All it took was this email to send me down a YouTube rabbit hole. “I was watching a pro on YouTube saying if you want extra distance on your drive, add Vaseline to the club head. She didn’t know if it was against the rules or not.”
Well, I was like Alice falling headfirst. And what surprised me even more was… it apparently works.
I would have thought the ball would cling to the driver face, or it would veer off in all directions as the petroleum jelly wedged itself to the ball on impact.
Instead? Apparently, it transforms a weak driver like me into a titan – more ball speed, more distance, and straighter shots to boot. Logan Deyong in this YouTube short showed he gained 30 extra yards.
Let’s all lather up then!
But wait. Hold your proverbial horses. If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. So what do the Rules say?
Petroleum jelly golf driver rules: Is this allowed?
In fairness to our YouTubers, there is no hoodwinking going on. It is great content to see how drastically distance can change. But – as many of them point out – this is very, very illegal.
You can’t deliberately change the playing characteristics of a club during a round. Rule 4.1a (3) says you must not make a stroke with a club where you “have deliberately changed that club’s playing characteristics during the round”.
Usually, this comes up if you’re adjusting the loft or lie to a driver or fairway wood mid-round. But the rule also applies if you apply “any substance to the clubhead (other than in cleaning it) to affect how it performs in making a stroke”.
Smearing a load of jelly onto the face to make the ball go farther? It’s as textbook a breach as you can get. Guilty, m’lud.
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You’ll be a in a very sticky situation if you get caught. The penalty for hitting just one shot with an altered club is disqualification.
Ah, but what if I do it before the round? Nice try. But 4.1a (1) says you must use a club that conforms to the requirements in the Equipment Rules. This doesn’t. Hit it and you’ll be DQd.
There is a really cool paragraph for referees in the Equipment Rules, which sums all this up better than my waffling.
“The most important question to ask when ruling on a club which has had something temporarily applied to the face by a player is ‘why has it been put there?’
“If a material or substance has been applied to the face in order to protect it or clean it, then it would probably be permitted provided all other Rules are satisfied.
“However, if the purpose of the application is to influence the movement of the ball or assist the player in making a stroke, it would be prohibited.”
So petroleum jelly might work. But only if you want a quick exit from a competition.
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 make of this petroleum jelly golf driver rule? 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.
