If You're Going to Play Competitively, Know Your Rules

When I first started playing golf, I started off as a 9 holer.  I was more concerned about how I would swing the club and then get the ball in the hole without making a 10.  As I progressively got better, the captain of our match play team asked me if I'd play a match against another club to be paired with a lady who had been playing for awhile.  I squirmed saying I don't play that well, I don't know the rules, I don't want to screw up the team.  She says, I really need you to play.
 You have an 18 hole handicap and you're a 35 so go for it.  On the first hole I hit my ball in a hazard. After I hit my ball out of the hazard, my playing partner asked if I had grounded my club.  Uh oh.  I had.  I didn't realize.  So we called a penalty.  I call penalties on myself all of the time.  It mostly has to do with double hitting the ball.  Some women get out to play and don't care about the rules.  They never call an infraction on themselves.  The problem with that is that it screws up your handicap.  Your handicap will be lower when you play in a tournament, meaning less strokes for you and your inability to play to that handicap.  Some people know the rules and deliberately try to hide their infractions.  But there are those who honestly don't know they've broken a rule, even a simple one.  They should stay out of competitive golf.  I played a match play event with another lady from my club against two ladies from another club.  It was the same partner of the "Walmart" golfer mentioned in an earlier post.  This time her partner had only been playing 5 years but had progressed to being a 23 handicap.  She played like one, too.  But she had some issues...she didn't know the rules.  Now my partner and I aren't rules gestapo.  We tend to let the first time go and then if it's done again, we call it.  We're on the green and this lady's partner is asking her which way the green breaks.   A legit thing to do.  BUT, she takes her finger and presses it into the side of the cup as to where she believes her partner should putt the ball. My partner and I look at each other.  Her partner misses the putt.  I walk over to her as we're leaving the green and say to her, look, you may end up playing against a competitor who will be very judicious about rules.  You can't touch the green unless you are removing debris or fixing a ball mark.  I'm so sorry she keeps repeating.  We say don't worry about it.  It's a teachable moment.  Two holes later, she's teeing off.  She's at least 2-3 inches in front of the tee markers.  My partner and I once again look at each other.  The lady hits the ball and hits a beautiful drive.  My partner then walks over and says, look, we're not trying to get in your head or anything, but you just....we could have made you hit that over.  I'm so sorry so sorry.  Nothing to be sorry about.  But you'll run into ladies that will make you hit it again.  Now you might be thinking we were being too easy on her.  We knew she didn't know the rules so we cut her some slack.  About 2 holes later she does call a penalty on herself for grounding the club.  But here's the kicker. When I came in, I saw her captain and told her she might want to give this lady a primer in rules because of blah blah blah. Well this lady and her partner come into our casual dining area, where my partner is sitting with our team play captain and her team play captain and proceeds to tell her captain that my partner and I had screwed up her game by telling her what she was doing wrong rules wise.  My partner didn't say a word.  I would have looked at her and said, well, we could have called the penalties but we didn't!  Learn the rules or some other people will NOT be so nice!