Is this a fine if you provide bad information about your stroke?

Golf rules are tricky! Thankfully, we have masters. Our Rules guys know this book from beginning to end. Is there any problem? He has all the answers.

In a four-ball game, a member of another team will put up and ask what everyone is doing. My partner misunderstood, leading to another team concluding that putting was OK and picking up the ball. This is an honest mistake and is corrected almost immediately, but it is too late. Prompts controversy and unfair cheating allegations. Regardless, are the players in the game obliged to answer questions like “What is everyone lying?” What if the answer is wrong accidentally? – Scottsdale, Arizona.

The rules about match matches are intended to reflect the fact that an opponent’s matches affect the player’s strategy, so players have the right to know their position in the hole.

If the player asks the opponent what they put, the opponent must answer before the player’s next stroke. If they make a mistake and give the wrong number, they must be corrected before the player’s next stroke or “takes a similar action”; here, which includes picking up an unmarked ball.

According to Rule 3.2d(1), the fine is a loophole for an opponent who has not corrected this wrong in time, and if such violation hurts the opponent’s game, it may result in the entire side losing holes in the four-ball. Therefore, as teachers like to tell students, think carefully before answering.

For more matching instructions from Masters, please continue reading…

Four-goal game. Our opponents arrived at the tee ahead of us and were hit. They accidentally hit forward from the next box, they pointed it out appropriately. I replayed it from the correct t-shirt and typed 5. Our opponent said I scored 7 points because he hit the wrong t-shirt. Is that right? – Dennis Derby, via email

Your opponent has no obligation to tell you that you are going to play from the wrong t-shirt while sportsmanship. Maybe they didn’t realize it until too late…or didn’t realize it.

Nevertheless, they confuse the rules related to the gameplay (Rule 6.1b(1) with the stroke game, Rule 6.1b(2). In this case, in the game, the opponent can choose whether to cancel your stroke and ask you to play from the right t-shirt; if they don’t cancel, you just kick out the loophole, i.e., the wrong t-shirt is fined. In a stroke game, you do get a two-stroke fine and need to correct your mistakes.