Golf Rules Golf Rule 20 Lifting Dropping And Placing Playing From Wrong Place (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Rules Golf Rule 20 Lifting Dropping And Placing Playing From Wrong Place (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now there are going to be times on the golf course where you need to get the ball in your hand. It's not an ideal situation because nobody likes to just the play the ball as it is on the ground, but there's occasions when dropping the golf ball either under penalty or for free is something we have to do. And actually marking and collecting and dropping the golf ball, it’s quite a complicated process sometimes. So here's just a brief synopsis of why certain things need to happen certain times. If the ball is on the ground and for whatever reason, I need to take a drop then I’ll suggest in this occasion it’s going to be a free drop.

So it might be because there's a sprinkler head right in front of my golf ball, I get a free drop for that. Or maybe a staked tree, I need a free drop for that. Now a couple of things I'd like you to start to do and get into the habit of doing. The first thing would be to always mark the golf ball, always put a tee peg in the ground before you pick the ball up. As soon as I've got the ball marked, I know there's going to be no issues necessarily with where was that golf ball. If you just pick it up and then turn around, someone says where was your ball. And suddenly you don’t know where it was, you are not allowed to guess. So it's important to mark the golf ball. That should be the first thing that you do. The first thing you should actually do is actually tell your playing partners what you are going to do. Come on over please, this is what I intend to do. I'm asking for a free drop. I'm going to mark my golf ball. Now I can decide what I need to do. Once you’ve determined the place where you want to drop the golf ball, so it might be the nearest point of relief. Again you would mark it again. You stick a tee peg back in the ground and say that's where I'm going to drop the golf ball. And then the dropping of the golf ball is exactly like this. It’s a shoulder level straight arm with no spin on the ball. We're not allowed to hold the ball down or hold the ball high, we're not allowed to rotate the golf ball as we drop it. It has to be straight down. If you've used a golf club to measure where you're going to drop the ball, you might have left a club on the ground just so you can measure back one, two club lengths. Make that golf club gets picked up before you drop. If you drop and it hits the club, penalty time again. Now if I'm playing from here and I'm playing towards the flag over there, one of the keys to dropping the golf ball, you are never allowed to move it nearer to the hole. You can't ever drop a ball and gain an advantage as in it's gone nearer to the hole. So if I was standing here and I dropped the ball, it bounces nearer than my tee peg. So I get another drop there, I don’t have no penalty. It’s free drop. You're allowed to do it again. Drop it again. We can kind of see because I'm on the slope. I could be here all day doing this. So the rules state that on the second time of asking if it rolls again, I'm now allowed to place the ball where it landed on the second occasion. So actually when you're lining up for your second drop, try and pick a nice patch of grass that you are going to drop them. No point in dropping it into a hole and then having to place it into the hole. So this would be my second drop for example. I’ll drop it down on thick, right. I landed just there. So I collect my golf ball, I position it upon a decent lie and then I've got a much better chance of playing the shot. I then obviously take all my markers up wherever I wanted to drop it, where the ball was originally, pick my markers up and then go ahead and play the shot. Now rule 20, lifting and dropping the golf ball. Lots of different connotations, about six different subsections to that rule, each with lots of different options and lots of different penalties to apply. So whenever you find yourself in a situation where you are dropping the golf ball, get your rulebook out and get your app on your phone that hopefully you’ve downloaded that's got the rulebook in there, and refer back to that. There is so many different scenarios and situations it could apply to on the green, off the green, in hazards. Make sure you understand rule 20 because on occasions when you do need to drop the golf ball, let's make sure we're not incurring any extra penalties. 2015-07-22

Now there are going to be times on the golf course where you need to get the ball in your hand. It's not an ideal situation because nobody likes to just the play the ball as it is on the ground, but there's occasions when dropping the golf ball either under penalty or for free is something we have to do. And actually marking and collecting and dropping the golf ball, it’s quite a complicated process sometimes. So here's just a brief synopsis of why certain things need to happen certain times. If the ball is on the ground and for whatever reason, I need to take a drop then I’ll suggest in this occasion it’s going to be a free drop.

So it might be because there's a sprinkler head right in front of my golf ball, I get a free drop for that. Or maybe a staked tree, I need a free drop for that. Now a couple of things I'd like you to start to do and get into the habit of doing. The first thing would be to always mark the golf ball, always put a tee peg in the ground before you pick the ball up. As soon as I've got the ball marked, I know there's going to be no issues necessarily with where was that golf ball. If you just pick it up and then turn around, someone says where was your ball. And suddenly you don’t know where it was, you are not allowed to guess.

So it's important to mark the golf ball. That should be the first thing that you do. The first thing you should actually do is actually tell your playing partners what you are going to do. Come on over please, this is what I intend to do. I'm asking for a free drop. I'm going to mark my golf ball. Now I can decide what I need to do. Once you’ve determined the place where you want to drop the golf ball, so it might be the nearest point of relief. Again you would mark it again. You stick a tee peg back in the ground and say that's where I'm going to drop the golf ball. And then the dropping of the golf ball is exactly like this.

It’s a shoulder level straight arm with no spin on the ball. We're not allowed to hold the ball down or hold the ball high, we're not allowed to rotate the golf ball as we drop it. It has to be straight down. If you've used a golf club to measure where you're going to drop the ball, you might have left a club on the ground just so you can measure back one, two club lengths. Make that golf club gets picked up before you drop. If you drop and it hits the club, penalty time again. Now if I'm playing from here and I'm playing towards the flag over there, one of the keys to dropping the golf ball, you are never allowed to move it nearer to the hole.

You can't ever drop a ball and gain an advantage as in it's gone nearer to the hole. So if I was standing here and I dropped the ball, it bounces nearer than my tee peg. So I get another drop there, I don’t have no penalty. It’s free drop. You're allowed to do it again. Drop it again. We can kind of see because I'm on the slope. I could be here all day doing this. So the rules state that on the second time of asking if it rolls again, I'm now allowed to place the ball where it landed on the second occasion. So actually when you're lining up for your second drop, try and pick a nice patch of grass that you are going to drop them. No point in dropping it into a hole and then having to place it into the hole.

So this would be my second drop for example. I’ll drop it down on thick, right. I landed just there. So I collect my golf ball, I position it upon a decent lie and then I've got a much better chance of playing the shot. I then obviously take all my markers up wherever I wanted to drop it, where the ball was originally, pick my markers up and then go ahead and play the shot. Now rule 20, lifting and dropping the golf ball. Lots of different connotations, about six different subsections to that rule, each with lots of different options and lots of different penalties to apply.

So whenever you find yourself in a situation where you are dropping the golf ball, get your rulebook out and get your app on your phone that hopefully you’ve downloaded that's got the rulebook in there, and refer back to that. There is so many different scenarios and situations it could apply to on the green, off the green, in hazards. Make sure you understand rule 20 because on occasions when you do need to drop the golf ball, let's make sure we're not incurring any extra penalties.