Teeing off on the wrong teeing area

Last month’s article was about the penalty for failing to hole out. This month’s topic is about what happens in Stroke Play if you start your hole by making a stroke from outside your teeing area (including if you are on the right tee but tee off in front of the tee markers).

First, a quick reminder of the definition of Teeing Area. The Teeing Area is the area where a player must play from starting the hole they are playing. The area is rectangle two club-lengths deep, measured from the forward most outside edge of the tee markers. This means that not all players will have the same size Teeing Area, as not all players have the same length of club used to measure club-lengths. The Rules define a Club-Length as the length of the longest club in the player’s bag during a round, other than their putter.

To play a ball from the Teeing area, the ball is considered to be in the Teeing Area when any part of the ball touches or is above any part of the Teeing Area. You do not need to stand in the Teeing Area to play your ball.

Consider this scenario: Barb, Jim, Mike, and Bob are playing stroke play at their favorite course. Barb is playing from the green tees, Jim and Mike are playing from the blue tees and Bob has decided to play from black tees. Everything is going great and they get to the 6th hole. Barb tees off from the green teeing area. Jim is telling a hilarious joke while he and Mike and Bob all walk up to the Blue Teeing area and tee off.  Whoops, Bob got distracted by Jim’s humor and has teed off from the wrong teeing area. If Bob catches the mistake now, he adds two penalty strokes and tees off again, not counting the original tee stroke. (He is hitting three from the Tee as his first Stroke). If he catches the mistake at any time during the play of the hole, the same is true, Bob disregards any strokes made, and goes back to the correct teeing area, adds the two penalty strokes and is hitting three from the tee. 

But what if he doesn’t catch the mistake and tees off on hole 7? If that happens, then Bob is disqualified. Sorry Bob. If the scenario is changed a little bit; Bob tees off in front of the tee markers on hole 18. In this case, Bob needs to correct his mistake before he turns in his score card.

Again, these scenarios are correct for Stroke Play. Match Play is different. As “good to know” information, in Match Play, if you play from the wrong teeing area, play on unless your opponent recalls your stroke. If your opponent cancels your stroke, they must do so before either player makes another stroke, and they cannot withdraw the cancellation. If your stroke is cancelled, you must play a ball from inside the teeing area, but there are no penalty strokes added to your score.