So, you’re wondering about ‘preferred lies’ in golf? Let me tell you, it’s not always as simple as what you read in a rule book, or what some folks think it means. It often ends up being more about what people want it to mean, if you get my drift.
Officially, yeah, it’s for when the course is a bit beat up, like in winter. They call it ‘winter rules’ a lot. You get to move your ball a tiny bit, maybe get it off a bare patch onto some grass. Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?
But I had this one experience, a round I played a while back, that really, uh, clarified things for me. I was out for what I thought was just a relaxed game. Got paired up with this fellow, let’s call him Gary. Seemed like a decent chap when we were teeing off.
Well, things started getting interesting pretty quick. On the very first fairway, his ball was sitting just fine. I mean, perfectly playable, nothing wrong with the lie at all. But Gary, he strolls up, picks his ball up, gives it a good wipe. Then he spends what felt like five minutes scouting around, looking for the absolute best patch of grass. He even sort of fluffed up the grass a bit with his shoe before placing his ball down just so. I remember thinking, “Huh, okay then,” but I didn’t say anything. It’s a casual round, right? No need to make a fuss.
But it didn’t stop there. Oh no. It became a pattern. His ball would be just a smidge into the first cut of rough, and he’d be like, “Ah, preferred lie, bit of an awkward spot here,” and nudge it out onto the fairway. One time, I swear, his ball was behind a leaf. A single, small leaf. He declared it an ‘impediment’ and carefully moved his ball. It was quite the performance.
His interpretation of ‘preferred lies’ seemed to cover a whole range of situations, most of which I’d never seen before:
- If the ball wasn’t sitting up perfectly, like on a tee, he’d improve it.
- Any patch of ground that wasn’t pristine fairway was fair game for a ‘preferred’ adjustment.
- He’d claim “casual water” if the grass was merely a bit damp.
- Honestly, if his ball wasn’t in the hole, he seemed to think he was entitled to make the lie better.
I was just playing my own game, trying to ignore it mostly. It was almost comical after a while. What could I say? “Hey Gary, that’s not really how it works?” It wasn’t a competition, so I just let him get on with his version of golf. It did make keeping any kind of meaningful score between us a bit pointless, though.
That day with Gary really stuck with me. It showed me that ‘preferred lies,’ for some people, isn’t about fairness or protecting the course. It’s about making the game as easy as possible for themselves, rules be damned. It kind of takes the challenge out of it, doesn’t it? The whole point is to play the course as you find it, deal with the bad breaks along with the good ones.
So, what is ‘preferred lies’ in golf? Well, after that round, I reckon it lies wherever the person playing decides they prefer it to be, especially if no one’s calling them on it. For me, I’d rather just take my chances with where the ball ends up. It feels more like real golf that way. Less fuss, and you actually feel like you’ve earned your good shots.
