Golf Rule penalty, fair or foul?

June 27th, 2006 • Related • Filed Under

Dear Golf Nut, my golf partner and I were recently disqualified from a golf tournament for sharing a putter. Is this correct? We think that we got cheated.





I don’t know about cheated, but according to how I read the rules of golf, you should not have been disqualified. The appropriate rule is 4.4b concerning the maximum number of golf clubs.
This golf rule states that “Partners may share clubs provided that the total number of clubs carried by the partners so sharing does not exceed 14.” So my guess is that you violated this rule.
The problem is not that you had a golf rules violation, but the penalty. The penalty for breach of this golf rule is the following for stroke play: Two strokes for each hole where the breach occurred with a maximum of four strokes per round. For match play the penalty is the following: at the finish of the hole where the breach is discovered, the match is adjusted by deducting one hole for each hole on which a breach occurred with a maximum of two holes deducted.
So the way that I read this, you and your partner should not have been disqualified unless the tournament rules stated that a golf rules violation was cause for this.




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