Members,

Please make yourselves familiar some key 2023 rule updates;

Simplified Back-on-the-Line Relief

This relief procedure, often used for penalty area and unplayable ball relief, has been simplified so the ball is now dropped on the line, and may roll up to one club-length in any direction without a re-drop being required. This change simplifies what had become a complex procedure that was regularly breached by golfers without them realising they had done so. 

Watch the video below (1 min 26 secs) on the updated Back-on-the-Line Relief procedure to be used when taking Penalty Area relief.

 

Watch the video below (1 min 12 secs) on the updated Back-on-the-Line Relief procedure to be used when taking Unplayable Ball relief.

 

Replacing damaged clubs

If your club is damaged during a round (except in cases of abuse) you may replace it, repair it, or continue to use it.

You can’t stand behind your partner to gain information about your side’s next stroke (team golf)

You are in breach of Rule 10.2b (4) if, once you begin taking a stance for a stroke, your partner is stood in a location “on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball”.

Now, in addition, Rule 22.6 in foursomes and Rule 23.8 in fourballs bans a player from doing this while their partner is making a stroke to “gain information for their next stroke”.

You can’t replay your stroke if your ball hits an insect on the green

An exception to Rule 11.1b said that when a ball played from the putting green accidentally hit any person, animal, or movable obstruction on the green, that stroke didn’t count. Model Local Rule D-7, though, limited a lot of those instances.

The rule has now been amended so if a ball played from the putting green hits the player, the club the player used to make the stroke, an insect or similar animal defined as a loose impediment, the stroke counts and the ball is played as it lies.

 

 

https://youtu.be/iSR5E3Ghvd0

 

Please note: There are a lot of 2023 rule changes on YouTube from the unofficial “GHA” (Golf Handicap Association). Some of these claimed changes are not authorised; such as free drops from roots, rocks, divots, bunker footprints as well as the ability to carry up to 18 clubs, etc.  GHA 2023 rules ‘may’ only be used in casual or social games, and are misleading and are not to be taken as official rules of golf.

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