Customer Reviews

Golf Rules Plain & Simple

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Mark Russell has taken something that not many golfers know anything about, the rules, and made them simple to understand. In the common situations Russell uses, he shows you exactly where you can find it in the rule book. After reading Golf Rules Plain and Simple, I consider myself more knowledgeable of the rules. This book is a must for your golf bag.

Though the rules of golf are not as difficult as they are often said to be, they can nevertheless be arcane at times, but this book does a good job demystifying them. Knowing the rules can save you strokes, as you can sometimes use them to your advantage. In a format small enough to fit in a golf bag but with print big enough to read easily, common situations are presented, then common mistakes in this situation are shown, followed by the correct way to play. To help even further, one or more pictures accompany each of the 37 situations. All this, along with a modest price, combine to make this an excellent purchase for the golfer without the patience to read the official rulebook.

Pretty well done. Golf Rules Plain & Simple is a book that I hope only gets better with future editions.

With that in mind, I offer some suggestions that the author or other readers may want to comment on.

Some suggestions:

While there is a footnote that gives the author's opinion as to the more important rules, he doesn't use them to order his book. Rule #1 (for example) is about seeking advice on golf club selection - and of his five key rule situations - the first one drags in at Rule Number 18. Also, it would seem to be much more helpful to put yellow and red staked hazards on adjoining pages for the reader to compare and contrast.

After stating each rule situation, the author gives the most common mistake made (first) before giving the correct procedure. This is not helpful and potentially confusing. When telling someone how to do something - do you want to start with the wrong way or right way? Nothing wrong with pointing out the common errors - just put it at the end.

Some more could have been expected as to the top issues. For example, how to come to agreement with others as to where the ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. Things to say to an opponent could make this a lot less trying in match play, for example.

To the author, page 67 talks about a provisional ball played for a ball that you think is lost in a water hazard. Agreed. But the more common argument is when it is unclear. Where is your explaination in the book that if you don't see it land (and stay) in a water hazard - the ball is assumed to be lost? Another point that your book appears deaf on - what happens (for example) if you are playing a match and hit a ball towards the woods bordering the fairway. You don't have any indication that it is a hazard (it looks like normal woods from the tee) - you announce your intention to hit a provisional ball as you may have a lost ball. You and your opponent both agree as to where the ball seemed to drop down. You find your ball but those nice woods actually turns out to be a red stake marked lateral hazard. You have a shot to the green (without penalty) that you would like to try. Your opponent says no. He says, "you can't use the provisional ball rule when a ball lands in a hazard. Lack of knowledge of the hazard's existance offers no help. You need to play your second ball (i.e. no longer provisional)as it is the live ball" (in other words, no five options for a lateral hazard). Is he correct?

Finally, while you give the five options for a lateral hazard correctly, a note that "playing it as it lies" also means no grounding of the club (while covered elsewhere) would be a helpful reminder here.

Hope these suggestions help.

If you golf, you must pick up this book! No question about it! This book will do for golfers what the 10 Commandments did for mankind!

The rules are clear and leave no room for argument. I am looking forward to my Saturday golf outing to dazzle my buddies with my newfound expertise of the rules of the game!

Like most golfers I think I know the rules, but I don't. Who has the time to read the very confusing USGA rules book?

Mark Russell simply and clearly explains the basic rules of golf. O.B., lateral hazzard, lost ball-these are the rules that 95% of golfers DO NOT understand.

Thanks Mark!

Alan

This is a great resource to have with you when you are on the course. I'm a novice and find learning the rules tough especially when I'm trying to deal with the actual physical techniques of golf. This book will help me out alot.

This book does not cover all of the rules of golf, just some of them. And it refers to some changes in the rules coming in 2002; in other words, it's really "some" of the rules of golf as they were ten years ago.

Well written, small enough to carry in pocket of golf bag for those situations where you're not sure what the rules actually are. I'm very happy with the book.

Sunny Delaney, please read this book. You see a little knowledge of the rules of golf is important in reviewing a book about the rules. Point: You would never penalize your "opponent" two strokes for asking for advise (the club you hit), because the penalty in match play (the only time you have an "opponent") is loss of hole - not two stokes. In stroke play the penalty is two stokes, but you do not play with or against "opponents", but instead "fellow competitors." Too picky? Not to a golfer, even a weekend golfer.