by Max Doctoroff, PGA – NEPGA Director of Rules & Competition
Oftentimes with each new year, we receive some new alterations to the Rules of Golf in the form of USGA Clarifications. While this year’s update didn’t include any changes to the Rules themselves, the USGA has authorized a handful of new optional Local Rules for us to consider using in our competitions, or for daily play at our Clubs. Several of these new Local Rules have already been adopted by the PGA TOUR, which has received some coverage in the media recently. In my experience since the news broke, many members of the public have misunderstood what some of these Local Rules are intended to accomplish. As such, I hope the following explanations serve as both a clarifying resource about the changes, and an informative guide to how they could be useful at your Club.
Limited or Extended Relief for Embedded Ball (Model Local Rule F-2)
I wanted to start with this one, not because I think you should use it, but because I’ve found it to be very misunderstood by some amateur golfers I’ve spoken to. First of all, this Local Rule is only recommended (by the USGA) for events with live television coverage, so unless you have the Golf Channel showing up at your Member/Guest, it’s probably best to just leave this one for the PGA TOUR.
I recently presented at a Rules of Golf seminar at a Club in the area, and many people in the audience were under the impression that this Local Rule allowed free relief from divots in the fairway. The USGA still does NOT authorize a Local Rule giving free relief from divots, and while I have no personal insight into what they plan to do in the future, it’s my suspicion that they never will.
What this Local Rule does do, if in effect, is allow free relief for a ball that is in another player’s pitch mark in areas cut to fairway height or lower, provided that the pitch mark has not previously been repaired. This, of course, differs from Rule 16.3, which allows us relief only from our own pitch mark created as a result of our previous stroke.
In addition to the recommendation that it not be enacted unless there is live television coverage, the text of the Rule requires a referee’s determination that the ball is below the surface of the ground in a pitch mark that has not been repaired. These two caveats restrict the Local Rule’s usage to very specific levels of competition, where there are plentiful enough referees that a ruling can always be received quickly, and where television coverage could later be used to bring new facts to light about the origin of the pitch mark that the ball came to rest.
Long story short: it’s for the most elite levels of competition, not for us at the club level, and even if it were for us, it still wouldn’t give relief from divots. It’s just an expansion of the embedded ball Rule.
Immovable Obstructions Close to Putting Greens (Model Local Rule F-5)
Active NEPGA tournament players should already be familiar with this Local Rule, as it has been on our Hard Card for years. This is the Local Rule that protects a player’s choice to putt from the fringe, even if there’s a sprinkler head (or other immovable obstruction) on the player’s line of play. Under this Local Rule (as previously posted on the NEPGA Hard Card), a player can take free relief from an immovable obstruction on their line of play, provided that the immovable obstruction is within two club-lengths of the ball, and within two club-lengths of the green.
So what’s changed? Prior to this year, this Local Rule was only used to give free relief from immovable obstructions. Beginning in 2026, we now have the option to use this Local Rule to give relief from ground under repair on the line of play, under the same restrictions described above. I think this makes sense, as ground under repair could impact a player’s ability to effectively putt from the fringe just the same as an immovable obstruction could. If you have previously been using this Local Rule for immovable obstructions, I’d recommend that you expand it to include ground under repair. As with any ground under repair, it’s wise to use caution and seek a ruling before taking relief from anything that’s not already marked as GUR by the Committee.
It’s important to note that the NEPGA Hard Card currently only allows relief under this Local Rule if both the ball and the immovable obstruction are in an area cut to fairway height or lower.
Player Has Not Played From Wrong Place When Unaware Ball Might Have Moved (Model Local Rule E-14)
Normally, if you (as the player) accidentally cause your ball to move, you have to replace the ball on its original spot before playing it. If you fail to replace the ball, you’ll end up with the general penalty.
But remember Shane Lowry at last year’s British Open? During the second round, Lowry took a practice swing which caused his ball to move such a small distance that he didn’t even notice that it moved at all. He played that ball without replacing it, and after a video review revealed that the ball had moved, Shane had to add a two-stroke penalty to his score. This new Local Rule is intended to protect players who have accidentally moved their ball, but have no reason to know, or even suspect, that the ball moved. There are several other Rules of Golf that are designed to protect players from getting penalized simply for not being omniscient (i.e. the concept of reasonable judgement in Rule 1.3b(2)), and this new Local Rule is consistent with that larger idea.
If this Local Rule is in effect, the outcome for a situation like Lowry’s will change as follows: provided the player had absolutely no clue that the ball might have moved, they still get the one stroke penalty for moving the ball (if a penalty would apply to their situation otherwise), but they do not get the general penalty for playing from the wrong place. So it doesn’t necessarily eliminate the penalty, but it does reduce it.
While this Local Rule will likely only be needed in pretty rare circumstances, I’d recommend using it as I wouldn’t be too surprised to see this become a full-time Rule in the 2028 edition of the Rules of Golf.
Internal Out of Bounds (Model Local Rule A-4)
Internal out of bounds has previously been an option for golf course setup (for example, on a dog-leg hole, it may be used to prevent a player from cutting the dog-leg by playing a ball to the fairway of another hole). However up until this year, the internal boundary was in effect throughout the play of the entire hole – a second shot from the fairway, for example, would be out of bounds if it crossed the internal boundary line, even though the internal boundary was established to protect only against a player’s tee shot in the first place. The updated Local Rule on this topic will now allow the Committee to specify that the internal boundary is only in effect for any shot that must be played from the teeing area, and that the boundary is irrelevant for the playing of the rest of the hole.
Steve Rintoul of the PGA TOUR explained in an interview with GOLF.com the purpose of the change: “It actually handcuffed a player who was further down the hole, perhaps behind a tree. You know, he tried to drive it down the fairway, got it stuck behind a tree and now he couldn’t even chip out sideways because he had this internal out of bounds in his way. The internal out of bounds wasn’t really installed for that guy. It was installed for guys that are standing on the tee trying to bomb it down this other fairway. So the governing bodies had given us an option where this internal out of bounds can still be applied. But it would apply only to tee shots…”
This Local Rule may be worth considering at some of your courses, as you start preparing for the upcoming season (hole #10 at Fall River CC comes to mind, as well as many others in New England, I’m sure). If you do decide to use it, it’s always advisable to make internal out of bounds distinguishable from regular out of bounds. A good, inexpensive solution is to put a wrap of black electrical tape around the tops of the white stakes, to show that those stakes indicate something a little different from a typical white-staked boundary (and hopefully indicate to the players that it would be wise to take a look at their Local Rules sheet).
Broken or Significantly Damaged Club Replaced with Similar Club
Rule 4.1a(2) provides that if a player damages a club (except in cases of abuse) during a round, they are allowed to replace that club with any other conforming club for the remainder of the round. At the Club level, I wouldn’t recommend restricting your players any more than this, since the more requirements you add, the more likely your players are to make a mistake (and any further restrictions about replacing clubs likely wouldn’t give an average-skilled golfer very much of an advantage).
However, at the highest levels of golf, it might make sense to limit the replacement of clubs to a similar one to the one that was damaged (if you damage your 7 iron, the replacement club must “fill the gap” between your 6 and 8 irons, and cannot be a sand wedge, for example). This “fill the gap” requirement has been an authorized Local Rule for some time, but this winter there is an additional piece added to the Local Rule. The default Rules prohibit replacing a damaged club by building a club from parts carried by or for the player. The newest tweak to this Local Rule now does allow the player to build a replacement club from parts carried by or for them, but only if the “fill the gap” provision is also in place.
Again, this Local Rule is intended only for the most elite levels of play, so I don’t think it should be of too much concern at the local level, but hopefully this is instructive for understanding the Rules in general.