New here, eager to get some info about UK golf

[Merv_swerve]

Welcome Defj

this thread is the funniest thing I've read on the forum since I joined.
still laughing at Region posting a picture of an actual pitchfork. hahaha!

Defj, you are handling the humour and sarcasm expertly so far. I imagine your banter will be top drawer after another 6 months.

Happy golfing and keep up the good work to all on this thread!

 

[dejf]

Thanks Merv_swerve,

reading your post I think there is one more thing that may need to be explained - my nickname (it is Dejf, not Defj, no Footjoy here ...).
For Czech people, it is easy to understand, but for English speakers, it probably does not make any sense.
My name is David, and you could say "Dave". In Czech, "[dejf]" is simply "Dave" transcribed phonetically.
There are millions of Daves out there, but few Dejfs And you read it as Dave. That's it.

 

[dejf]

Yesterday, I went on Blue Mountains driving. It was my second time there and my previous training was on a normal mat.
This time I use a mat with this "Power tee" system. I have never seen this in CR. It automatically tees your ball, which is a nice feature, but nothing that much interesting to talk about.
What I found magical, however, was that it automatically recognizes when you make a shot. I have not figured out how this work. It seems that you can fool it with a practice shot. But how exactly does it work? And are these mats/systems common in UK?

 

[Region3]

Yesterday, I went on Blue Mountains driving. It was my second time there and my previous training was on a normal mat.
This time I use a mat with this "Power tee" system. I have never seen this in CR. It automatically tees your ball, which is a nice feature, but nothing that much interesting to talk about.
What I found magical, however, was that it automatically recognizes when you make a shot. I have not figured out how this work. It seems that you can fool it with a practice shot. But how exactly does it work? And are these mats/systems common in UK?

I think it works on sound, so a practice swing fools it if you hit the mat and make a noise.

 

[backwoodsman]

Yesterday, I went on Blue Mountains driving. It was my second time there and my previous training was on a normal mat.
This time I use a mat with this "Power tee" system. I have never seen this in CR. It automatically tees your ball, which is a nice feature, but nothing that much interesting to talk about.
What I found magical, however, was that it automatically recognizes when you make a shot. I have not figured out how this work. It seems that you can fool it with a practice shot. But how exactly does it work? And are these mats/systems common in UK?

Yes, they are pretty common in the UK - many a driving range will have them. I'm not sure how they work though. Pixies or something. Or may be a tremble sensor.

 

[dejf]

Tremble sensor, could be. Sound sensor, OK, but not the sound of the ball when you hit it.
I will probably stay with pixies


Alright, my next question is a very sensitive one. The rules.



#5 The Rules
In CR, if I exaggerate just a little bit, the vast majority of golfers knows the legend that there might be some secret book called the rules of golf. If it happened that someone found it in their bag and opened it, they definitely skipped the chapter called "Definitions". In other words, golfers in CR know only those rules that they were told on their very first initial lesson of golf and they get more knowledge about rules very slowly as play more and more golf and experience new situations. This way they learn more rules from their friends, and this commonly leads to various myths and misinterpretations. Although the number of rule-aware golfers increases with HCP getting lower, many golfers even on the best competitions are still quite ignorant of rules.

Just one example of that, a player I played with on such a competition once told me that he knows the rules because he has his referee license. Then he played this longer Par 3 over a water hazard and was dead short and his ball ended somewhere in the bush in that water hazard. It was possible, but unlikely, that the ball could be found and played, but it was like 150 meters from the tee. And so he decided to play a provisional ball in order to save some time if the ball was not found. I tried (and failed) to explain that this is not according to the rules, but "I have a referee license" is an argument you can not do much about. Fortunately (it was stroke play, you could not cross out a hole and go to the next tee), he did not find the first ball ...


Anyway, my primary question here is simple - how are normal golfers aware of rules in UK? It is being said in CR that UK golfers have a very high etiquette standards (another thing that is not very good in CR golf), but nothing is being said about other rules. I am not asking about corner cases that are hard to decide even if you are really into rules. And I am not asking if everyone here read the Decisions. I am more asking about the regular rules, very standard situations like rules about water hazards, out of bounds, provisional balls, basic definitions (e.g. "I proclaim my ball is lost ..."), advice, unplayable ball, ball lost. To be more concrete, I consider the Par 3 example in my previous paragraph as a basic knowledge of rules.

A subquestion to the rules topic: Is it usually allowed on UK competitions to use measurement devices? In CR, it is allowed in official competitions (i.e. those that are organized by the national association), so they are mostly allowed even on other competitions too, although a few clubs do not allow DMDs in their champion competitions.