How Well Do You Know The Rules Of Golf?
The First Rules of Golf
Take as many golf lessons as you like (and can afford). Practice your golf swing until you can complete each shot blindfolded. Read everything you can about straightening out your drives, buy the latest golf training aids, and keeping your cool no matter how many hazards your ball seems to find attractive. You can even study golf fitness. But until you have a thorough grasp of golf rules, you can’t claim that you know how to play golf.
Golf rules are more than just a laundry list of dos and don’ts; they are also rules of etiquette. Etiquette is the stuff that has made the names of Emily Post and three generations of her descendants a very comfortable living telling the rest of us how to behave in public without embarrassing ourselves or those around us. But while Emily did not start dispensing advice on etiquette until 1922, golf etiquette has been part of the golf rules since the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers decided that they needed some formal rules in 1744.
The original thirteen golf rules (not to be confused with those upstart thirteen American colonies) were drafted in order to establish some regulations for the world’s first golf tournament. On April 2, 1744, Dr. John Rattray bested all comers on a five-hole course at Leith Links in Edinburgh, and won a silver golf club for his efforts. Dr. Rattray certainly knew a thing or two about how to play golf, because each of the holes in the competition was more than four hundred yards.
Because Rattray was the captain of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, it is his name which appears on the document entitled “Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf,” and those thirteen articles and laws are the basis for the 21st golf rules which have allowed golf to remain “The Gentlemen’s Game” nearly 265 years after they were written.
What was so special about the well thought-out rules of golf etiquette created in 1744 that they remain the foundation of golf today? Quite simply, those thirteen rules laid out what would be appropriate behavior from the tee to the green, and how a player was to deal with any hazards which came his way. They even addressed the issue of what would happen should a club break in mid-swing. Having rules means less chance of nasty arguments developing, and nasty arguments have no place in the world of etiquette (or in the world of golf).
Consider that the whole point of having etiquette, in golf or in the social arena, is to display consideration for your fellow human beings. Golf etiquette extends beyond the course, but is extremely important on the course simply because a golf course is a vast area of more-or-less open spaces, and any one of those spaces, at any time, can have several golf balls flying through the air at speeds in excess on one hundred miles per hour.
Few people would bother learning how to play golf if there were no rules in place to protect the from those soaring golf balls, and most golf tips for beginners are designed to allow us to develop the golf technique which will keep our shots from harming other players or spectators. But golf etiquette today is far more comprehensive than the original rules of 1744, and cover every aspect of the game from arranging your tee-time well in advance and finding out what the dress code at the local course is, to making sure you have an adequate number of tees and golf balls, to not starting your round until the starter tells you it’s OK.
If there’s no starter, golf rules of etiquette demand that you let the group in front of you finish their second shots before you take your first one, so that they will be well clear of your hurtling ball. While this makes perfect sense, and is one of the reasons why golf is a leisurely sport, there are always those players who want to start hammering the ball the second they arrive on the tee. And on and on; there are golf rules designed to guide you in appropriate behavior all the way around the course!
You can take a look at the rules of golf drawn up by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers all those years ago, and see for yourself how little the essential nature of a round of golf, and all its attendant challenges, has changed. And you can thank those long-ago enthusiasts for their wisdom in establishing the tradition which has allowed golf, even with its worldwide popularity, to remain the well-mannered sport that it has!
Tags: golf swing instrution. | golf swing instrution. | golf technique | golf technique | golf fitness | golf fitness | golf rules | golf swing | golf swing | golf tips | golf tips
June 17th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Often people disregard the rules when playing a leisurely game of golf, and often they make their own rules up. My suggestion to those people is learn first, play later. Trust me, it will be better in the long run.