Remember the backstopping in golf brawl that seemed to come up all the time on tour a few years back? Every time there was a ball on a green, and a player was chipping, it seemed there was an internet row.
I’ve got to tell you I was getting distinct déjà vu vibes when this email question dropped into my basket…
“Can I ask a playing partner to leave his ball on the green as I wish to chip my ball from off the green in stroke play?”
I do see this situation come up from time to time in the club arena and there are some complexities to it that can catch you out if you’re not careful.
So given I’ve not seen people getting cross about this on social media in the last few months, let’s have a run down on the rules when a ball on a putting green might be helping play.
Is this backstopping in golf?
I’m going to assume for the purposes of this article that the ball at rest on the putting green might help this player with their chip.
If that is reasonably believed to be the case, Rule 15.3a says a player can mark and lift their ball or require another player to do the same with theirs.
If it isn’t, crack on. It’s pretty relaxed in match play too, where a Clarification says players are allowed to leave a helping ball.
But in stroke play it’s different. Because if two or more players “agree to leave a ball in place to help any player, and that player then makes a stroke with the helping ball left in place, each player who made the agreement gets the general penalty”. That’s two penalty strokes.
You don’t even need to know it’s a breach of the rules to get hit with the sanction. A clarification to Rule 15.3a says it “does not depend on whether the players know that such an agreement is not allowed”.
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It can get worse. If both of you know this is against the rules and you do it anyway it’s disqualifications for everyone under Rule 1.3b (1) for deliberately ignoring a rule.
What if there isn’t an agreement? Well, there is no breach of the rules and that gives rise to the murky practices of backstopping in golf.
The rules take this seriously enough that there is an entire section in the Committee Procedures – in Section 5J – on best practices to prevent it.
The guidance reiterates that, without an agreement in place to help any player, there is no breach of the rules.
“However, The R&A and USGA take the view that ‘backstopping’ fails to take into account all of the other players in the competition and has the potential to give the player with the ‘backstop’ an advantage over those other players”.
Because of the need to protect the field, the guidance says if there is a “reasonable possibility” that a player’s ball close to the hole could help another player “who is about to play from off the green” then both should make sure that ball is marked and lifted before the other player plays.
Got a question for our expert?
Despite the changes to the Rules of Golf in 2019 and 2023, there are still some that leave us scratching our heads. I’ll try to help by featuring the best of your queries in this column.
What do you think about these rules on backstopping in golf? Let me you what you think, and send me your own rules questions, by emailing me at s.carroll@nationalclubgolfer.com or by leaving us a comment on X.
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