It\u2019s officially golf\u2019s silly season in many spots around the country, and that usually means playing different types of golf than you\u2019re used to playing. Aside from events where you\u2019re only using a few golf clubs (where the 25 Rules of Golf still apply), three of the more common formats that come into play in the fall and early winter are foursomes (alternate shot), scrambles and the Pinehurst format (also know as Chapman).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to know that foursomes is covered in the Rules of Golf, and we\u2019ll get to some of the important rules to know (including the one in the headline) in a moment. However, you won\u2019t find Pinehurst or scrambles in the book. We\u2019re guessing you know what a scramble is\u2014each player plays from the teeing area on each hole, one of the tee shots is selected and then all the players play their second shots from that spot. One of the second shots is then selected, and all the players play their third shots from that spot. This process keeps going until the ball is holed.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not familiar with Pinehurt\/Chapman, this is how it\u2019s played:<\/p>\n
A two-player team starts by both teeing off. The partners then switch with Player A playing Player B\u2019s ball and vice versa. After the second shots, they then select which ball they will continue to play, and that ball is then played in alternate-shot style until holed. A lot of golfers think it\u2019s a fun format with standard \u201crules,\u201d but just know that it\u2019s up to the committee to decide how to handle rules situations. They certainly could apply the Rules of Golf, but there might be reasons to make alterations for pace-of-play considerations or even just to spice things up.<\/p>\n
Foursomes, on the other hand, has its own rule (Rule 22) and follows Rules 1-20 in applications of how to proceed. In case you didn\u2019t know, in foursomes partners are required to alternate who tees off from hole to hole (regardless of who holed out on the previous hole). It also can be match play or stroke play.<\/p>\n
OK, let\u2019s get to the question in the headline (apologies for the delay). The order of play during a hole is super important to follow if you want to avoid the general penalty (two strokes or loss of hole in match play). For example, say you hit a ball in the woods and want to play a provisional for fear the original ball might be lost. You might think it\u2019s you who hits the provisional, but it must be your partner.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, if you go on to find your original ball, your partner must play again. It\u2019s an unusual instance of a player in alternate shot getting to strike the ball consecutively.<\/p>\n
However, if a stroke is cancelled, replayed or otherwise does not count under any rule (except when a stroke is made in the wrong order in breach of this rule), the same partner who made the stroke must make the next stroke for the side.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another interesting dilemma: Say your partner had an awkward lie and took a swipe at the ball but missed it entirely. Who should play the next shot? If you think about it logically, it\u2019s your turn to hit. His whiff, regardless of the outcome, counts as a stroke.<\/p>\n
Have fun out there playing these unusual formats, but keep all of this in mind to avoid careless penalties.<\/p>\n
MORE GOLF DIGEST RULES REVIEWS <\/p>\n
What do I do if my ball just hit another ball on the green?<\/p>\n
What happens if my three-minute search for a lost ball gets interrupted?<\/p>\n
I hit myself with my own ball. Is that a penalty anymore?<\/p>\n
What exactly is an embedded ball?<\/p>\n
Touching the green to see if it\u2019s wet: Penalty or no?<\/p>\n
I hit a horrible shot. I\u2019m way better off if I don\u2019t find it. Can I just declare it lost?<\/p>\n
Does a ball have to be unplayable to declare it unplayable?<\/p>\n
I accidentally hit my ball with a practice stroke \u2026 does it count?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m on the green. My opponent is not. Who\u2019s away?<\/p>\n
I bent my putter and it actually works better. Can I still use it?<\/p>\n
Somebody just picked up my golf ball! Now what?<\/p>\n
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s officially golf\u2019s silly season in many spots around the country, and that usually means playing different types…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,755,138747,36416,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-279960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-article","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-golf","12":"tag-golf-digest","13":"tag-how-to","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}