Rules of Golf

Key Themes from the Rules of Golf Survey

The R&A

07 Apr 26

6 mins

During the month of September 2025, The R&A invited golfers and club administrators to take part in Rules of Golf related surveys to better understand how the Rules of Golf are used in practice and which Rules golfers encounter the most when on the course. The overall response to the survey was very positive, with over 20,000 responses received to the Golfer Survey and just under 900 responses to the Club Survey. Thank you to those who participated in the survey. The feedback is very useful. Here are a few highlights from the survey: The Most Frequently Used Rules According to the survey responses, the four most prevalent rules that came into play for golfers in their previous five competitive rounds were those detailed below. Given the number of times these rules come up, we would strongly recommend all golfers learn the basics of these rules, so we’ve included a short video on each topic to help.

1. Ball Searches and playing a provisional ball

On average players searched for a ball for more than one minute in 72% of the competitive rounds they played while a provisional ball was played in 59% of rounds on average. It was clear from the survey that not everyone starts a clock when searching for a ball, so make sure you remember to do this the next time you are searching.

Playing a Provisional Ball

2. Taking Free Relief

Players took free relief from an abnormal course condition in 66% of competitive rounds on average, with the types of condition that relief was required from being almost an equal split between immovable obstructions (such as cart paths), temporary water and areas of ground under repair.

Relief from Abnormal Course Condition in General Area

3. Taking Relief from a Penalty Area

Players took penalty relief from a penalty area in 59% of rounds on average. This is not a surprise given that the administrators who responded to the Club Survey reported that penalty areas come into play on 8.5 holes of an 18-hole course on average.

Penalty Area Relief

Flagstick Habits

The survey results also gave us a good overview of golfers’ flagstick habits. Overall, around three in ten golfers always putt with the flagstick in the hole, and three in ten golfers almost always putt with the flagstick removed from the hole. The remainder of golfers were fairly evenly split on how close to the hole they typically remove the flagstick, between the given options of 20 feet, ten feet and five feet. This is a great example of how golfers now make use of the flexibility that the Rules of Golf give players when it comes to putting with the flagstick in or out of the hole. It was also interesting to see that there are some strong regional variations in how people utilise this Rule with over eight in ten golfers in Japan reporting that they always putt with the flagstick in the hole compared to an overall average of three out of ten golfers always putting with the flagstick in the hole.

Club Survey Shorts

While paper scorecards are still accepted at the majority of the responding clubs, 55% of the responding clubs also accept electronic scorecards.
The most frequently occurring features on golf courses are as follows:
Penalty areas – on 8.5 holes on average (across an 18-hole course)
Cart paths – on 7.4 holes on average
Out of bounds (including internal out of bounds) – on 7.8 holes on average
The most frequently used Model Local Rules (MLRs) across the responding clubs are:

Click on the links above to find out more information on these Model Local Rules, and look out for future features on frequently used local rules. It is also recommended to download the Rules of Golf app to help answer any questions on the Rules of Golf.