In a typical round of golf, you and your foursome can find yourselves all over the course depending on how well everyone is playing. While you might take different paths to get there, everyone ends up on the putting green.
Making sure that you use proper etiquette on the green is important, but you also want to be sure you’re following the rules of golf. It can be the difference between you closing out a match or having to settle a bet.
Here are some of the specific rules in place just for the putting green, according to the USGA’s Rules of Golf.
1. Putting Order
Players should putt in order of farthest to closest from the hole. If you’re playing a more casual round with friends and everyone agrees on playing “ready golf,” there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it keeps your group moving along with the course’s pace of play.
If your first putt results in an easy tap-in or just a short one to clean up, you may ask your partners for permission to finish first to help speed things along.
2. Green vs. Fringe
Players who are new to the game might not realize that a ball on the fringe is technically not on the green. When you are on the fringe, you are not entitled to some of the benefits you receive for being on the green, including the ability to mark, lift, and clean your golf ball.
3. Marking, Lifting, Cleaning
Properly marking your golf ball when it’s on the green can feel very technical in the early stages of playing, but it becomes second nature as your game progresses.
What may you mark it with? Ideally, a small, manufactured, flat marker, or a coin. You may use a tee or the toe of your club. What you can’t use is a leaf, twig, stone, or pebble. The marker must be something manufactured. The lads I play with sometimes mark their ball with their beer can. Is that allowed? Yes, because it is artificial.
A ball-marker should always be placed directly behind the golf ball before you pick up the ball. Once your marker is down, you are free to clean your golf ball. When placing your ball back down on the green, it must be fully at rest before you remove the marker behind it.
And, as Lexi Thompson learned the hard way, you must replace your ball exactly where it was marked.
Once a player marks their spot on the green, they own that spot. If, after replacing their ball, the ball moves by no fault of the player, they are required to replace it without penalty. If you watch enough golf on TV, you’ll sometimes hear the broadcasters say, “he’d better go mark that quickly,” after a ball precariously comes to rest on a sloped green. If the ball rolls down the slope before it is marked, its next resting point becomes its location. However, if the player marks the ball, they are required to play their next shot from the marked spot.
4. Improvements
The putting green is the only area of the golf course where you can move sand and dirt by brushing it aside. Any loose impediments, like twigs, leaves, and the like, may be moved anywhere on the golf course as well as the green.
Sometimes, a ball makes a depression on the green when it lands, called a ball mark. Players are free to fix any ball marks on the green, and common courtesy includes fixing your own. Ball marks in line from your ball to the hole can be fixed with a repair tool, tee, etc., but no improvements can be made beyond normal repair.
5. If Your Ball Moves
If a player’s ball is on the green and moves due to a natural occurrence, such as a gust of wind, you are required to move the ball back to its original marked spot without penalty. If you had not marked the ball’s position, you would play the ball from wherever the ball had moved to. If you accidentally cause your ball to move on the putting green (e.g., bumping it with your foot or putter), there is no penalty; simply replace the ball to where it was before making your stroke.
6. Testing of Greens
Players are not allowed to test greens, even if their golf ball is marked. An example of testing the green would be to scrape the surface to find the direction the grain of the green is going, which is not allowed. The only exception is if the hole has already been completed by the entire group.
7. The Flag Stick
In 2019, the USGA began allowing players to leave the flagstick in while putting. However, if somebody is attending the flag while you putt, they must remove it. If the stick is being attended to, you are on the hook for a penalty if your putted ball hits the stick as it drops into the hole.
8. The Waiting Game
If your birdie putt decides to simply hang on the lip of the hole, all hope is not lost. You are allowed a “reasonable” amount of time to walk to the hole, plus an additional 10 seconds to see if the putt tips in. You are not allowed to jump up and down or create a breeze to guide the ball into the hole. If the ball doesn’t go in, that extra centimeter still counts as a stroke.
