This genius’ use of stroke and distance rules has been observed 2.4 million times

I will never forget the second time I played Pinehurst for the first time.

That was within the first month of my recruitment on Golf.com, and I was sent to the USGA annual conference of the Cradle of the United States. One of the allowances for this task: the famous second course.

I was using a rental club at the time, but I managed to make par on the opening hole with relatively easy ease. I thought, “This course is not difficult.” I was wrong again.

Despite developing a neat short game as a young age, I had no chance to object to Donald Ross’s demonic green complex. I didn’t keep detailed statistics that day, but if I’m sure it would have been the worst day of flatstick’s career. This is life at Pinehurst 2.

One of the (many) mistakes I made that day was a solid putter that crossed the pin and dropped the green from the green into the bunker. First it looks like a solid birding opportunity, but becomes an embarrassing battle just to save double.

But it turns out that after putting down the green, I went back to my bag to go to the sand wedge must Necessary. Actually, if I knew the rulebook, I could not only save my face, but also shaved some strokes.

The USGA video below explains how.

How to put the rules of stroke and distance at work

Not only is it embarrassing to push green into the bunker, it also makes a number on your score. If you are like me, then the ones that fall from the sand are, especially in Pinehurst – no guarantee.

Enter the rulebook, in which case you can give it an advantage.

According to Rule 18.1 of the Golf Rules, “At any time a player can reduce stroke and distance by adding a penalty and hitting a ball or hitting the original ball or another ball from a previous stroke.” The key phrase here is at any time – This includes when the ball is green on the ball.

In the case outlined above, this means that you can choose to choose a free throw of stroke and distance instead of hitting your next shot from the cover to make a penalty for one shot and play the next stroke from where you hit a badly fate putt.

This option will be very popular for most casual players. Rather than trying to fall off the cover – risking leaving the ball on the beach with a bad shot, they are able to take the free throw and hit the next shot from the putter surface.

Not only does it save you the embarrassment of walking back into the shopping cart to grab the sand wedge, it also saves some strokes.

Judging by the comments on the video, the comments written by this article have been viewed 2.4 million times, and I’m not the only one who doesn’t know about this kind of sly use of Rule 18.1.

One commenter replied: “This is not true.”

“So, is it basically 1 stroke Mulligan?!” wrote another one.

Singer and composer Javier Colon won his first season of “Voice” and it also became a big deal. “Wait…what!!!?” Cologne wrote. “So if I were to place it for the bird, it could go into the bunker, I could take it out and push the bogey from the same original location!?! Is this true!?”

True, Javier!

It’s there in the rulebook.

Want to be bound by the rules? Check out USGA’s free rules 101 courses.