Are You Allowed To Practise Putting After Completing A Hole?
You’ve just missed a three-footer and want to see if you had the wrong line or simply mishit the putt, can you have another go?
![putting](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/8BELQzJfu57aSWuTEFEMVe-415-80.jpg)
There are few things in golf as frustrating as missing a putt you had been confident of making. You’ve seen the line, envisaged the roll, got your alignment spot on and stroked the putt well. Despite all that, the ball has grazed the edge of the cup and narrowly missed. You can’t believe it. After tapping in, you really want to have another go to see if you misjudged the line or whether you had simply been unlucky. The question is, in a counting round, are you allowed to do it? The simple answer is, yes.
In the Rules of Golf, rule 5.2 deals with practising on the course before or between rounds. If you are playing in a match play competition, you are allowed to practise on the course before or between rounds.
If you are playing a stroke play event, you are not allowed to practise on the course before a round, but Rule 5.2b allows you to have another go at a putt you have missed. It states that you can: “Practise on or near the putting green of the hole just completed, even if you will play that hole again on the same day.”
So, you can have another putt on the green of a hole you have just completed, even if it’s a 36-hole competition and you will be playing the course again later in the day.
Patrick Cantlay practising his putting
You could also practise your putting near the putting green of the hole you’ve just completed, and you could have a go on a practise green, if there was one nearby.
But you can’t spend 10 minutes practising… Rule 5.6a says that a player must not unreasonably delay play, either when playing a hole or between two holes. If you were to spend too long re-taking a putt you had just missed, trying again and again to hole it, you could fall foul of this rule. If you unreasonably delay play between two holes you receive a one stroke penalty on your next hole. If you do it again you receive a general penalty (two strokes) on the next hole. If you do it a third time, you will be disqualified.
The answer then to the question of whether you are allowed to practise putting after completing a hole is – Yes, but you mustn’t unreasonably delay play in doing so.
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Fergus is Golf Monthly's resident expert on the history of the game and has written extensively on that subject. He is a golf obsessive and 1-handicapper. Growing up in the North East of Scotland, golf runs through his veins and his passion for the sport was bolstered during his time at St Andrews university studying history. He went on to earn a post graduate diploma from the London School of Journalism. Fergus has worked for Golf Monthly since 2004 and has written two books on the game; "Great Golf Debates" together with Jezz Ellwood of Golf Monthly and the history section of "The Ultimate Golf Book" together with Neil Tappin , also of Golf Monthly.
Fergus once shanked a ball from just over Granny Clark's Wynd on the 18th of the Old Course that struck the St Andrews Golf Club and rebounded into the Valley of Sin, from where he saved par. Who says there's no golfing god?
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