Did you know this rule about hitting another player's ball on the green?
If you putt your ball across the green and it hits your playing partner's ball, do you incur a penalty?
Golf is a game that can confuse its players, especially if you are new to the sport and you are finding your feet with its rules and regulations.
The rulebook is long and detailed, but regular readers of GolfMagic will know that we like to keep you all informed on as many rules as possible.
In 2019, a number of golf rules changed and we have found this to confuse some golfers. It is easy to mix up which rules have changed and which rules have been kept the same.
On the Instagram page of golfrules_questions, they have posted a video of a fairly rare but significant occurrence on a green that will have caused many golfers some confusion in the past.
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As you can see, the player's ball goes short of the hole and rolls back down the green. As it comes back towards him, it hits his playing partner's ball.
Now, we are well aware that hitting your playing partner's ball in these circumstances is rare, but just hitting your friend's ball, in general, can be fairly common.
The question is: do you incur a penalty for this and if so, what is the penalty? You most certainly do incur a penalty if this happens in stroke play and it would be a two-shot penalty.
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This is why you should always mark your ball on the green when you are waiting your turn. To be fair, the video does show a situation where hitting another ball is unlikely, but it can happen.
If another ball is rushing towards yours across the putting surface, you may also go to your ball and mark it while the approaching one is in motion.
