At Rochford Hundred Golf Club and probably many others around the country, on the first teeing ground it is commonplace for the person with the lowest handicap to take the honour. That is to say that players tee off in handicap order with the lowest going first and highest last. I have no idea how this tradition originated, but a quick check of The Rules of Golf and you will see that Rule 10-2a says:
“The competitor who has the honour at the first teeing ground is determined by the order of the draw. In the absence of a draw, the honour should be decided by lot.”
Therefore in order to be compliant with The Rules of Golf if there is no official draw list, at the first tee players should toss a coin, draw lots, or use some other method of chance to determine the order of their opening tee shots.
On this topic in his 1980 book “Golf Rules Explained” the much respected writer and golfing sage Peter Dobereiner said:
“A note of caution must be sounded at this point. That convention about the lower handicap man playing the first shot in friendly games is one of several customs which have grown up in golf but which are at variance with the rules. What difference does it make, you ask? None at all! It is only a harmless and generous gesture of respect towards the superior skill of the better players. If the law condemns it then the law is an ass! If we want to play it that way, who is to stop us? The answer is that no-one will stop you. The custodian of the laws of golf are not in the slightest degree interested in how golfers behave in their private games of purely social golf. But if you habitually give the low-handicap player the honour in private matches, it is quite possible that you will automatically follow the same practice in an official competition, such as a club medal tournament. Now the whole legal apparatus of golfing officialdom does become involved because the first rule of the tournament will be (or certainly should be), “The competition will be conducted under the Rules of Golf as approved by the Royal and Ancient Club of St. Andrews and the United States Golf Association.” Any query will be referred to one of those two bodies for arbitration. And they, you may be sure, will have no truck with any excuses such as, “But we always do it like that at our club.” The law says the honour shall be decided by lot and that’s that. It is no use pointing out that there is no penalty for playing out of turn in stroke play. That applies only in taking the honour by mistake. If you have tacitly conspired with your fellow competitor to ignore the rule and follow the usual convention, then you are automatically guilty of a breach of Rule 1-3, which forbids, under penalty of disqualification, any agreement to waive a rule. You could be ordered to give back a prize. The sensible thing surely, is to bury the convention about low-handicap men hitting off first and get into the habit of tossing a coin.”
So there we have it and I leave you to ponder whether, when you tee up for the next monthly medal, you play by The Rules of Golf or risk disqualification under rule 1-3.
The choice is your.
