If any of you saw this story about the college golfer who shot 276 . . .

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/meredith-college-saving-golf-team-sarah-marshall-maycee-kay-aycock-shooting-434-combined

Short of it is. A D3 golf team is decimated by injury/attrition, and not competing in the minimum number of events puts their NCAA status in jeopardy. They email blast the school for volunteers and end up with these two girls who have never played a round of golf.

One of them shoots a staggering 276-199. The other 158-173. This caused a lot of group chat conversation among friends about just how impressed we should be with a 158.

My BIL has never played and over Christmas we're going to see what he can shoot, pretty much cold. Tournament rules, playing everything down. Probably from the ladies tees. For fun I think my brother is going to play left handed, I might try a one-club thing. And we'll try to get as much on camera as we can.

Rules . . .

We do want to be as true to tournament conditions as we can. My brother and I have played off and on since we were kids. So we're good on most of the basic rules like water and OB. What are the common rule infractions that knowledgeable amateurs would make in a tournament? Things like relief around cart paths come to mind. Places where rules are often misapplied or just plain wrong.

I think the rules around relief are misapplied or misused a lot even for experienced golfers.

I'd read up on taking lateral relief from penalty areas. A lot of people find the "nicest" point of relief versus the "nearest." Make sure to understand that there is no lateral relief from yellow hazards. I would also agree on designated drop zones if the course is under winter conditions or doesn't commonly mark them on yellow staked water hazards. Without drop zones, you could get into a situation where a player would be forced to carry water or a penalty area that they simply cant complete. I'd think any collegiate women's tournament would have designated drop areas.

If the course you play has a lot of tall, heavy rough or has a lot of trees in play, you'll also need to understand the proper rules for unplayable lies and how to take relief. An average collegiate golfer isn't going to hack two or three times at a ball in a native area, or try and hit a punch through a 2 foot gap between trees. This goes hand in hand with declaring provisional balls and how to play those.

I'd hold to a strict 3 minute search window too since you are already going to have trouble keeping up pace of play.

And if you want to be REALLY strict, remember you can't give each other advice on club selection or how to play a hole.

Lost golf ball is back to the tee by the rules. Be considerate though and just drop but it's 2 strokes not just one.

Water is the point the ball crossed - for lateral water that means NOT on the fairway perpendicular to where it landed (pet peeve I see a bunch).

I can assure we will hold up NO ONE and will let people through if there's even a HINT of it. Huge pet peeve of mine.

We have a D3 women's golf team at our club. I can tell you that except for one girl, none of the girls can break 100....

At my previous club, we had Virginia Tech and Radford U, D1. And most dudes here would have a hard time beating the girls.. me included. I did tie VT's #1 woman player with a 35 in front nine...once. But the back nine got ugly quickly.

Sounds a lot like my high school golf days.

I went to an HISD school that was inner city but not quite as inner city as you think. However, our district was very much an inner city district with only us and one other team fielding a real golf team.

The other schools would show up to the district tourney every year with a handful of basketball and football players with a bag full of garage sale clubs who had never so much as seen a golf club before just so they could miss a couple days of school and the coach could collect his coaching stipend check.

I'll never forget one year we tee off and one of these kids cold tops it 20 yards off the first tee and we all stop at his ball and he bends down and picks it up and puts it on a tee. the others in our group kindly tell him no you have to play it as it lies. He was shocked he had to hit if off the ground and couldn't put it back on the tee.

Needless to say we always won district and would advance to regionals where we'd get smacked by everyone there with their personal swing coaches going after college schollies.

Good times

This is actually a great idea for reality TV.

I'd watch about 20 minutes of it and lmao.

They did a worst golfers challenge at TPC Sawgrass back in the 80's or 90's. There was a guy from Tyler that competed in it. It's on Youtube I believe and absolutely hilarious.

RogerFurlong said:

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They did a worst golfers challenge at TPC Sawgrass back in the 80's or 90's. There was a guy from Tyler that competed in it. It's on Youtube I believe and absolutely hilarious.

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Is that when the guy had the 105 or whatever on 17? Put a bunch in the water and then used a putter and went around?

Yes! lol he said it was the most humiliating thing he's ever done. He even putted one off the cart path and into the water trying to do it.

RogerFurlong said:

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They did a worst golfers challenge at TPC Sawgrass back in the 80's or 90's. There was a guy from Tyler that competed in it. It's on Youtube I believe and absolutely hilarious.

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Watched this last night. Wow those guys were terrible. But there's guys at my local Muni that I see once or twice a week that aren't much better.

I watched an interview with the guy that "won" by shooting the highest score and he talked about how embarrassing it was. The commissioner was there and wanted them to show that you can play bad golf by the rules and still play in under 5 hours. They finished at almost 8. Apparently all the guys became life long friends. He ran out of balls and they had to go get range balls for him.

I don't suppose anyone wants to hooks us up with a set of lefty clubs? Striking out so far with all my friends

In DFW

CapCityAg89 said:

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Lost golf ball is back to the tee by the rules. Be considerate though and just drop but it's 2 strokes not just one.

Water is the point the ball crossed - for lateral water that means NOT on the fairway perpendicular to where it landed (pet peeve I see a bunch).

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Honestly this could probably save quite a few strokes for someone who had never played. In a tournament you gotta keep hitting until you put it in play.

bagger05 said:

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CapCityAg89 said:

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Lost golf ball is back to the tee by the rules. Be considerate though and just drop but it's 2 strokes not just one.

Water is the point the ball crossed - for lateral water that means NOT on the fairway perpendicular to where it landed (pet peeve I see a bunch).

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Honestly this could probably save quite a few strokes for someone who had never played. In a tournament you gotta keep hitting until you put it in play.

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Good point.