Keeping still
Always notice when you initiate your swing. Do not force start it. Do not be hasty in your movements for this is disheartening to your game. In order to calm your game your whole body must be quieted. You can quiet your body by keeping the same posture aligned throughout your swing. Quiet your talk during your game. It’s sometimes dangerous to talk too much. This will help you reflect. This is a time to practice a type of stillness in your game that produces a general peace of mind.

Anger
There will be aspects of your game that are agitating and terrifying. These are parts of your game that can make you laugh. When you lose any part of your game suddenly, this is shocking. This is an instance when the correct measure is not to chase after it. It will come back. This kind of shock to your game points to times when you lose your composure and become distraught.

This is good as it wakes you up a little and forces you to find the correct measures. There is a type of shock to your game that is followed by muddy thinking. What you must do is become aware of the confusion. Oddly enough, this allows better thinking to come around. Whenever shock after shock, after shock happens in your game, you must be careful to stay centered and keep you faculties sharp.

There is something going on that only you can attend to. There is a kind of shock that can happen in your game that can take your breath away. It causes fear and trembling over every shot. The antidote, wait it out by making sure the fear doesn’t poison your body.

How are they administered?
A new set of rules of golf is issued every 4 years (subject to need), the next one falling due in 2004. In between, the rules committee may be called upon for a ‘decision’ affecting the rules, and the results of these decisions are published – see the websites at www.usga.com and www.randa.org for a list of current decisions. Every 4 years it is decided whether the rules themselves require to be updated as a result of these decisions.

Introduction to the Rules of Golf
For a relatively uncomplicated game, where the principle is to knock a ball into a distant hole and repeat the exercise up to 18 times, golf does have a large and seemingly complex rulebook. In fact, the rules of golf are one of the most discussed subjects on the planet, and new situations always seem to arise which cause the ruling bodies to issue ‘decisions’ on the rules. These are eventually incorporated into the rules of the game.

Golf prides itself on being an honorable game, and depends to a very large extent on the honesty and integrity of the players themselves. It is a frequent occurrence on the course to hear a player ‘own up’ to the fact that they hit the ball twice when playing out of a hazard, or disturbed the ball or the ground around it whilst playing a shot – and taking the necessary penalty. Sadly, this is not always the case, and the rules were largely put in place to prevent cheating and other unseemly behavior! On occasions, the rules may seem unnecessarily harsh – for example, a 2-stroke penalty (in medal play) for a ball striking the flagstick on the way into a hole – but it does not take too much imagination to understand why such rules were introduced in the first place!

Rules are rules, and there are even penalties for players agreeing to waive them. But remember, the most important element of all is the ‘spirit’ of the game and the way in which it is played.

The following section covers the main areas of etiquette on the golf course, definitions, and the rules themselves. These are extracted from the rules of golf, as defined by the US Golf Association in conjunction with the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews in Scotland. It is for guidance only. If you require a full definition of the rules, for example, to settle a dispute over a situation arising in a game you were involved in, you must refer to the full ‘rules of golf’. These can be found on the USGA website, or alternatively the R&A website at www.randa.net. The Rules of Golf consist of the following:

1 – Etiquette
2 – Definitions
3 – The Rules of Play

In addition, there is provision for ‘Local Rules’ These are set by the Committee of a Club and are intended to cover specific local situations such as roads crossing the course. They will normally be found on the scorecard of the course in question.

Tension restricts movement. A quiet, relaxed mind and body allows you to swing more freely. Simply stated, muscle groups respond more easily to a natural, balanced swing motion.

If your mind is tense, your muscles will be too. If you have had a hectic day at work or at home, chances are you will take that tension and anxiety to the first tee. This tension not only causes tight muscles, but can also increase the speed of your swing.

When that happens, the little muscles (hands and arms) take over the big muscles (shoulders, hips, and legs) throughout the golf swing. The big muscle groups cannot move as fast as the little muscles. All body parts must be given time to do their jobs efficiently and in harmony.

First, clear your mind. Picture your mind as a blackboard, and written on it are all the thoughts and happenings of the day. The key is that you’ve got the eraser! Erase your mind of everything and take a moment to put yourself in an environment that makes you relaxed, quiet and happy.

Envision yourself listening to soft music, reading a good book, relaxing in your favorite chair, strolling in the park, hiking, fishing, walking on the beach, or simply being in the mountains.

Basically, pick whatever image that helps you relax, and then put your mind and senses in that personal place. Be explicit. Actually hear the music or the waves. Feel the warm breeze or the water flowing around your body. See the mountains in all their glory. Smell the flowers. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Allow your mind and body to come down so that you can be up and ready to play a good round of golf. Now your mind and body can focus more clearly on one shot, one hole at a time.

Second, practice more relaxation in your grip, stance, and swing. Check the tension level in your grip. The hand pressure on the club should be light. If it is too tight, your takeaway will tend to be jerky and too fast. If you are not sure of the amount of pressure, let your   hands feel the difference by squeezing tightly and then releasing to a very light grip.

Notice that when you squeeze tightly, your forearms are tense. This generates tension throughout the body. You want just enough grip pressure so that you won’t lose the club during the swing. No white knuckle! What little pressure you do feel should be in the last three fingers of the let hand, and the third and fourth fingers of the right.

When addressing the ball, your arms should hand relaxed. The forearms should be soft – like ashes, wet noodles, or any other descriptive word of your choice that triggers relaxation. If your left arm is jammed straight, tension is created in the shoulders. I’ve seen some golfers who looked like they were trying to jab their left shoulders into their left ears.

The left arm should hang comfortably straight and the shoulders should droop. The legs should also be set in a relaxed starting position. Trying to force your weight to your insteps can cause lower body immobility.

Now waggle! The waggle helps keep the body loose and in motion. Freezing over the ball can cause tension. Chances are you are thinking too much, and paralysis of analysis can set in. Develop a waggle that is comfortable to you.

Most waggles consist of moving the club to and fro over the ball (not up and down) with a slight weight shift back and forth from foot to foot, while you look at the ball, then to the target, then back to the ball.

If you do not have a clear picture of what a waggle is, observe golfers on television or other golfers on your course. Waggles vary, but good golfers always stay in motion.
Most importantly, your waggle must be one that you are comfortable with. Each person has his or her own waggle personality. Find yours and practice until it becomes ingrained in your swing routine. You can work on this in your backyard.

Initiate the swing and swing relaxed. To practice a relaxed swing, take continuous swings back and forth without stopping. Be aware of any tension you might feel during these swings. Try to stay totally relaxed and loose as you swing back and forth. Don’t be in a hurry to start or finish the swing. When you get to the finish, allow your body to be lazy in returning the club to another backswing. No jerks!

Notice whether your hands and forearms tense when initiating the first swing of the series. If they are tense, then repeatedly practice starting your swing with a feathery grip pressure so that no tension runs through to your forearms and thereby to the rest of your body.

Tension can cause quite an array of problems such as reverse pivots; fast takeaways; forced swings; loss of club head speed; rolling on the outside of the right foot; incorrect swing plane; fat or topped shots; big and little muscle groups not working together; lack of balance; or a fast tempo that your swing cannot handle with any efficiency.
A major problem with even professional golfers is that it is so easy to let our minds take a wide sweeping view of what the next shot means:

• “How will it affect my score?”

• “What does it mean to me personally?”

• “Is this the best round I have ever played? Is it the worse round?”

• “If I sink this putt it will put me one up on my opponent!”

• “My dad is watching, I really want to do well.”

All of these comments, questions and statements are possible, along with hundreds more, at the very time you need to be focused on the elements of planning and executing the shot. If you are doing this, you are not “boxing out” the shot.

“Boxing out” means that you mentally put up a fence around what you need to do, so that you are not distracted by the things and thoughts that have no real bearing on the shot or putt. By not “boxing out” you allow your mind to wander to distractions.

Remember: even pleasant thoughts of success are not relevant to making the shot. Sometimes this lack of limiting your thoughts is called “outcome thinking”. In other words, you spend time and energy thinking of what the outcome could be and how that would feel.

The good news is that these stretching exercises are easy and only take a few minutes. That means you can effectively stretch right before you start your round.

For the first exercise, take your driver and place it across your shoulders. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Wrap your arms around the club at either end. Bend slightly back stretching your back muscles. Bend side to side so that you loosen up your side muscles and shoulders. Bend forward to extend your back.

Next, perform a partial squat with your golf club in hand. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and place the club in front of you holding with both hands for balance. Lower your body by bending at the knees, not the hips, and raise the club at the same time. Rise back up and repeat ten times. During this whole stretch, you need to keep your upper body very erect.

This exercise will increase your blood flow and circulation throughout your body. This is a great total body warm up to allow your body to make a relaxed, comfortable first swing. It also increases the range of motion in your hip which encourages a more synchronized swing from the ground up.

Finally, you can do a standing rotation twist stretch. Hold a golf club chest high with the grip at shoulder width apart. While keeping your feet and hips fairly stable, rotate the club to the right and the left. Try to breathe out on every turn to release tension. Repeat each side ten times.

By doing this stretch, you will be preparing specific muscles of the trunk to make an aggressive move from the first tee on. This also prepares proper sequencing of the swing while warming muscles. This exercise will improve body movements during the swing from the beginning. This way you will not sacrifice strokes on the first couple of holes.

Singles is where a player competes purely on his/her own account, whatever the game format.

Handicap Allowance – Various bodies are now advocating the use of full handicap allowance in all game formats, including match play. Some clubs have adopted this recommendation – others retain the ¾ handicap allowance in matchplay

Fourball

Fourball is where two players play as a team, whatever the game format. This is normally on the basis of ‘betterball’ (sometimes called bestball), where the lower net score of the pair is the one which counts.

Foursomes

Foursomes is probably the oldest game type of all. Some courses (especially in Britain) are still ‘2-ball’ courses. In other words, singles and foursomes are the only allowed types – with foursomes preferred – mainly because a foursomes game, if played properly, is considerably faster than singles!

Traditional foursomes is where the partners, in advance of a round, agree which holes (on an alternating basis) each will tee off at, with one player driving at the odd-numbered holes (1,3,5 etc) and the other the evens. Thereafter, the ball in play is struck alternately by the players until holed out.

There are a number of ‘variants’ on the foursomes theme (some purists would argue that these are separate game types in their own right, but for the sake of simplicity!

Greensomes (or Greensome Foursomes)

In this game type, both players drive at each hole, and select the most advantageous tee-shot. The partner then plays this ball, and the players then take alternate shots as in foursomes until the ball is holed.

Fensome or St Andrews Foursomes

Both players drive at each hole, but have pre-determined who will play the second shot (odds and evens, as above). It is rumored that this game type was invented by better golfers (possibly pros) on the basis that this gives them the chance to play their own tee-shot on at least half the holes!

If you want to lose some good friends, have a match of Bloodsomes!. Here the opponents choose which tee-shot has to be played!

In all of the above formats, great care needs to be exercised. Even experienced golfers frequently play out-of-turn and disqualify their team (if the mistake is not spotted immediately). It is also easy to forget the format when you have just missed a short putt, and tap it in! Be especially aware of the sequence when a tee-shot is lost or out of bounds, or a ball is dropped – either on a relief or penalty basis.

Handicap allowance – Foursomes. This is a bit of a grey area. Traditionally, a side was given 3/8ths of combined handicap in standard foursomes’ stroke- and match play. More recently ½ is used at many clubs. Always check the local committee ruling on stroke allowances before play, or at least before returning a signed card! Ignorance is not generally accepted as an excuse!

The good news is that these stretching exercises are easy and only take a few minutes. That means you can effectively stretch right before you start your round.
For the first exercise, take your driver and place it across your shoulders. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart. Wrap your arms around the club at either end. Bend slightly back stretching your back muscles. Bend side to side so that you loosen up your side muscles and shoulders. Bend forward to extend your back.

Next, perform a partial squat with your golf club in hand. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and place the club in front of you holding with both hands for balance. Lower your body by bending at the knees, not the hips, and raise the club at the same time. Rise back up and repeat ten times. During this whole stretch, you need to keep your upper body very erect.

This exercise will increase your blood flow and circulation throughout your body. This is a great total body warm up to allow your body to make a relaxed, comfortable first swing. It also increases the range of motion in your hip which encourages a more synchronized swing from the ground up.

Finally, you can do a standing rotation twist stretch. Hold a golf club chest high with the grip at shoulder width apart. While keeping your feet and hips fairly stable, rotate the club to the right and the left. Try to breathe out on every turn to release tension. Repeat each side ten times.

By doing this stretch, you will be preparing specific muscles of the trunk to make an aggressive move from the first tee on. This also prepares proper sequencing of the swing while warming muscles. This exercise will improve body movements during the swing from the beginning. This way you will not sacrifice strokes on the first couple of holes.

Let’s take an example of a 9 handicap player meeting a 16-handicapper in a Match play singles match. They would take the difference between their handicaps (7) and apply the ¾ of difference principle (if their club uses this rather than the full difference) = 5.25 – rounded to the nearest full number (=5). The 16 handicap player would get an extra stroke over his opponent at the first 5 stroke index numbered holes on the course.

Handicaps are administered by the Golf Clubs themselves, according to rules laid down by their responsible national union.
Officially, there is no other way, despite the claims of a number of bodies to being able to award ‘official handicaps’ (except where low handicaps are administered by a regional body rather than a club)

Most golf clubs have a committee (council) member responsible for this. A players handicap can be varied upwards or downwards as a result of his/her performance in ‘qualifying competitions’. The committee also has the right under the rules of golf (rule 19b) to make merit adjustments to a member’s handicap.

Handicaps fall into 4 categories for men and 6 for ladies, as follows:

Category Handicap range
1 0 – 5
2 6 – 12
3 13 – 20
4 21 – 28
5 29 – 40
6 41 – 45

Clubs often have names rather than category numbers for the different levels, ranging from the Gold/silver etc to the Tigers and Rabbits and the like.

Stroke Index
All golf clubs are required to publish a HANDICAP STROKE TABLE, indicating the order of holes at which handicap strokes are to be given or received. This always appears on the course scorecard under the heading stroke index. This is a list of numbers from 1 to 18 where handicap strokes are taken. The lower numbers indicate a higher degree of difficulty, hence a person receiving, for example, 9 strokes, either in a handicap competition or from a playing opponent, would receive an extra stroke at each of the holes with a Stroke Index from 1 to 9 inclusive.

The ‘degree of difficulty’ is a relative term, as the Club Committee is requested to observe a number of recommendations when setting the stroke index – such as ‘balancing’ the numbers between the two ‘nines’ of an 18-hole course.

This is especially noticeable if you visit a course which has 3 or more ‘nines’ which can be played in different combinations – allowance must be made for the balancing and other factors, when wondering why a hole played much easier (or harder!) than its stroke index would indicate. One thing you can guarantee – the stroke index 1 hole has been given that status for a very good reason!