Humor

The Unwritten Rules of Golf

Golf is all about rules.

There are rules that govern practically everything that might come up on the course during a round of play. There are rules that cover how to mark your ball on the green, rules that cover lost balls, there are rules that cover what order players tee off. There are even rules that cover how and when you may clean your ball.

And all of these rules are written up in a tidy little booklet called…. The Rules of Golf.

Clever title, huh?

But as comprehensive as the official tome is, there are plenty of situations that are not covered in the Rules of Golf. Let’s call them the Unwritten Rules of Golf. These are items that, while not specifically addressed in the USGA’s compendium of conduct, are universally known to be true. If you’ve played any amount of golf you already know most of these, but for the sake of those just starting out, here are a few unwritten rules that you will most certainly learn for yourself the more you play.

Men who are driving the cart are required to hang their left foot out of the cart while driving. I’ve seen women who do this as well, but not many. This trait is somehow related to the Y-chromosome and is believed to aid in steering.

Marshals will appear only when your group has lost three balls on one hole and you have fallen back half a hole for the first time all day. They will not be anywhere to be found when you are following a group of golfers who treat every putt as if it is for a share of the lead in the U.S. Open, and hunt for lost balls with the kind of dedication and fervor normally reserved for independent diamond miners.

Any time your opponent makes an “honest mistake” in scoring, the mistaken total will always be lower than the actual score.

The number of beverage carts on the course will be in inverse proportion to the temperature and stocked accordingly. Thus, when the temperature is 45 degrees and the wind is howling, at least six carts will be assigned to every nine holes. They will have cold beer, pop and other iced beverage, but under no circumstances will they carry coffee or hot chocolate. As the temperature rises, beverage carts will be pulled from the course until only a single cart remains. This cart will be stationed no more than 100 yards from the clubhouse to make for easier restocking.

The only time you will pure a 3-wood from the fairway will come on the heels of the phrase, “I can’t get there from here.” It will be followed by a player in the group in front of you falling to his knees and grabbing either his head or his groin.

NOTE: The likelihood of this occurring goes up exponentially depending on the size and temperament of the group in front of you. Thus, if you are playing behind a group of drunken, steroid-steeped 300-pound ex-professional wrestlers, your chances of hitting a member of the foursome are better than having your dinner interrupted by a telemarketer.

Under no circumstances will the practice putting green in any way resemble any of the greens on the actual golf course. If, by chance, the practice putting green does have any of the features that you might encounter on the course, it will be mowed in such a way as to be either much faster or much slower than any other green found at that particular club.

The only lost ball you will ever find will be recovered only after you have dropped a replacement ball and hit it without declaring it provisional. When you do find the ball, it will have somehow made its way to the middle of the fairway and be sitting up on a tee left behind from the previous day’s scramble.

A hole in one can only be recorded on the day you are on the verge of bankruptcy and are playing in a tournament with at least 128 of your “closest friends.”

Three-hundred-yard tee shots will always be followed by sand wedges thinned 160 yards out of bounds beyond the green.

Your best round ever will come on the day you opted not to play your usual $20 Nassau with automatic two-down presses.

Your opponent’s ball will always bounce off of the house and back into the fairway. Yours will break the $1,750 triple-paned, picture window where the lawyer who owns the house is testing his new video camera.

Striping the ball and rattling pins on the range is the most certain of all precursors to chunked, thinned and pulled shots once you move to the first tee.

The day you finally cure your yips on the putting green and begin dropping everything from inside 50 feet will be the same day you begin spraying your irons into adjacent fairways, parking lots and counties.

That new driver that you took out on the course to demo, and with which you couldn’t miss, will become a tool of Satan the second your check clears the bank.

Your rain suit will be hanging up, freshly laundered at home, the day the clouds open when you are at the greatest distance from the clubhouse. Your sunscreen will run out any day the temperature reaches 100.

The lessons you finally break down and take will immediately cure your slight fade….and leave you with a vicious snap hook that you will live with for the rest of your life.

This is hardly a definitive version of the Unwritten Rules of Golf. There are dozens of others that haven’t been included, but don’t worry, you’ll discover them for yourself.