The post Rules Guy: My divot impeded my next shot. Can I stomp on it? appeared first on Golf.

The post Rules Guy: My divot impeded my next shot. Can I stomp on it? appeared first on Golf.

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

I had a short chip off an uphill lie and ended up hitting about six inches behind the ball. The resulting divot stood straight up behind the ball, such that I couldn’t play toward the target on my next attempt. I tamped the divot back down, counted the whiff and played the next shot. Was the tamping allowed, or is there a penalty for altering my lie after the whiff? —Dan Bundy, Lawrenceburg, Ky.

Dan, are you related to the hapless shoe salesman Al Bundy from Married With Children? (Rules Guy knows more than just his Shakespeare.) Because, in this instance, insult was added to injury.

You were not allowed to repair the divot, alas, because it improved your lie and, from your description, your area of intended swing too. Rule 8.1 protects those areas from improvement in certain ways, and altering the ground is one of them. In addition to the whiff, shoe-horn two more strokes onto your score.

For more divot-related guidance from our guru, read on …

Rules

Rules Guy: The drop zone is full of divots. Can I drop behind it instead?

By: Rules Guy

Upon reaching our drives, my playing partner and I found that our golf balls were touching and perfectly lined up toward the hole. My ball was in front, so I marked it. His approach produced a massive divot; to replace my ball in its original spot would have meant being in this newly created divot. I claimed I was entitled to a free drop, he said I wasn’t. Who was right? —Brick Rigden, Parkville, Mo.

In a word, neither.

Under Rule 14.2d, you were entitled to relief but not a drop.

When you lifted for interference, you were required to replace the ball … but when the lie of a ball to be replaced is altered, you must replace it in a specific way. Namely, by replacing it on the nearest spot with a lie most similar to the original lie that’s within one club-length of said spot, no nearer the hole and in the same area of the course.

(Your scenario, we will note, more commonly occurs in bunkers, but the process is the same.) We hope this info doesn’t hit you like a ton of bricks, Brick!

Need a handicap? Get started here.

Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@neatly-delicate-grub.edgecompute.app. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.

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The post Rules Guy: Is it legal to lean on a tree for support while hitting? appeared first on Golf.

The post Rules Guy: Is it legal to lean on a tree for support while hitting? appeared first on Golf.

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

To save yourself from having to take an unplayable, is it legal to lean on a tree for support while hitting a ball in an awkward lie? —Jane Fussell, Arlington, Texas

Lean on Rules Guy when you’re not sure and he’ll be your friend. He’ll help you carry on….

Anyway, while you are not allowed to accept physical assistance from another person to help make a stroke (Rule 10.2b( 5)) or use other equipment for this purpose (Rule 4.3), leaning on nature isn’t going to get you in trouble here.

Rules

Rules Guy: Can you take free relief from newly planted but unstaked trees?

By: Rules Guy

Please note: This applies to leaning on, for example, a sturdy oak that is supporting you and not a skinny fledgling that you’re bending out of the way, which would be a different matter altogether.

For more tree-related guidance from our guru, read on …

If I dislodge leaves or break a branch during my backswing, do I incur a penalty? —Robert Santoli

If a tree falls and no one hears it, is it still a loose impediment? What is the sound of one hand gauging wind direction? We digress.

Rule 8.1b covers actions you’re allowed to take even if you improve one of the conditions affecting your stroke, and you’ll be pleased to learn that there is no penalty in the case of you breaking something that creates an improvement during a backswing for the stroke that you go on to make.

Need a handicap? Get started here.

Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@neatly-delicate-grub.edgecompute.app. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.

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The post The 5 U.S. Open winners at Shinnecock Hills appeared first on Golf.

The post The 5 U.S. Open winners at Shinnecock Hills appeared first on Golf.

Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, the venerable club in Southampton, N.Y., has hosted a Walker Cup and three assorted U.S. Ams in its 135-year history, but its most definitive and memorable moments? Its five previous, tightly fought national championships — and its fascinating array of winners.

1896 U.S. OPEN

Winner: JAMES FOULIS
Score: 152
No. of rounds: 2, in one day
Margin of victory: 3 strokes

1986 U.S. OPEN

Winner: RAYMOND FLOYD
Score: 279 (-1)
Margin of victory: 2 strokes

1995 U.S. OPEN

Winner: COREY PAVIN
Score: 280 (E)
Margin of victory: 2 strokes

2004 U.S. OPEN

Winner: RETIEF GOOSEN
Score: 276 (-4)
Margin of victory: 2 strokes

2018 U.S. OPEN

Winner: BROOKS KOEPKA
Score: 281 (+1)
Margin of victory: 1 stroke

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The post 9 tips to effortlessly shoot more stress-free low scores appeared first on Golf.

The post 9 tips to effortlessly shoot more stress-free low scores appeared first on Golf.

Ours is a famously frustrating, stressful game. Like the old joke says: It’s called “golf” because all the other four-letter words were taken. But, #$%!, it doesn’t have to be that way, at least not so often. Maybe the smoothest of the smooth are born that way. The rest of us can still produce our best selves — free flowing — at the best times by following a few simple tips.

Here are nine tips you can use to shoot more effortless low scores.

1. Make smart choices

A stress-free round isn’t a trouble-free round. You’re never going to hit every fairway and green. It’s not the bogeys that raise your blood pressure; it’s the angst of trying (and often failing) to pull off difficult recovery shots. Shot choice greatly affects our agita levels: Taking your medicine with a simple pitchout or layup instead of attempting the miraculous keeps golf a walk in the park and doubles and triples off the card.

2. Have a reliable warm-up

Does working yourself into a lather sound like the road to chill? The secret may be in the dirt, as Hogan said, but beating lots of balls is for practice sessions, not for planting the seeds for a stressless round. Keep your warm-up to one bucket, maybe even a small one, and focus on being target-oriented. It may also help to make some practice swings with your eyes closed to feel your motion and get into a relaxed groove.

3. Nail the grip

Everything in golf, including effortlessness, starts with a good grip. Choking the club to death obviously isn’t the way to begin a buttery move — but neither is a soft grip that’s more in the palms. For effortless oomph, you need to hold the club more in the fingers, which activates the wrists, a key power source. Added bonus: Doing so will help all the slicers out there to square the clubface at impact and eliminate the banana ball. Think of it as an effortless double play.

4. Develop a waggle

Sprinters burst out of the blocks, but an effortless swing isn’t a sprint — it’s more like a leisurely jog, in which you shake out your arms and legs before setting off. Develop a personalized movement as part of your pre-shot routine so that you’re not jolted from a static position. Whether it’s three little wrist wiggles or miming the first 18 inches of your takeaway, devise something that both relaxes and activates you.

5. Make a full turn

Think about all the effortless swings that are short and quick … Okay, stop, because you won’t come up with one. (Tony Finau is the exception that proves the rule.) A big, full, complete, majestic, heroic backswing is needed to store the power that you’ll soon make look like rolling off a log. This may entail some gym work on hip and upper-body flexibility; in the meantime, consider lifting your front heel off the ground to help create that needed coil.

6. Unleash from the top

At the top is where so many effortless swings jump off the bridge. After a syrupy takeaway, suddenly the brain screams, “Now kill!” The hands go hurtling down toward the ball, speed is wasted early in the swing and smooth synchronization disintegrates. To keep the nice flow and gradual acceleration that yield easy power, think about pushing into the ground with your legs to start the downswing. Don’t worry about your hands; they’ll do what they need to on their own.

7. Stick the finish

Not to get too Zen master, but it can be hard to make an effortless swing when you’re thinking about making an effortless swing. One way to overcome the dreaded “paralysis by analysis” is to think instead about getting to a very specific follow-through position. At the range, hold that follow-through position for several seconds after each swing. You’ll be surprised how well your body soon reverse engineers an effortless move to get to that spot.

8. Understand the sand

For many golfers, greenside sand is like quicksand — the more you struggle, the faster you’re swallowed up. To promote the quick wrist hinge and upright swing that makes escaping the bunker a breeze, do this drill: Stick a tee in the butt end of your grip and, during the backswing, hinge your wrists so the tee points directly at the ball. On your downswing, all you need to do is release that angle and let the clubhead glide underneath the ball to blast the ball out of the bunker.

9. Roll it like Crenshaw

Effective putting strokes are repeatable putting strokes. If a jab-and-hit pop stroke works for you, fine. But an effortless, Ben Crenshaw stroke, well, looks like a Ben Crenshaw stroke: It has a longer backswing and a shorter follow-through. This ratio promotes the solid contact that produces effortless power and fewer yippy shorties. Practice a little recoil move soon after impact, which helps shorten the through-stroke and encourages purer impact too.

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The post Golf’s wackiest coach? An RV-driving surfer with major-winning pedigree appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf’s wackiest coach? An RV-driving surfer with major-winning pedigree appeared first on Golf.

Adam Schriber stares out at the ocean as if he’s never seen a sunrise. The clouds are clearing and it’s a wonderful mix of yellows and oranges. You can hear the waves splashing on the shore and smell the sea breeze in the air. He doesn’t break his gaze when he speaks.

“Different kind of day, huh?” he says.

Schriber means this in the best way possible — and he would know. He’s seen this thousands of times. He’s just not sick of it.

He sits atop his electric bike — hat backwards, long, wild hair sticking out the sides, sunglasses hiding his piercing blue eyes — ready to “rip it” (his words) up this salivating stretch of Atlantic coastline. An adrenaline junkie, he can rattle off his broken bones and torn tendons like he’s reading from a grocery list. It’s the price of living the only way he knows how.

The 64-year-old Schriber (known to most as “Schribes”) is one of the top instructors in professional golf, but he’s not your country club cutout. He thinks differently. Looks differently. Acts differently. Who else crisscrosses the country in an RV, camping from one PGA Tour stop to the next?

His son Sam describes him as a surfer-bro golfer, as a softy at heart with a rough exterior. J.J. Spaun, his most famous pupil and the reigning U.S. Open champion, calls him the ultimate golf geek.

“He’s a really good dude and he doesn’t have a bad bone in his body,” Spaun says. “It shows, because everyone on Tour loves the guy.”

This morning, Schriber’s on Vilano Beach, a chip shot away from the St. Augustine, Fla., RV park where he’s deposited his 27-foot Airstream Midnight Flamingo for this week’s Players Championship at nearby TPC Sawgrass. He’ll head to the course soon, but first, there’s no time to waste. He nudges his e-bike forward and, well, rips it.

ADAM SCHRIBER NEVER expected to end up in golf.

The youngest of four, he lost his father to leukemia when he was a kid and was raised by his schoolteacher mother in South Florida. He kept busy with sports and surfing but didn’t give golf a try until a YMCA summer program at age 12. He owned only a few clubs, and his mom couldn’t afford a bag, so she bought fabric, bent two hangers together and sewed him a pocketless one he’d go on to win tournaments with. He later earned academic and athletic scholarships — he says he missed just one math question on his SATs, taken after a night of hard partying in Fort Lauderdale — and chose Michigan’s Ferris State for its golf management program, a fallback in case his pro-golf dreams didn’t pan out.

Schriber bounced around the mini-tours and Monday-qualified into some PGA Tour events, but those aspirations died when, in his late 20s, he shattered his ankle in a game of pickup basketball.

He turned to teaching, landing a job with David Leadbetter in 1989. But it was a reluctant meetup with scientists on topics like force and friction in sports that forever changed the way he taught. It was his introduction to biomechanics, and Schriber became a trailblazer in what is now one of the sport’s foundational teaching philosophies.

Using fitness-focused training, his approach is rooted in feel over thought. Schriber calls his drills “mouse traps” — subtle cues that guide players into the right positions without conscious effort. Spaun, a skateboarder growing up, imagines a “back-side flip” to trigger the movement he wants in his feet while swinging.

“Change is feel, right?” says Schriber, who blends surfer slang with a monotone delivery. “How do you teach somebody to feel something differently? With all the science we have available now — about ground forces, biomechanical data, all the launch monitor stuff — you can test s— more than ever. I can make you throw a medicine ball or have you swing something heavy and test your ground forces. Do they produce what we’re after? And if they do, I’m like, ‘Come on, dude — it’s up to you now. Figure out what that feels like.’”

Now the director of instruction at LochenHeath Golf Club, just north of his home in Traverse City, Mich., and a longtime GOLF Top 100 Teacher, Schriber has taught winners across decades — from Brandel Chamblee in the late 1990s to current pros Spaun and Korn Ferry winners Sam Ryder and Dylan Wu.

He’s also known as the coach who helped turn Anthony Kim from a promising junior into a PGA Tour and now LIV Golf winner and star.

The RV lifestyle is unique and fun, but it’s the teaching and competition that’s Schriber’s true passion. He talks often about making it all mean something, not just in golf but in life. Every Christmas, he helps organize a Tips for Toys benefit, where he and other teachers wrangle silent-auction items and offer free lessons in exchange for money or food donations. And his 2025 U.S. Open win with Spaun wasn’t even his favorite finish last year. That honor goes to the high school girls’ golf team he helped start three years ago in nearby Elk Rapids. They took third at state; Schriber was a volunteer assistant.

“He loves helping people,” Spaun says. “He wants everyone to succeed and he’s so dedicated. He’s there mentally and emotionally for your game.”

IN 2008, THE SCHRIBERS’ BLACK LAB, BIRDIE, a family gift from Anthony Kim years earlier, roamed their Michigan neighborhood and returned with a malnourished, 24-pound chocolate Lab in tow. No owner surfaced, so the Schribers took him in and named him Yoda. The trusty pooch was still around in 2017 when Sam, the youngest of Schriber’s three sons, graduated high school and made his dad an empty nester. The Tour season loomed, but he wasn’t about to kennel an elderly dog, so he made what was, for him, the most logical choice: He sold his house, bought a camper and hit the road with Yoda.

Two things happened on those highways: Yoda became a minor celebrity on Tour and Schriber realized he loved the life. He outfitted his camper with all sorts of his favorite toys — kayaks and surfboards, longboards and paddleboards, mountain bikes and e-bikes. He even added a bicycle trailer so Yoda could ride along to beaches and paddleboard sessions.

When Yoda died in 2024, Schriber tried the more practical Airbnb route, but that life just wasn’t for him anymore. In January, he and 27-year-old Sam, now traveling and working together, picked up their fourth and newest RV amid a Cleveland snowstorm. Their first night back on the road was the best sleep Schriber had in six months.

Since then, 7,000 miles and counting: Palm Springs. San Diego. Phoenix. Pebble Beach. L.A. All to a Pandora soundtrack of the Grateful Dead and Zach Bryan.

Now they’re parked in a sandy RV lot 20 miles south of TPC Sawgrass, where the grill is still warm and there are traces of bacon in the air. Folding chairs are spread atop an area rug. Workout equipment and training aids are tucked beneath the camper; a longboard leans against it. Inside, there’s a small eating and living area, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom in the back.

The surfboards didn’t make this trip, but the e-bike, which Schriber takes off-roading and rides to tournaments, did. The Tour’s security corps is used to him by now.

“Here comes the wacky coach on the e-bike,” Schriber says.

His kids wish he’d be a little more careful. He recently had to be talked out of buying a bike that reaches speeds of up to 70 mph. The current one tops out at 45 — and when he flipped it three years ago, he broke his pelvis for the second time (the first was snowboarding with AK). Couldn’t walk for six months.

“He has glass bones and paper skin,” Sam jokes. “I don’t know why, but he’s always fighting himself.”

He has learned that this lifestyle isn’t always romantic — the 2 a.m. flat tires, the breakdowns, the endless packing and unpacking. It’s hard. One of those maddening moments came during a pivotal time in Spaun’s 2025 season. Driving from Orlando to Jacksonville for the Players, Schriber’s RV snapped an axle. He spent the week on an air mattress in a rented cargo van. Days later, Spaun complained to his coach about bad luck.

Schriber saw it differently. He knew Spaun had struggled with diabetes and nearly quit the game years ago. Schriber had had his own health scare in 2008, when he nearly lost his vision. And because his father died young, Schriber has always pondered his own longevity.

“What if it turns out,” he told Spaun, “that you and I are the luckiest people in the world?”

Something clicked. Spaun lost that year’s Players to Rory McIlroy in a Monday playoff, but banked $2.7 million and, three months later, hoisted the U.S. Open trophy. In the rain, as Spaun celebrated on the 72nd hole, Schriber embraced Spaun’s short-game coach, Josh Gregory. A video clip of the moment went viral.

“You did this,” Gregory told Schriber. “Nobody works harder than you.”

“We all did this,” Schriber replied.

Chamblee, his former student, watched and saw something different.

“You’re talking about a guy that has been giving his heart and soul to the game and to his players for 35, 40 years,” Chamblee says. “And he finally had a horse that won the Kentucky Derby.”

BACK ON THE BEACH, Schriber maneuvers his e-bike past morning walkers and foraging gulls. It feels good to get it out again. It was recently repaired after he accidentally set it on fire while trying to fix damage from a West Coast Swing downpour.

The biking, the surfing — Schriber isn’t stopping.

“I can’t watch from the sidelines,” he says.

He has always craved this kind of excitement, even though the waves he now conquers aren’t nearly as gnarly as the ones he surfed decades ago. He loves that Sam is now beside him. They’re a team, truckin’ down interstates together, laughing over the minor inconveniences of life on the road, chasing twilight tee times and grilling steaks well into the night. What dad wouldn’t want that?

“I’m in golf, and I probably shouldn’t be,” Schriber says. “I’m not from that side of the tracks. But there are a lot of weird combinations that have got me here. I just want it to mean as much as possible.”

His hair flaps in the wind as he cruises the shore. The beach, the water, this sunrise — it’s one hell of a view. Schriber must think so too. Lost in the moment, he cranks the throttle and disappears up the coastline.

Lucky? Sure. Alive? You bet. Because Adam Schriber has figured out what that feels like.

This story was first published in the May/June 2026 issue of GOLF Magazine. You can reach the author at joshua.berhow@neatly-delicate-grub.edgecompute.app.

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The post Beastly and beautiful, Shinnecock Hills is a perfect exam for golf’s ultimate test appeared first on Golf.

The post Beastly and beautiful, Shinnecock Hills is a perfect exam for golf’s ultimate test appeared first on Golf.

Shinnecock Hills, host of this year’s U.S. Open, draws you in with its stately clubhouse, high on a hill and oh so lovely. Then there’s the course, beastly and beautiful — a perfect exam for golf’s ultimate test. So, how have players handled this icon of New York golf? Some, not so well. (Here’s looking at you, Lefty.) Others have been in just the right state of mind.

As with other gorgeous creatures, you have to see Shinnecock Hills up close to fully appreciate her complexity. Up close, and over time. Gorgeous, yes, but moody like you wouldn’t believe! The great course has changed over the decades, as all living things do. But Shinnecock changes over any single day too — especially in the long days of early summer. She’s like the Old Course in that way, or Dornoch or Troon. Shinnecock Hills, on the sandy South Fork of Long Island, is our nod to the motherland. Some of the holes have Scottish names. (Ben Nevis, Redan.) But Native American names too: Peconic, Sebonac, Montauk and Shinnecock. How fitting. The course was built by Shinnecock men, using a template imported from Scotland.

There’s nobody left from the 1896 Open at Shinnecock Hills, but there are boatloads of us still around who were on hand for the return engagement, 90 years after the first. Jack Nicklaus, the reigning Masters champion, played his first round of the ’86 U.S. Open on a dank and wet afternoon. The Golden Bear holed out on nine, walked past the Stanford White clubhouse, then watched his tee shot on 10 sail over a wide swath of yellowish rough and toward a cluster of unkempt shrubs. For the first time as a pro, Nicklaus had lost a golf ball. He made the lonely walk back to the tee, driver in hand, looking like he had just buried his dog. Three days later, Ray Floyd, flinty old North Carolina pro and the son of one, hugged the Open trophy, his eyes narrow against the afternoon glare and moment. Father’s Day, 1986. Raymond was reborn, and so was the course.

The third Open at Shinnecock was in 1995. Let’s roll the tape on Corey Pavin on 18 on Sunday: driver; 4-wood; two-putt par on a green with more tilt than a pinball machine. After wrestling the course for four days, Pavin had shot 280, even par. Straight ball, air-attack golf doesn’t play at Shinnecock Hills. At least, it doesn’t win. Cheeky little Corey Pavin won by two.

For Shinnecock’s fourth Open, in 2004, the course was still under 7,000 yards but this time dying of thirst. Phil Mickelson had another agonizing second-place finish and Retief Goosen won. Fourteen years later (No. 5; 2018), Phil was still nursing a Shinnecock Hills/USGA hangover. You might recall that moment when he went berserk, turning his putter into a hockey stick and his ball into a puck. Brooks Koepka won, by a shot over Tommy Fleetwood. Tom Watson said Koepka was the real deal, a player with all the tools. Tom Watson. Not known for effusiveness. But Koepka did what he did at Shinnecock, and that made all the difference. Koepka will be 36 when the U.S. Open comes to Shinnecock Hills for the sixth time, come June. Thirty-somethings and U.S. Opens — there’s a long marriage there.

Watson won his lone U.S. Open at Pebble Beach (at 32) and you’re tempted to say that Pebble is to the West Coast what Shinnecock is to the East, but it’s not. There’s no crashing-surf excitement at Shinnecock Hills, and it’s the opposite of public. (The club’s roots are old-guard WASP, elitist, exclusionary.) Shinnecock’s three neighbors — National Golf Links, Southampton Golf Club, Sebonack Golf Club — are sprinkled with moments of quirk and funk. Shinnecock unspools logically across its rolling and treeless 260 acres, with shapely fairways that act as wind tunnels. From start to finish the course is … sound. Sound, demanding and unrelenting. Somehow, Tommy Fleetwood shot a Sunday 63 when Koepka won. That’s like shooting 60 at Augusta.

He was 27 then, 35 now, and he’ll be 45 when the Open returns to Shinnecock for rendezvous No. 7, in 2036. Raymond Floyd was 43 when he won 40 years ago. He bought a house in Southampton and joined the club, and you could see him, now and again, sliding from the car park to the clubhouse in snazzy loafers and metal-framed shades. The ’86 Open turned Floyd into a superstar. The 2018 Open, for Koepka, did the same.

That clubhouse, broadly similar to Muirfield’s in Scotland, sits on the top of Shinnecock’s highest hill. For visitors and members, for motorists driving by, the clubhouse is a beacon, a weathered landmark of the American game. With its sturdy white columns around its perimeter, and sentry flagpoles on its east side and west, the Shinnecock clubhouse makes a proud here-we-stand statement.

But let’s consider another orientation here, an unlikely one, from the back tee on the 4th hole, in an almost rural nook of the course, deep in its northernmost reach. If you could go high on a cherry picker from that tee and gaze south you’d see it all: the pale, heaving course; the handsome clubhouse; the east-west tracks of the Long Island Rail Road; gas stations and strip malls; modern mansions on old potato fields; ocean beaches; the dark wonder of the Atlantic.

Then, somewhere beyond the horizon and in your drifting mind, the old country itself, birthplace of all this imported, madcap gorgeousness. At Shinnecock, nothing was lost in transit. She’s got those potato-chip fairways, ball-eating shrubs, magic-carpet greens plus, at the Open, a drinking-vessel trophy waiting for the winner. Enter the golfers, from all corners of the world, every last one fueled and encouraged by the vague promise of ecstasy.

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The post Rules Guy: Is a dead animal considered a loose impediment? appeared first on Golf.

The post Rules Guy: Is a dead animal considered a loose impediment? appeared first on Golf.

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

In a recent round, my drive wound up near a decomposing animal carcass that interfered with my swing path. After my group said a quick silent prayer for the dearly departed, we decided it was a loose impediment … but nobody wanted to watch me heave up my breakfast by trying to move it, so we decided a free drop was appropriate. Is there an actual rule that covers this situation? – Mickey Boland, via email 

Thank you, Mickey, for not specifying the animal, so that Rules Guy doesn’t have too clear a picture in his head.

The first decision you all made was correct — the dearly departed was indeed also a loose impediment. Here’s where it gets a little … messy: As a loose impediment, your free relief was to remove the carcass, which you are allowed to do in any way, so you need not have put your hands on it, and so forth, but a free drop would only be granted if the Committee decided to grant relief for ground under repair (see Definition of Loose Impediment and Rule 15.1).

If it were the remains of a larger animal, that might have been the appropriate solution. Regardless, Rules Guy will pass on the steak tartare tonight.

Rules

Rules Guy: What are the legal limits when removing loose impediments?

By: Rules Guy

For more loose-impediment guidance from our guru, read on …

When playing under winter rules, is it permissible to place your ball on a worm cast to elevate your ball prior to your shot? – Mike Dearden, via email

Mike, Rules Guy is going to be honest with you: we had to look up “worm cast.” You’re always learning in this business.

As to legality, when put into effect by the committee “winter rules,” a.k.a. the preferred lies local rule, lets you place the ball within a specified distance.

Beyond that, however, it’s still undergirded by the notion of playing the course as you find it. If there is worm cast (a loose impediment) within the specified radius of where your shot came to rest, you are by all means free to place your ball atop it — you just can’t pull some from beyond that area, or from your pants pocket or your golf bag, et cetera.

That said, if before you make your stroke the ball were to move due to natural forces, you’d have to play it as it lies — no replacing the ball atop the worm cast. And, with that, Rules Guy hopes and expects never to type “worm cast” again.

Need a handicap? Get started here.

Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@neatly-delicate-grub.edgecompute.app. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.

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The post Lower your handicap fast by practicing these 3 key skills appeared first on Golf.

The post Lower your handicap fast by practicing these 3 key skills appeared first on Golf.

Most golfers practice without a plan, spending their precious practice time hitting the wrong clubs and working on the wrong shots, leaving them wondering why their scores don’t improve.

The reality is that two thirds of a solid round of golf comes down to your performance in just three key areas: putting, wedge play and driving. By understanding where your strokes actually come from — and striving to do these ordinary things extraordinarily — you can build a practice plan that addresses each of these areas. Work backward from the green, set clear and measurable goals and bring a game-like mindset to every session. When you practice shots you’re actually hitting on the course, improvement becomes intentional rather than accidental.

Check out below for a breakdown of each of these three skills, with tips for how you can improve each.

Part 1: Putting

Setup basics

1. Grip: Place the putter grip in the fingers of the lead hand, running from the base of the index finger to just under the lifeline of the palm. The trail hand mirrors the lead hand, with palms facing each other and both thumbs resting directly on the flat front edge of the grip. This alignment discourages wrist rotation and encourages a pendulum motion driven by the shoulders.

2. Ball position: Set the ball slightly forward of the center of your stance—approximately underneath the logo on the chest of your shirt. This allows the putter to contact the ball just past the low point of the arc, producing a slight upward strike that gets the ball rolling end over end immediately. If the ball is too far back, it will skid and have an inconsistent roll.

3. Stance width: Set the feet hip width apart. This stance width helps provide a stable base while allowing the upper body to move freely. Your weight should be distributed evenly, with a slight bias toward the balls of the feet.

4. Head position: The head sits slightly behind the ball at address, reflecting the forward ball position. This rearward tilt encourages the ascending stroke path. The head stays here throughout the stroke—any forward drift disrupts both arc and face angle at impact.

5. Shaft lean: The shaft should be roughly vertical at address, pointing between the center of the head and your ear. Excessive forward lean de-lofts the putter and creates skid, and too much backward lean adds loft and causes bounce. A neutral shaft angle preserves the putter’s loft and allows for a consistent roll.

The stroke

The length of the putting stroke should be governed by the distance to the hole, not by how hard you accelerate through impact. A common fault among rec players is a short backstroke paired with a quick, jabbing forward stroke, which produces inconsistent pace and direction. The goal is a backstroke and followthrough that are roughly equal in length, and the pace of the putterhead remains smooth and consistent.

Backstroke: The putterhead moves back, low to the ground, driven by the rocking of the shoulders. The hands and wrists remain passive with little to no hinge.

Impact: The face should be square to the start line at the moment of contact. The hands remain even with or slightly ahead of the putterhead. Avoid any flipping of the wrists — the relationship between the arms and shoulders established at address should remain stable.

Post-impact: The follow-through is slightly shorter than the backstroke as the putterhead naturally decelerates after contacting the ball. The face stays square as long as possible before rotating naturally with the arc.

Post-impact: The follow-through is slightly shorter than the backstroke as the putterhead naturally decelerates after contacting the ball. The face stays square as long as possible before rotating naturally with the arc. 

Longer putts: For longer putts, extend the backstroke while maintaining the same smooth tempo. Resist the urge to accelerate more aggressively through the ball to add distance. Simply rely on a longer backstroke.

Shorter putts: A compact stroke with equal-length backswing and follow-through is most reliable on short putts. Keep the tempo identical to longer putts — only the stroke length changes.

Read and speed drill

Speed and read are the two variables that determine whether a putt goes in the hole. Most missed putts result from poor speed rather than misread. This drill trains both simultaneously, using a simple tee as a reference point to develop feel for entry angle and distance control.

Entry point: Identify the spot on the rim of the hole where the ball needs to enter. For a straight putt, the entry point is the center back of the cup. For a breaking putt, it shifts to the high side. Committing to a specific entry point moves focus from the entire hole to a precise target, improving read accuracy and start line direction.

Start line: With entry point determined, identify your starting direction. This is a straight line where you want to start the ball on breaking putts [1]. Committing to a start line, rather than relying on the hole as the only reference, produces more decisive alignment and better directional control.

Setup: Address the ball with the tee positioned just ahead of your peripheral vision on the target line. Align the putter face to the start line, then step the feet into position. Aligning the face before the body consistently produces better setup accuracy than trying to establish both simultaneously. 

Match tee and speed: Based on green speed and slope, adjust the tee position to reflect the correct entry point. Then practice aligning to your straight line and committing to that start [2]. The tee keeps both read and speed connected — the right entry point only works when the speed matches the read.

Part 2: Wedge play

Distance wedge

Distance control with wedges is key for shooting lower scores. With such a high percentage of approach shots played from wedge range, this is a real opportunity to hit the ball close, convert up-and-downs and create more birdie chances.

Setup: Research points to an ideal launch angle of approximately 30 degrees for these shots, and the setup is designed to produce exactly that. A narrow stance with 60 percent pressure forward helps control swing size. Position the ball slightly back of center — roughly one ball back — to encourage clean contact and a lower, penetrating flight. Open the stance slightly to maintain proper alignment. 

Swing clock: Using the clock system — the lead arm as the hour hand of a clock — vary the length of the backswing from 9:00 to 7:30 to 11:30. As backswing length changes, so does distance. Calibrate yardages using a launch monitor or measured targets, and complete this process with each wedge to build a complete distance arsenal.

7:30: The lead arm swings to 7:30 — perfect for a short pitch. Wrist hinge is minimal, turn is limited and the finish is low and abbreviated. 

9:00: The lead arm reaches parallel to the ground. The wrists hinge fully, the torso rotates approximately 45 degrees and the finish mirrors the backswing length. 

11:30: The lead arm extends to 11:30 — just short of a full swing. The transition should be unhurried, and the finish matches the backswing length.

Finesse wedge

Finesse wedge shots should be used close to the green (inside 30 yards) when you need to control carry distance, trajectory and spin simultaneously. 

Feet: Use a narrow, flared and open stance. Flaring the front foot encourages turn, which is an essential ingredient for the shot. The open alignment complements every other element of the finesse wedge setup, keeping the motion connected and consistent. 

Weight: Favor the lead foot with about 60 percent of your weight. This position encourages a descending blow and promotes consistent contact. Avoid any pressure shift during the swing. Lead-side bias should be maintained throughout. 

Club: Select the highest-lofted wedge in your bag for max height and stopping power. At address, the shaft points toward the lead hip. Varying club selection allows you to adjust launch angle and total distance with the same motion.

Face: Maintain and open face throughout. The most common error is rotating the forearms through impact to square the face, but this de-lofts the club and produces a low, running shot. Keep the face pointing up. 

Motion: The backswing is controlled and compact. The downswing is driven by the body rather than the hands. Swing the club along the feet line — left of the target — while keeping the face open. 

Finish: Finish tall with your weight forward. The hands should not rise above waist height. Let the body control the finish, not the momentum of the arms.

Part 3: Driver

Driver basics

The driver demands a fundamentally different setup than any other club in the bag. The address position must be adjusted to promote a shallower, ascending angle of attack. If you want maximum distance, you have to launch the ball in the air rather than driving it into the ground.

1. Grip: Establish the grip before setting the rest of the stance. After you’ve grasped the club, place the clubhead behind the ball with the feet close together.

2. Stance: Take your first step out with the trail leg. This will position the ball forward in the stance, aligning with the lead armpit. The lead hip should sit slightly higher than the trail hip at address, tilting your spine angle slightly away from the target. This facilitates a proper pivot on the backswing and an upward strike on the ball. The arm structure is equally important for hitting solid drives. At address, the lead arm should be long and extended, while the trail arm remains soft with the elbow pointing toward the trail hip.

3. Swing: As the lead arm swings across the chest during the backswing, allow the trail arm to fold naturally, getting the hands properly positioned underneath the club. The shoulders turn fully, while the lower body remains stable and loaded. This creates the leverage needed to generate power on the downswing.

4. Release: As the clubhead approaches impact, the wrists and hands should rapidly unhinge. This powerful, uninhibited release of the club through impact transfers that stored energy out toward the clubhead, culminating with maximum speed at impact.

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The post Keep your club on plane and hit better irons with this simple trick appeared first on Golf.

The post Keep your club on plane and hit better irons with this simple trick appeared first on Golf.

All great golf swings share at least one trait: They stay as close as possible to being on plane. For many weekend warriors, that’s a challenge — but this simple drill can help.

All you need is a club, a ball and two tees. Set up normally, then place one tee in the ground about a foot behind the ball. Next, stick the other tee into the butt end of your grip so it’s jutting out a couple inches.

As you start your backswing, stop when your lead arm is parallel to the ground. (Instructors call this position P3.) The tee in the grip should point directly at the tee in the ground. If the butt of the grip points outside the tee (far side), then you’ll know the club is too shallow. If it points inside the tee (near side), it’s too steep.

Train yourself to point the butt of the grip to that target spot behind the ball every time you reach P3. When it does, you’ll know you’re on plane and in perfect position to put a solid strike on the ball.

Dr. Alison Curdt is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher and is the director of instruction at Wood Ranch Golf Club in Simi Valley, Calif

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The post Why London deserves consideration as the world’s greatest golf city appeared first on Golf.

The post Why London deserves consideration as the world’s greatest golf city appeared first on Golf.

Scotland and Ireland own the conversation, and for good reason. St. Andrews, Muirfield, Royal County Down, Royal Portrush and Ballybunion are as good as advertised — possibly better. The difficulty is that everyone knows it. Tee times open 18 months in advance, and the most coveted are gone within hours. A trip that once felt like a rite of passage now requires the planning of a military operation.

The answer is hiding in plain sight. England. Crazy? Stay with me.

London may be the greatest golf city in the world. Melbourne is in the conversation, but no other city comes close. Within 45 minutes of Heathrow are four courses on GOLF’s World Top 100 list, and unlike New York, Chicago or San Fran, where golf of this caliber sits behind private gates, every one is open to the visiting golfer.

Travel

6 best golf resorts in Scotland, England and Wales | GOLF Top 100 Resorts

By: GOLF Editors

On the outskirts of the capital, the Surrey Sandbelt takes five days to play. Settle in and the courses — Sunningdale Old and New, St. George’s Hill, Swinley Forest — are 30 minutes apart. The least celebrated of those is ranked No. 57 on our World list. Walton Heath (Old) sits within an hour, and its sibling New Course rewards those who squeeze it into their itinerary. Six world-class rounds, well within reach of the airport. For the golfer with time to spare, the three W’s —Worplesdon, Woking and West Hill — are must-plays too.

For those traveling as a couple, Central London has it all. The hotels are among the finest anywhere. The restaurant scene has long since earned its place among the world’s best. Globally renowned art galleries, shopping, theater and live sports abound. A non-golfing partner will not be kept wanting while you play England’s best.

Two hours from London, the Southeast coast will reset your preconceptions about English golf. Royal St. George’s, Royal Cinque Ports and Prince’s sit side by side on linksland that belongs in the same conversation as any in the British Isles. Add Rye and, for many, the Southeast becomes the whole reason for the trip.

The South may have the glamour, but it doesn’t have all the golf. Four hours north of London, Royal Liverpool, Royal Lytham and Royal Birkdale need no introduction. Hillside, Wallasey and Formby complete a stretch that would be celebrated the world over were it located almost anywhere else.

The tee sheets are open, the courses are in magnificent shape and the golfer who makes the trip to England leaves asking the same question: What took me so long?

Book your 2027 (and beyond) dream trip with 8AM Golf by contacting discovery@8amtravel.com.

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