Golf Essential Etiquette

The etiquette of golf, its protocol, is one of the essential things that every beginner should know before setting out on his or her first round. As you learn the rules of this game, some of the ways and means will appear illogical and some unnecessary, but etiquette is not among them.

At the very least, it will save you hassle from just about every other player you meet.

Shouting Fore

Fore is not a polite variation on another four letter word, but the shout that golfers use to indicate that a ball is heading in the direction of another player, usually unsuspecting and usually on another fairway.

You should never play a shot when there is a chance of hitting the players in front, but on courses where fairways are adjacent to one another, you will occasionally or perhaps frequently at first, strike a shot sufficiently off line that it may disturb the players who are on another hole, in which case you shout fore as loud as you can.

Etiquette such as this concerns the courtesies that one golfer has to show to another to make the game enjoyable.

Divots And Pitch marks

You will know just how imperative etiquette should be from the moment that your first perfectly struck drive, whether it flies 300 yards or not, finishes in a divot that has been carelessly left by another golfer who has failed to replace the turf they sliced out of the ground when playing their shot.

For a golfer, the only thing worse, perhaps, is to wander up to a greenside bunker, mentally prepared to play the shot, only to find the ball in someone else’s footprint. Similarly, a green full of pitch marks is the saddest sight.

Always replace a divot carefully if you take some turf when hitting a shot. Repairing divots and pitch marks looks after the course.