Game for a laugh: The Real rules
Alternative golf includes 'no matter how bad you are playing, it
Are you game for a laugh? Like most of us, Neil Webber is passionate about golf but likes to keep his playing partners – and other Golfmagic visitors - cheerful too. So the 32-year-old GIS officer from Cobble Hall, Leeds has submitted the Real (alternative) Rules of Golf. We are grateful for his submission. We reckon it would even make Monty smile. If you’ve got more alternative Rules tell us 1. If you really want to get better at golf, go back and take it up at a much earlier age. 2. The ball always lands where the pin was yesterday. 3. Because bad shots come in threes, a fourth bad shot is 4. When you look up and and hit a bad shot, you will always look down again at exactly the moment when you ought to start watching the ball if you ever want to see it again. 5. Any change works for a maximum of three holes and a minimum of none at all. 6. No matter how bad you are playing, it’s always possible to play worse. 7. Never try to keep more than 300 separate thoughts in your mind during your swing. 8. When your shot has to carry a water hazard, you can either hit one more club or two more balls. 9. If you're afraid a full shot might reach the green while the fourball ahead is still putting out, you can either shank a lay-up, or wait until the green’s clear and 10. The inevitable result of any golf lesson is the instant elimination of the one critical unconscious motion that allowed you to compensate for all your errors. 11. Everyone replaces his divot after a perfect approach. 12. Matchplay is a test of your skill against your opponent's luck. 13. The number of tees in your bag is always less than 3 or more than 100. 14. Counting on your opponent to inform you when he breaks a rule is like expecting him to make fun of his own haircut 15. Your straightest iron shot of the day will be exactly one club short. 16. The shortest distance between any two points on a golf course is a straight line that passes directly through the centre of a very large tree. 17. There are two kinds of bounces: unfair ones and those that bounce just the way you meant them to. 18. You can hit a two-acre fairway 10 per-cent of the time, and a two-inch branch 90 per-cent of the time. 19. Every time a golfer makes a birdie, he must subsequently make two triple-bogeys to restore the fundamental equilibrium of the universe. 20. If you want to hit a 7-iron as far as Tiger Woods 21. To calculate the speed of a player's downswing, multiply the speed of the backswing by his handicap. E.g.: backswing 30 mph, handicap 20, downswing 600mph. 22. There are two things you can learn by stopping your back swing at the top and checking the position of your 23. Hazards attract; fairways repel 24. You can put draw spin on ball; you can put fade-spin on ball, but no golfer can put ‘straight’ on a ball. 25. A ball you can see in the rough from 50 yards away is never yours. 26. If there’s a ball in the fringe and a ball in the bunker, yours is invariably surrounded by sand. 27. If both balls are in the bunker, yours is in the footprint. 28. Don't buy a putter until you've had a chance to throw it. 29. Your best round of golf will be followed almost immediately by your worst round ever. The probability of the latter increases with the number of people you tell 30. Brand new golf balls are water-magnetic. This can’t be proven in a laboratory conditions but it’s a known fact that the more expensive the ball, the greater its attraction to water. 31. 32. Any difficult shot can be made to be impossible if enough time is taken to study it. 33. If your golf swing feels natural you're doing it 34. No matter what causes a golfer to duff a shot, all his 35. Never bet with anyone you meet on the first tee 36. *Picture courtesy of Sports Photo library |
