Etiquette for Fixing the Ball Mark in Golf

Series Summary

Though Musselburgh, Scotland is home to The Old Links, oldest golf course in the world, golf is rumored to have begun in the Netherlands in 1297. After seven hundred years it still follows the same basic premise: hit a ball into a hole using a stick and the person who hits it the least to get it into that hole wins. Today a golfer may have any number of sticks, called clubs, made up of wood, graphite, or titanium. Each club has a specific use depending on the type, whether it is the driver for the opening long ball hit, the wedge for shots out of the sand trap, the putter for the last, relatively short shot into the hole located on the green, or a variety of irons for anything in between.

Golf is a game of finesse more than brute force, consequently not only is technique keenly important but also a fine set of rules of etiquette has been established that anyone from John Q. Public to Greg Norman and Tiger Woods are wise to adhere to.

In this free video Jason Wyatt, head golf professional of Sunningdale Golf Club, demonstrates basic golf essentials such as: fixing the ball mark, raking a sand trap, where to stand on the green, fixing a divet, warming up, stretching, warming up on the putting green for a put, gauging distance and direction for a put, some practical drills to improve technique, reading the green, choosing the proper putter, chipping, foot alignment, and foot positioning.

Video Transcript

" Hi! I am Jason Wyatt, head golf professional at Sunnydale Golf & Country Club and on behalf of Expert Village.com, I am here today to show you how to properly fix a ball mark. A lot of people, when they hit their iron shots on to the green make a mark, which a lot of people do not realize. If these marks are not properly fixed, it causes a little blemishes in the green, which causes for poor putting surfaces. So what we are going to do is I am going to imitate a ball mark here by throwing a golf ball down onto the green. Tough to see here, but this is the ball mark in here and we made a little depression. What we want to do is we want to take our different repair tool. If you do not have one, come and see your golf pro, he will give you one because this is what you need to do. You are going to stick it in by the ball mark and you are going to push it into the center. What this does, it raises the grass in the ball mark. Once we have raised the grass, step up, we are gently to going it down to the tap it down either with your foot or a putter and now we have got a smooth putting surface for the next person to putt on. What we see though on a lot of golf courses is improperly fixed ball marks. An example would be this one right here. All you can see is a bunch of dirt and there is still a dimple there or a depression. What happens there is the person has gone in, put their ball mark or their divot repair tool in and pushed down on it which has caused the dirt to pop up instead of the grass to fold in. Once we step on this, it still leaves dirt, which now takes almost 27 days to repair itself. So please make sure when you are on your putting green fix your ball marks properly to allow the next person to putt behind you, a peer putting surface."