What Is The General Penalty? - Golf Rules Explained

Hello and welcome to the London Club. In this video, looking at the five rules penalties that

every golfer really needs to avoid. And these are all things that are careless mistakes that

golfers might make. And I think if you play the game for long enough, over enough years

you'll probably end up making a few of these mistakes at some point, and they can cost you

penalty shots. But hopefully, after watching this video, you'll be able to avoid them

Right, let's head out now onto the heritage course here at the London Club, look at our first golf rules mistake

Okay, so the first one on our list relates to equipment, and in particular these things

your laser rangefinders. Now, I've already zapped the flag here, and I found out that it's 199 yards

We're on the 17th hole of the Heritage Course at the London Club. It's 199, but it's downhill

and this tells me it's playing 192. Very handy in practice, but..

But if you're at this stage of a round in a competition, and you've had that slope function

on for the whole round I'm afraid you would be disqualified. I know I'm out. Rule 4.3a gives you

one strike and you're out almost. The first offence, first breach whatever you want to call it

of leaving the slope function on is a two shot penalty or a loss of hole in match play but if you

then zap another yardage on the next hole that second offence and anyone's beyond that mean you

are no longer. You're a goner. You are no longer playing in this competition. No and so you've got

to be careful because on the side of the range finders is often a little switch that you can

toggle on and off. Here it says slope addition when it's in slope. I'd need to just push that

down now I'm out of slope and I can use this in competition. It's the sort of thing that you can

accidentally leave on. You can and you know if you realise too late then it is as you say bad news

Yes beware. okay so this one jez is really carelessness isn't it carelessness lack of patience lack of ability

to control the putter i suppose really as well which is one of my problems talk me through what going on here well we talking about a scenario on the putting green both balls are on the putting green in stroke play You putt and you hit another ball at rest because someone raking a bunker and faffing around somewhere

Right, you haven't asked them to mark it. You haven't asked them to mark it. You're pretty sure you're not going to hit it

And then the thing goes off in your hands and you do hit it. Yeah, so it's just an avoidable mistake, but it can cost you, can't it

It costs you two shots in stroke play. You have to then replace the ball that was struck where it was

Your ball stays where it is. So I guess that may help you perhaps in a way in that it would have stopped it going further past the hole

but you've cost yourself. And in match play? In match play, no penalty. Again, the ball is replaced and everyone just carries on with their business as if nothing happened

A lot of these, just be wary of what could potentially happen in a situation like this

If there is another ball somewhere near the hole, then ask that player to mark it. Definitely, because it's a needless shot given away, just like that

okay so for this one i'm going to talk you through the following scenario which i think is

probably fairly common actually definitely yeah this is just to the right of the 17th green quite

heavy rough around here let's imagine i've blazed my tee shot out to the right and i'm in here

somewhere and i come down and i see a golf ball in the rough i can see it's a tight list fantastic

mine's a tight list brilliant it's exactly where i think it is so i'm going to play it what am i

in danger of doing here, Jed? Well, I think people do this quite a lot, don't they? You're in danger

of playing a wrong ball. I think maybe people are so relieved they've found a ball where they think

theirs was going to be that they don't perhaps follow the checking procedures carefully enough

before then playing it. Okay, so that begs the question then, what is the checking procedure? So

I come down, instead of just going off to my golf bag to grab a club, I'm going to actually have a

look at this, but how do I do it? Okay, so you can't see that it's yours from where it's lying

you can't see the marking. So you're allowed to lift it to identify it

but you must mark the position of the ball first. With TPEG? TPEG, ideal, lift it up, check it's yours

You can't clean it other than the extent necessary to be able to identify it as yours

There's nothing on that one anyway. Pop it back down and then play on if it is indeed yours But if it isn yours that when we run into trouble So if you haven gone through that checking procedure and just gone ahead and played it Yeah and so quickly Jez what the penalty for playing a wrong ball

OK, well, the penalty is the general penalty. So in match play, it would be loss of hole. In stroke play, it would be two shots, so it's quite severe

But you also have to then correct the error in a timely fashion in stroke play. And that means before you hit your tee shot on the next hole

or if it's the last hole, before you return your scorecard. okay and if you don't correct your error in time i'm afraid it's the uh the old dq oh dear so i

mean beware if scenarios like this it is possible that you could play a wrong ball and it would be

incredibly frustrating to get penalized for that so watch out okay so we've manufactured a situation

here so you're going to have to go with us a bit on this but it's not uncommon and it's well worth

knowing so my golf ball is on the edge of the collar and the fairway there's a loose impediment

a twig uh next to it so i'm going to move that twig yes because i know that i can under the rules

i can move loose impediments you can but in this case it was perhaps an unwise thing to do because

your ball has now moved it's moved an inch it has now i think a lot of people now for various reasons

think there's no penalty for accidental movement of your ball in the general area of the golf course

which is where we are, fairway, rough, fringe, whatever, but there is still a penalty if you cause your ball to move

And in that scenario there, it was clearly your movement of the twig that made the ball move, therefore you are penalised one stroke

and you must put the ball back where it was. Why the confusion, do you think

Well, I think because you're no longer penalised for accidental movement of the ball on the putting green

you're no longer penalised for accidental movement of the ball when you're searching for it

I think people have maybe read too much into that and think that you can actually just accidentally move your ball anywhere and it's fine, just replace it, carry on

Well, you do replace it and carry on, but there is a one-stroke penalty accompanying it

Yes, so be careful. Again, like all of these, just be careful of what you're doing. Make sure that that loose impediment that you about to move is not going to cause the ball to move Then you should be fine So this one is all about something you have to do on your scorecard after your round

Jez, what are we talking about here? Well, I mean, the critical thing we were looking at here

is that you must sign the scorecard to attest the score that you've just compiled

I guess sometimes you come off the course, you're a bit flustered, you've made a mess of the last, someone distracts you

when you're on the ice. Yeah, it's hot, you want a drink. your mind's not quite there and suddenly the card's in the box without your signature on it

and then you could have played your heart out for four hours and it will all be to no avail because

you will be disqualified yeah and it's interesting because i think the more we head down this route

of a lot of us using apps for scoring maybe people get out of the kind of mindset of filling out a

sort of an old-fashioned scorecard as it were but there are going to be tournaments when you need to

do it and if you do do it then you need to put your signature on it you do and the other thing

Jez, with the individual scores, the main thing, what else do you need to do

Well, I mean, you've also got to make sure your marker has signed it and that your handicap is correct, so you're signing to say you played off the correct handicap

And then beyond that, the gross scores, you've got to make sure they're correct. For each individual hole, you don't have to do any of the maths

OK. That's not your responsibility. And the one to be really wary of here is you signing for a score

on an individual hole that is lower than that which you actually achieved

Because if you do that? If you do that again, I'm afraid it's four fruitless hours and the big DQ against your name

Yeah, so as with a lot of these, just make sure you take that care and attention

Your scorecard is a very valuable thing. If you get it wrong, it could be really costly

So there you have it. That's a look at our five rules penalties golfers really need to avoid

If you think there's anything probably more important, actually, in there that people miss out

and the sort of careless mistakes, rules-related, that they might make on the golf course

leave some comments below. if you like the video please do hit the like button as well but that's it for now from the

London Club we'll see you next time