Golf’s Unwritten Rules | 32 Etiquette tips on How to Golf

Greetings Golfers! Today we look at 32 etiquette tips to keep you from awkward situations on the golf course. These are rules that other golfers will just assume that you know!

There is a lot in this video, sorry about the length! If I missed any, please leave your etiquette tips in the comments! Yes I am still alive, with more videos coming soon! Love you all.

Greetings golfers from Duffer to Driver here and today we’re going to be talking about golf’s unwritten rules, golfing etiquette. Now, this video is aimed at golfers who are just starting out, but if you happen to be seasoned golfer yourself, stick around and share your knowledge. Who knows, you might learn something new today. Now, golf is a very fun game, but it’s also very social by nature. And being social as it is, a golf etiquette has formed over the years. These are unwritten social rules. Not necessarily official golf rules, but not following them is considered rude and not polite. But don’t worry, I’m here to help you with that, right? So, let’s start before you even get to the course. You want to get there early. Nobody likes waiting around for playing partners who are late. Golf courses that are very busy will pack up the tea times. So, if you end up being late, you’re going to be left in the dust, sometimes with a financial penalty. To avoid making things awkward, make sure to give yourself enough time to get there. Warm up since you’re there early. Since you’ve gone to the course early, you might as well use that time to warm up. Take some putts on the practice screen, hit a few balls on the range, or clean your clubs. Now, it’s always best to check the local rules before you tee off. They may have rules about being late or no show fees. They may have special rules regarding the golf carts, and they may even have special rules about where you’re allowed to drive your golf carts on the fairway, like because of a recent rain, maybe only 90° to the fairway, or you’re not allowed to drive on the fairway at all. These rules change from course to course and sometimes from day to day. So, make sure you take a peek when you’re paying. Dress code. Now, golf has been around for a long time and it’s evolved quite a lot from when it first started. Now, depending on the course you go to, the dress codes may not be as strict as they used to be. A good rule of thumb is to dress cleanly. Wear a nice shirt, preferably one that’s collared. This is the world’s smallest collar. A golf hat, some golf shoes, and some nice pants. Don’t show up in gym shorts or jeans. Get to the starter 15 minutes before your exact tea off time. Now, since you’re already at the golf course nice and early, this won’t be a problem for you. But most courses will require you to be at the starter. This usually gives the starter enough time to organize your group, or maybe if they’re running ahead of schedule, you might even be able to tee off early. So, be ready to go. Introduce yourself to the group. If you’re placed with a group of players you don’t know, it’s good etiquette to introduce yourself. You’ll be spending anywhere between 2 and 4 and 1/2 hours together, so you might as well be on a firstname basis. Now that we’re done with the pregame, it’s time to talk about the tea off etiquette around order of play. The honor versus ready golf. Now, in golf, the tea order is generally decided by the honor system. This means that whoever has the lowest handicap has the honor of teeing off first. On subsequent holes, it’s whoever scored best on the previous hole. Now, a lot of golfers, especially on a busy course, will play ready golf. This is essentially whoever is ready takes your shot. So if you have one golfer who is like fiddling with his clubs and you’re standing there ready to hit, you just hit. Speak with your fellow players to agree on which system works best for your group. Knowing when to tee off, hitting up on players. Always be aware of any golfers on the course in front of you before you tee off. You never want to hit your ball close to other players or hit anybody. It’s a good idea to really know your distances and know how far away people are from the tea and then you know when it’s safe to hit. If you’re not sure, then have someone else tee off before you. Have them make that decision for you. Quiet during tea off. It’s easy to forget sometimes while you’re on the course that you need to be respectful while other people are teeing off. As a side note, bringing two dogs to the course probably not a great idea. Guys, don’t you know golf etiquette? You guys can be quiet. Be present. Being quiet doesn’t mean that you can just scroll on your phone. Put your phone away and be present while others are taking their shots. Follow other players shots. While others are teeing off, okay? While others are teeing off, you should be respectfully watching them slightly behind them at about a 45° angle and follow their ball as they hit it. If you’re proactive and help others finding their balls mid-flight, they’ll do the same for you and everybody wins. Pick up your discarded TE’s. After you tee off, pick up your tea off the ground. Nobody wants to walk up to a tea box with a bunch of broken tees everywhere. Provisional balls to save time. If you hit a shot off the tea and you know it’s either way out of bounds or it’s gone in the trees or you’re going to have a hard time finding it, you should play a provisional ball. So, what does playing a provisional ball mean? Now, to avoid wasting time walking all the way out to not find your ball only to walk all the way back, you can hit a provisional ball while you’re still on the tea. You announce it to your playmates and you say, “Hey, this Wilson one or whatever ball you’re using is my provisional ball.” And you hit that off the tea. Now, when you’re looking for your original ball, if you find it, great, no penalty. You walk up to your provisional ball and you just pocket it. If you happen to actually lose your first ball, you just play from where your provisional ball landed, take the penalty stroke. This is all just to save time as a way of etiquette. Speaking of pace of play, so we’ve gotten to the course on time and we’ve teed off with our new group of best friends. Now, it’s time to talk about pace of play and why it matters. Golf is a lot of waiting. If you’re playing with four people, you’re going to hit a shot and then you have to wait for three others to take shots. If you’re playing with people who do not respect other people’s time and they make your round go longer than expected, this is considered rude. The general standard is for nine holes to take 2 hours and 15 minutes and then for 18 holes to take 4 and 1/2 hours. Some courses may expect finish around quicker where other courses might not mind if you take longer to finish your round. A good place to start is 2 hours 15 for 9 and 4 and 1/2 hours for 18. In order to stay on time and within these time frames, we’re going to look at these etiquette tips for pace of play. Walk at a reasonable pace. You want to be walking at a decent pace. You don’t want to run or jog to your next shot, but you also don’t want to stroll around like not a care in the world. Have purpose. Walk straight towards your ball. Order of play. Now, in the rules of golf, whoever’s furthest from the hole gets to hit first. Now, generally, this is great for pace of play because if you walk together as a group up the fairway, the first ball you come across is generally whoever’s furthest from the hole, then you hit that ball and then you move up to the next ball, hit that one, you guys are moving your way up the fairway. If you’re playing at a course where pace of play is really in mind, let’s say if you have two golfers and they’ve shot on opposite sides of the fairway, around the same distance, more or less, you can both hit the ball at the same time. Obviously, this only applies if you’re not going to be distracting towards the other golfer while he’s trying to play his shot. Generally, if you guys are far enough away from each other, then it won’t be distracting. But if your balls are like 5 ft apart, wait for him to shoot first. Plan your shots. While you’re walking to your ball or waiting for other players to shoot, start thinking about what you’re going to do for your next shot. Now, obviously, you can’t make a final decision until you actually reach the ball and assess the lie, but while you’re going to your shot, you want to start thinking about what your options are. Etiquette for shot timer. So once it’s your turn to step up to the ball and shoot, as a general rule of etiquette, you got 30 seconds up to 45 seconds to take your shot. If you start taking 1 minute to 1 and 1/2 minutes every shot, and you’re a high handicapper like myself, you’re going to be hitting the ball over 100 times. That’s like 100 to 200 minutes just you shooting. Now imagine you’re playing with three others who are equally as slow as you. You guys aren’t going to leave before the sun goes down looking for lost balls. So what’s going to happen? You’re going to lose a ball somewhere. That’s normal. Generally, rule of thumb, you get 3 minutes to look for a lost ball. This 3minut timer only starts when you get to the area where you believe your ball is. Another nice etiquette related to this is helping someone else look for their lost ball. One, it’s going to help them find the ball faster, and two, next time you lose your ball, maybe if they’re around, they’ll help you find it, too. Now that we’ve talked about pace of play, it’s time to move to fairway etiquette. When it comes to fairway etiquette, the biggest thing is divots. If you take a divot on the course, it’s proper etiquette to grab the turf that you launched and put it back in the hole that you just made. Some courses may even give you bottles of sand or seeds that you could pour into the dipping. The biggest thing for this etiquette is that you don’t want to leave the fairway full of holes. It’s just rude for the golfers behind you. Keep your bag close to you. Now, this one’s a little self-explanatory, but you want to keep your bag somewhat close to you. Now, not so close that if you’re taking your shots, you’re going to hit it. But also, you don’t want to keep your bag 20 to 50 ft away from where you’re taking your shot. If you do that, you’ll take your shot and then you got to walk back 20 ft to grab your bag and then walk forward. We want to avoid backtracking when we’re thinking about pace of play. Approaching the green. Now, when you’re approaching the green, you want to be aware of where the next hole is going to be. Is it going to be on the left side of the green, or the right side of the green, or maybe on the back side of the green? Now, why are we going to be thinking about this while we’re going up to the green? I know I said the rule about keeping your bag very close to you, but you’re not allowed to keep your bag on the putting surface. So, you’ll have to leave your bag outside the putting surface. Now, when you’re approaching the green, you want to make sure that you’re leaving your bag on the side of the green where the next hole is going to be. So, the next hole is way over here. You don’t want to put your bag all the way over here. Put out on the green. Go all the way back to your bag to grab it and then go all the way this way. Way too much back and forth. putting your bag on the correct side of the green so that when you putt, you go to your bag and continue to the next hole. Now, you notice that every part of the golf course has its own etiquette and bunkers are no different in that regard. All these etiquette rules are all based on the same principle of leaving the bunker in the same condition or nicer than the condition you found in. Take the shortest route to your ball in the sand. Now, in order to disturb the bunker the least amount possible, you want to take the shortest route to the ball through the sand. So this means if you’ve hit the ball 2 ft from one side of the bunker but 20 ft from the other side, don’t walk through the 20ft side and leave 20 ft of footprints. So go around and then walk the 2 ft to your ball on the other side. Bring a rake with you before you take your shot. Now this one’s really nice etiquette. You’re going to need a rake after your shot anyways. So while you’re walking around to get in the correct way from the bunker, grab the rake on your way and bring it in the bunker with you. It’ll save some time and it’ll make it look like you know what you’re doing. rake, divot, and footprints after your shot. Now, after you take your shot out of the bunker, you want to use the rake and rake the divot you just made, as well as the footprints as you’re walking out. Again, you took the shortest way in. This shouldn’t take long. Green etiquette. So, we finally made it to the green. We’ve gotten there on time. We’ve teed off the tea box. We’ve played on the fairway. We’ve approached the green. Now, we’re on the green. At least the green is pretty straightforward and doesn’t come with its own strange etiquette rules. [Music] Right. Right. Wrong. Repair pitch marks. Similar to divot marks on a fairway, you want to repair the pitch marks on the green. Pitch marks are like dents in the green as opposed to actual holes in the fairway which are divots. They are made from when the golf ball lands on the surface. Use a pitch mark tool or a T to repair the pitch mark and then use your putter to flatten it out again. And now for the unwritten etiquette rule that really surprised me when I first started playing. Don’t step on the putting line. This is one rule that nobody ever told me, but a lot of golfers will be really annoyed if you break it. Always be aware of the putting line and whatever you do, do not step on it. Now, the putting line is essentially an invisible line between someone’s golf ball and the hole. It’s that imaginary line where they’re going to hit the golf ball in order to sink it. So, why does this matter? Let’s say I step my big foot right on someone’s putting line. It could theoretically affect how the ball is going to travel to the hole. This is why it’s considered rude to step on someone’s putting line. To avoid annoying every golfer, you either want to walk behind everyone’s ball or to step over this invisible line. Putting order. Similar to everywhere else on the course, putting order is determined by who is furthest from the pin. Again, in times of pace of play, you want to play ready golf so whoever got to their ball first can putt first. But some golfers can be really weird about this, so just make sure you guys discuss before you get to the green. Marking your ball if it’s in the way. Now, putting furthest from the hole by nature means that all the other balls are closer to the hole than yours. This means there’s a better chance that one of those balls might be in the way. Now, it’s good etiquette to realize that your ball is in the way before that person has to make their putt and ask you to move your ball. So, be aware, look around. If you notice your ball might be obstructing someone’s shot, you want to go up, use a ball marker, place it where your ball was, remove your ball, and have them a clear line to put. Now, when you’re going to mark your ball, don’t forget the don’t step on someone’s line pin etiquette. Now, pin etiquette is really a preference. It depends on the players involved. Some people, like myself, prefer to keep the pin in for pace of play reasons and I can’t be bothered to do extra work to take out a pin and put it back in. Like, why would I do that? Now, if pace of play is not an issue, then proper pin etiquette is whoever hit their ball closest to the pin is in charge of the pin. So, that means you go up to the pin, you grab the flag, remove the pin as the ball comes close to the hole. All while doing this, you want to be aware not to step on anybody’s invisible line. So, that’s one option to do it. Another way is to just remove the pin and place it on the ground on the green somewhere where no one can hit it. That’s another way if everybody prefers the pin to be out. It’s really a preference. When it comes to putting the pin back in, that’ll generally be the person who putt it out first. Don’t move or be distracting. Now, the putting green is a sacred place. Putting is all about extreme focus and feel. So, it’s very important that no one is being distracting or making any noise while you’re trying to putt. This means you don’t want to be walking around while people are putting. If you see someone’s lining up for a putt, stay put. Don’t move. Don’t say anything. Beware of your shadow. This one took me a while to figure out while I was playing, but while you’re trying to not be in people’s way, be aware of the shadow that you’re casting. You might be off to the side, not in someone’s field of view to distract them, but you might be casting a shadow that is all up in their field of view, and you can be unintentionally distracting them by just swaying your head back and forth. and then this shadow moving across their ball and they’re going to be like, “What the heck?” And distracting someone is rude. Don’t linger. Now, once everyone has put it out, do not linger on the green. Don’t chat about how the hole went. Don’t calculate your scores. Put the pin back in the hole, walk to your bag, get off the green, go to the next hole. While you’re walking, you can chat, you could talk, you can do the math in your head if you scored an eight or a 12 on that hole. But do not stand around on the green. Write down your scorecard and generally lolly dag. Again, this is etiquette for people behind you. Maybe there’s a group waiting to hit up onto the green. They’ve been standing there for 5 minutes already and they’re just waiting and they see you hold out and they’re like, “Finally, we’re going to hit.” And then you guys are just hanging around on the green and taking a selfie. Just don’t do it. I don’t know. Lola, what do you think? Was that enough etiquette? I don’t know. Lola, what do you think? Was that enough? Could there be more [Music] rules? The truth is that golf is very social and you’re going to be playing with people and everybody’s different. Everybody grew up playing golf playing a different way or with slightly different rules or with different preferences. These general etiquette rules will at least get you off to the right foot. It’ll set you up for success. You’re not going to step on people’s toes. These are the rules that people just assume that you know. And honestly, a lot of these rules I wish I knew before I started playing. I hope you found this video helpful. Remember, if you think I’ve missed any important etiquette rules to write them down in the comments below to share the knowledge. And while you’re at it, make sure to like and subscribe. Thank you so much for watching. I’m from Duffer to Driver and I’ll see you out on the course. [Music]