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I know we have all seen players who will either bend or outright break rules to gain a stroke here and there. What are some of the ones you have seen people do?

I have a friend that uses this 'trick' on the green. He will place his marker on the side of his ball between the ball and the cup, but when he replaces his ball he puts it between his marker and the cup. This only gains him about 2 widths of the ball, but he has done it for as long as I can remember.

Anyone seen any good 'creative' methods of reducing one's score?

Don't think thats a legal "trick" unless someone can prove me wrong. Thats just plain dumb if you ask me.

I generally see a lot of liberal uses of the 2 club lengths policy -- of course using your driver as your club length is a legal way to get a better lie.

firstly is a two stroke penalty on him or loss of hole depending on format of play

secondly, he really hasn't gained any advantage, unless it means he avoids a spike mark or similar by doing this.

Can't think of anything creative for reducing a score apart from my pet hate of when you award a gimmie putt the awarded player gets greedy & marks down or claims the score up to & before being awarded the putt.

Just think, if you say to someone 9 times during a round, "You can have that.", its 9 strokes off their score....

That's assuming that they miss 9 times...

I don't know any "tricks" other than an eraser...everything else is just cheating...

Gary Player purportedly used to address his ball in the rough with a fairway wood, press down the grass behind the ball and then switch clubs...

Ungentlemanly behavior, and not in the spirit of golf...and a good way to get hit with a sandwedge if you are gambling with a stranger...

No you've missed what I mean't

Ok, here goes, player takes 5 strokes to reach the green, he's 6 inches from the hole & you say... "You can have that"

It doesn't mean the 5 strokes he's taken to get to 6inches is what he should be putting down but 6 strokes, unfortunately some unscrupuless people will put down 5, instead of the 6 you gave them, for their gimmie putt.

THere again I've seen people miss an easy 6 inch or even 2 foot putt... Heck I've missed them myself. Missed a really easy one yesterday with an involintary pull.

But its interesting about the had they missed all nine putts, it would have been 18 shots worse on the card than the cheat they would have made on 9 holes.

I like the one where people have a really bad lie, "question" if it is their ball, pick it up, then give themselves a great lie hehe.

I've wondered about the ball marking on the greens. There is one player that always marks his ball on the side closer to the hole.

Of course, the easiest way is to say you got a score that was less than the actual score. Penalties? What penalties? I don't know how the ball changed brands in the middle of the hole.

That was actually the point of this thread. I know he is cheating and gaining virtually no advantage and yet he continues to do it. I was curious as to the other 'advantages' or other unscrupulous methods of shaving strokes during a round that people have seen used in their golfing experiences. The 'checking to make sure it is my ball in the rough' and then replacing it in a better lie is a great one. Any others you have seen?

Anyone ever heard this one. "I am not taking a penalty for a lost ball here. I hit it right into this open area, there is no way it should be lost and I shouldn't have to take a penalty." Or similarly, "That was an expensive ball I hit in the water. The cost of the ball is enough penalty for this hole." I have heard both of these before.

I am not looking for ways to improve my own score, just looking for amusing stories of what others have come across.

What about when someone is searching for their ball and they either find one in the woods and say "Oh, Pinnacle 4, yeah I think this is mine!", or lets say you find the ball and say "Umm what were you hitting?", "I dunno, what's that?" "it's a bright pink Volvik crystal." "Oh yeah, that was me!!"

No lost ball penalty for them...

kind of like what segio did during the open few years back?? lol

We had an old man that used an Acushnet Bullseye putter...always used one of plastic logo ball markers you can get free in most clubhouses. When no one was paying attention he'd lick the marker and stick it to the bottom of the putter and pretend to use the club as a cane and bend over to mark the ball...of course he'd always set the putter down two and a half feet closer to the hole and pretend to mark his ball. Didn't use it all the time and was very slick and quick about it like a sleight-of-hand magic trick. I never called him on it because I'd never play against him or any team of which he was a member...but I never hesitated to point out his trick to anyone that might lose money to him. Cheaters really only cheat themselves...like many sandbaggers I've known, they got away with it for a while but eventually their reputation preceded them and no one would play them. I don't think the integrity of the game took a devastating hit because of it...he doesn't even play any more, got too old and broke.

Shade

well ive heard of the "ball in the open no penalty" because at my home course (the one we play at for high school) you lose a ball so easy,,, sometimes they even do that in matches, the no ball no penalty. its crabgrass rough.

another one is that when you get down to put the ball back on the marker you reach a little and put it a little farther away from the marker.

ive seen people do that^^ and ive seen people mark their ball from the front and put it back from the back,, and what giving them a one ball length better??

: Re: the ball marking issue.

You know, I've been thinking about this, it all depends how close you mark your ball & how thick your ball marker is. Most people use a thin disk, small coin & such. Now a ball is a spherical object, so there is very little of it touching the ground, Heck, if you think about it, its actually two spherical objects touching, though thats by the by & pedantic.

An interesting experiment would be to use two of your usual markers & mark the ball as you would normally, but do it from both sides. I bet there is less than 5 millimetres difference.

The only advantage a real cheat would get from marking at the front, then being able to take the marker away from behind after the ball is taken away is the size of the disk. If you took out a 4" or 5" disk from your back pocket, then thats the absolute maximum you'd be able to advance the ball.

If you were marking with a tee peg, [i](a rather sloppy way of marking a ball in my opinion)[/], then an advantage of a balls width would be gained.

If this is the worst offence a cheater can come up with over ea round, then let them think they've got one up & then pull them up on it when you catch them improving their lie in the rough of using their bootwedge. Then at the end of the round when they think they've carded an 80, just let them know about the two shot penalty they had on every hole for bad marking of the ball, to be added to the aditional dropped shots for what you've caught them doing on the course. So thats at least 36 penalty shots added to their 80, with a total of 116 for their round at best. smwinkgr:

Played 41 yesterday at a course with all day golf. Played with a guy for 18 holes. He said was second time he played this year. He was hitting it pretty bad. Well he did many things to help his score ... improved his lie every shot (even rolled the ball on the green), took anything within a foot as a gimme, took any putt after a 3 ft or shorter putt as a gimme (even if what was left was longer than the initial putt). Never hit a provisional or took proper penalty when likely OB or lost. But what really cracked me up was on one hole is ball barely cleared a creek onto the elevated fairway and rolled in some very long grass. He was looking for it 50 yds up, found a ball and said 'I'll just hit this one' (after of course tossing it in the fairway). I said ... your ball was back here where the long grass starts. He came back to find his ball, quickly found it, and then picked it up and went back up to hit the other ball 50 yds further up the fairway! I wouldn't be surprised if his score card said he beat my by a stroke over the 18, but from my observation, I probably scored 30 strokes better (wasn't counting his, but he lost a lot of balls, maybe 15-20 over 18 holes).

15-20 balls?? Hope thye wern't expensive ones!!

Said they were found balls his friend gave him. He was always playing a different kind of ball. I lost two over the 18. I have nice balls, but only payed $1 each because of a very nice sale at rock bottom. I use the Bridgestone U-tri extra distance.