Love them or loathe them, some of you are going to spend much of the next few months hitting shots off fairway mats.
They’re becoming ever more popular as golf clubs try to protect their turf during the winter weather – and many are enforcing that now through a Local Rule that requires their compulsory use in areas of the course cut to fairway height or less.
So it must be boom time for mat producers right now, and there are all kinds of different shapes and sizes on the market for the discerning golfer to choose from.
But are there any rules governing their use? What if the mats have lines running down the centre? Let’s take a look…
What do the Rules say about fairway mats?
There is not much in Model Local Rule E-12, which covers the compulsory use of mats, save for a sentence which says if a tee is used to secure the mat into the ground then the ball “must not be placed on the tee”.
So we’re then moving to the Rule on the use of equipment and, specifically, Rule 4.3a (6) which covers training aids.
You won’t find the word ‘mat’ in there, but it does say it’s forbidden to use any type of golf training or swing aid in any way that “creates a potential advantage by helping the player in preparing for or making a stroke”.
That includes swing plan, grip, ball position and, crucially in this case, alignment.
Some of you might be inclined to protest. Can a fairway mat really be classed as a training aid? At this point, we move to England Golf’s Adverse/Extreme Reference Guide to hammer the point home.
Confirming that scores for handicap can still be submitted when fairway mats are demanded, it notes that “the mats should be plain and may not have lines which help with alignment as they would then be considered a training aid”.
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Main image: An AI-generated picture of a fairway mat with an alignment line running down the centre | Source: ChatGPT
