules on those
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check out our other videos. But that's all from us here at Jump International Golfing. We'll see you next time
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Bye
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