Settle it on the course.

The Game, Player Conduct and the Rules

Golf is played over the course as you find it, with the ball as it lies. You are expected to play in the spirit of the game: act with integrity, show consideration for others and look after the course. Players apply the Rules to themselves, including calling their own penalties.

• Serious misconduct can lead to disqualification.
• A committee may set its own code of conduct with its own penalties.

The Course

The course is split into five defined areas: the general area, the teeing area of the hole you're playing, bunkers, penalty areas and the putting green of the hole you're playing. Which area your ball is in decides which Rules apply. Out of bounds is everything beyond the course boundary.

The Competition

Covers the two main forms of play — match play (hole by hole) and stroke play (total strokes) — and how handicaps are applied in each. In stroke play you must return a scorecard with correct hole scores, certified by you and your marker.

The Player's Equipment

Your clubs and balls must conform to the equipment rules, you may carry no more than 14 clubs, and there are limits on devices and aids you can use during a round, such as gadgets that measure slope or wind.

Playing the Round

When a round starts and finishes, starting on time, practising before and during a round, keeping a prompt pace, and when play stops and restarts — including stopping for lightning.

Playing a Hole

Start each hole from inside the teeing area, play the same ball until it's holed unless a Rule lets you change it, and play in the right order. Playing someone else's ball by mistake is a wrong ball.

Ball Search: Finding and Identifying Ball

You may search for your ball reasonably, including moving grass and bushes enough to find and identify it, and you may lift it to identify it after marking its spot. Accidentally moving it while searching is no penalty — put it back.

Course Played as It Is Found

You must not improve the conditions affecting your stroke — your lie, stance, swing area or line of play — by moving, bending or breaking things, pressing things down or removing them, outside what the Rules allow. Taking a fair stance and grounding the club lightly are fine.

Ball Played as It Lies; Ball at Rest Lifted or Moved

Play the ball where it lies. Who or what moved a ball at rest decides what happens next: you, your opponent, an outside influence, or natural forces like wind.

Preparing for and Making a Stroke; Advice and Help; Caddies

How a stroke must be made (no anchoring the club), who you can take advice from, and what your caddie may and may not do for you.

Ball in Motion Accidentally Hits Person, Animal or Object; Deliberate Actions to Affect Ball in Motion

If your moving ball accidentally hits a person, animal, equipment or anything else, there's usually no penalty and you play it as it lies. Deliberately stopping or deflecting a moving ball is not allowed.

Bunkers

You may remove loose impediments and movable obstructions in a bunker, but you must not touch the sand with your hand or club to test it, or touch it right in front of or behind the ball, in a practice swing or on your backswing.

• Breaching the sand restrictions is the general penalty (two strokes, or loss of hole in match play).

Putting Greens

On the green you can mark, lift and clean your ball, repair almost any damage (ball marks, shoe damage, old hole plugs), and remove sand and loose soil. You can putt with the flagstick in or out.

Procedures for Ball: Marking, Lifting and Cleaning; Replacing on Spot; Dropping in Relief Area; Playing from Wrong Place

The how-to Rule behind taking relief: marking a spot before lifting, cleaning the ball, replacing it on its spot, dropping correctly in a relief area, and what happens if you play from the wrong place.

Relief from Loose Impediments and Movable Obstructions (Including Ball or Ball-Marker Helping or Interfering with Play)

Natural loose things (leaves, stones, twigs) and movable artificial things (rakes, bottles, stakes that come out) can be moved without penalty. You can also ask for another ball or ball-marker to be lifted if it gets in your way.

Relief from Abnormal Course Conditions (Including Immovable Obstructions), Dangerous Animal Condition, Embedded Ball

Free relief from animal holes, ground under repair, immovable obstructions (cart paths, sprinkler heads) and temporary water, from dangerous animals like a wasps' nest, and for a ball embedded in its own pitch-mark in the general area.

Penalty Areas

Penalty areas (marked red or yellow) are usually water. You can play the ball as it lies there with no penalty, or take relief outside for one penalty stroke — with an extra lateral option when the area is red.

Stroke-and-Distance Relief, Ball Lost or Out of Bounds, Provisional Ball

If your ball is lost or out of bounds, you take stroke-and-distance: one penalty stroke and play again from where you last played. To save time, you can play a provisional ball before going forward to search.

Unplayable Ball

You can declare your ball unplayable anywhere except in a penalty area, and take relief for one penalty stroke using one of three options. In a bunker there's an extra option to drop outside it for two penalty strokes.

Resolving Rules Issues During Round; Rulings by Referee and Committee

What to do when you're unsure of the Rules mid-round. In match play you raise it with your opponent in time; in stroke play you can play a second ball and let the committee decide before you hand in your card.

Other Forms of Individual Stroke Play and Match Play

The variations most club and society golf is played in: Stableford, maximum score, par/bogey competitions, and three-ball match play.

Foursomes (Also Known as Alternate Shot)

Two partners play one ball, taking turns to play strokes and alternating who tees off on each hole. Penalty strokes don't change whose turn it is.

Four-Ball

Two partners each play their own ball, and the better score of the two counts as the side's score on each hole.

Team Competitions

How team events work, including when a team captain or coach may give advice to players, if the committee allows it.

Modifications for Players with Disabilities

Adjustments to the Rules for players who are blind, amputees, use mobility devices, or have an intellectual impairment — so they can play fairly alongside everyone else.

Definitions

The Rules lean on defined terms — like general area, loose impediment, relief area, club-length and outside influence. When a word in a Rule matters, its definition settles what it means.