We revised and clarified some rules of play for 2025. This is a brief summary. For more details CLICK HERE. For the full details on our rules – CLICK HERE There are links to examples.

WRONG BALL

Any player hitting a WRONG BALL is now required to take a 1 stroke penalty. In addition, if your ball was hit (WB) by another player, you may be allowed relief from declaring a Lost Ball.

All this can be TOTALLY ELIMINATED if everyone marks their balls AND pays attention to identify their ball BEFORE hitting.

BUNKER Relief

We clarified all the options available for relief (free drops and penalty relief) in bunkers for unplayable balls, abnormal conditions in the bunker, completely unplayable bunkers, or if you simply don’t want to play out of a bunker (2 penalty strokes).

Back-On-The-Line Relief – Penalty Areas, OB, and Abnormal Conditions

In many cases dropping the ball withing 2 club lengths from where the ball crossed the boundary of Out of Bounds or Penalty area will work well for penalty, OB and abnormal conditions

However, Back-On-The-Line Relief (from the hole through the ball -going forward to the hole) is an important optional relief method for out of bounds, relief from penalty areas or abnormal course conditions.

THIS IS NOT LINE OF FLIGHT from the last stroke. LINE OF FLIGHT IS NOT/NEVER ALLOWED AS A RELIEF OPTION. This is a big source of confusion for many golfers.

Questions or comments and volunteers are always welcome.

If you are committed to getting the Rules just right, you can join us on the Rules Committee. Tell you Division VP. He will forward your name and interests.