With golf season officially starting nearly everywhere across Canada, it’s a good time to brush up on some rules.
No matter if you’re a once-a-week golfer, a competition chaser, or even a weekend warrior, the rules of the game are part of what makes golf so special.
Enter – thankfully – Mary Beth McKenna, the director of rules and amateur championships at Golf Canada.
McKenna not only oversees things from a rules perspective at Golf Canada, but she’s also been part of the rules team at the RBC Canadian Open (even getting some special TV time when a Rory McIlroy tee shot in 2022 headed right down the middle, and directly into Justin Thomas’ ball).
She’s also here to help!
We asked McKenna for some common situations you might find yourself in this year and what rules could help out.
Speaking of – be sure to download the Golf Canada app as you’ll have access to the Player’s Rule Finder, boasting nearly 30 diagrams and over 50 how-to videos so then golfers can reduce confusion and uncertainty by learning the ins-and-outs of the game directly from the R&A.
“Golfers will be able to determine the specific rule-related situations they encounter on the course more easily through the Player’s Rules Finder interface,” McKenna says. “The integration into the Golf Canada Mobile App allows more straightforward access to the rules of golf.”
Be sure to bookmark this page for your 2025 season and you’ll be able to have quick access to some common rules right at your fingertips, too.
“THAT’S ONE”
We’ve all seen the joke about tapping the ball with your driver accidentally and it falling off the tee. Alas, McKenna says that’s just a joke and not a real situation to get your pencil out for.
You have to have an intent to hit the ball. So ‘intent,’ meaning you have to make a stroke at the ball. All you do is put it back on the tee and replay it. You can also move the tee to a new location as long as you’re still on the teeing ground. There is no penalty because there has been no intent to hit the ball.
McKenna says there’s actually something cool to note and file away as well.
If you hit your ball and it still (ends up) within the teeing area, you’re able to re-tee your ball. Let’s say you hit it, and it hits a tree and comes back into the teeing area? You can re-tee your ball.
IDENTIFYING YOUR BALL
When you have your ball out in the general area or on the course, it’s important to make sure you’re identifying your ball. You need to make sure you are playing the correct ball.
Identifying the ball can be done by the player, or anyone who has seen that ball come to rest in that area.
You should try to properly identify it with a mark on the ball. That’s a good recommendation for players. If you don’t, you can’t appropriately identify it you would have to declare it lost and go back to the tee.
Recalling the exact same model, brand, condition […] is hard.
You can lift the ball to identify it but you have to mark the spot of the ball, and it can’t be cleaned more than just enough to identify it.
FREQUENT SITUATION – FINDING THE PENALTY AREA
Differentiate what the relief options are between yellow (stakes) versus red (stakes).
More often than not, golf courses are marked with red penalty areas because it gives you an additional option. That’s how we mark it in competitions.
With yellow, you’re mostly going over the water or close to the green which is the main difference. The relief options are, well, you can play is at is lies in the penalty area, but then you can take relief back on a line (at the point of entry as far back as you possibly want to go.
The red stakes means an additional two club-lengths from point of entry which is the commonly used relief option. That’s important to note as a difference between the two.
DIFFERENT RELIEF SITUATIONS
Golfers often end up looking for relief from their environment.
Typically, there is natural things like a leaf or a pinecone. Sometimes there is a man-made movable obstruction like a pop can. You are permitted to remove a loose impediment on or off the golf course and you can do it by any means necessary. But if the ball moves when you remove a loose impediment it is a one stroke penalty, and you have to replace the ball. If you are moving a removeable obstruction like a pop can and the ball moves you can replace it no penalty.
ABNORMAL COURSE RESTRICTIONS
Like a bench or a cart path – if there is interference in the ball area of the intended stance and intended swing you can take relief anywhere on course, except for when the ball is in the penalty area or when relief is clearly unreasonable.
Say your ball is against a tree but you’re standing on a cart path. If you’re not actually able to make a shot, you can’t get relief from the path because your shot is unreasonable. It’s commonly encountered out there. Relief from a cart path is ‘complete’ relief and you have one club length from that point and drop in that area.
If you end up needing to declare an unplayable ball – anywhere but in the penalty area – you can take stroke-and-distance relief, go back on a line relief, or lateral relief (two club lengths, no nearer to the hole). That’s when there’s just no way you could make a shot at your ball.
NEGOTIATING BUNKERS
You can move loose impediments and objects. There are restrictions on touching the sand in the bunker – you can’t take a practice swing, but you can smooth a bunker for care of the course. You can bring your whole bag in and put them beside your ball if you wanted to, which is interesting.
ON THE PUTTING GREEN
We all aspire to get there. Just focus on the positives on the putting green – you are allowed to improve a lot of things on the putting green that are in the line of your putt, including the removal of sand and loose soil. You can’t, of course, do that in general areas on the course. In 2019 there was also the new rule install about leaving the flagstick in that helps with pace of play.
DROP IT LIKE IT’S HOT
How a ball must be dropped, well, it must be done the right way. The player him or herself must drop the ball (you can’t have a caddie or someone else drop it). It must be dropped from knee height without touching a player or equipment.
If a ball is dropped in the wrong way, a player can drop again the right way and there is no limit to the number that player may re-drop.
There is usually the ‘drop, drop, place’ rule. But an incorrect drop does not count as one of the two ‘drops’ in this case. If you’ve done it the wrong way, you are permitted to adjust.
Golf Canada is pleased to provide assistance in any questions that you might have regarding The Rules of Golf and Rules of Handicapping. Have a rules question that needs an answer? Ask An Expert!