The unwritten rules, written down.
Golf's etiquette looks like snobbery from the outside. Most of it isn't. It's a set of protocols for four people swinging metal sticks near each other, on grass that costs a fortune to maintain, while other groups wait behind them.
Learn these and you are a welcome guest at any course in the world, regardless of how you play.
Be quiet. Be still. Be quick. Be safe. Fix what you break.
Silence while anyone is swinging. Ready when it's your turn. Never hit toward a person. Repair your divots, your ball marks, and the bunker.
Your pace is judged against the group in front of you, not the one behind.
The two-minute version
If you read nothing else on this page:
Be quiet. Be still. Be quick. Be safe. Fix what you break.
Be quiet: silence while anyone is swinging.
Be still: no movement in their peripheral vision.
Be quick: ready when it's your turn, keep up with the group ahead.
Be safe: never hit toward anyone, ever.
Fix what you break: divots, ball marks, bunkers.
That's it. A beginner who does those five things is a great playing partner. Everything below is just detail.
The big one: pace of play
Golfers care about this more than they care about anything else, and beginners consistently underestimate it. Nobody is annoyed that you're bad. They're annoyed that they're standing still.
Your position on the course is defined by the group in FRONT of you, not the group behind. If there's an open hole ahead of you, you're slow, even if nobody's complained. If you're right behind the group ahead, you're fine, even if the group behind is impatient.
How to be fast without rushing
- Think while others hit. Get your yardage, pick your club, plan your shot while it's not your turn. When it becomes your turn you should have exactly one thing left to do: swing.
- Ready golf. In a casual round, if you're ready and the away player isn't, hit. Strict honors order is for tournaments.
- One practice swing. One. Two if you must. Three is rude.
- Take multiple clubs when you walk to your ball. Guessing wrong and walking back to the cart is a minute you don't have.
- Park toward the next tee. Not on the side you came from.
- Score at the next tee box. Never on the green you just finished.
- Three minutes to find a ball. Then drop one and go.
- Hit a provisional if there's any chance your ball is gone.
- Pick up. Double par and you're done. Write the number, move on.
Letting a group play through
If you're holding people up and there's open space ahead of you, the correct move is to let them play through. It feels awkward. Do it anyway. Here's how:
- Wave them up from the tee box or the fairway. A clear arm wave, unmistakable.
- Stand well off to the side. Way off. Out of any conceivable ball flight.
- Let them hit and walk past.
- Resume once they're clear.
Costs you five minutes. Buys you a stress-free rest of the round with nobody breathing down your neck. Everyone involved will think better of you for it.
Order of play
| Where | Who goes first | Called |
|---|---|---|
| First tee | Random. Flip a tee, or just decide. | n/a |
| Every tee after | Lowest score on the previous hole goes first. Then second lowest, and so on. | The honor |
| Everywhere else | Farthest from the hole goes first. Always. | You're away |
| On the green | Still farthest first. Yes, even for a 2-foot tap-in vs. a 40-footer. | Away |
| Casual rounds | Whoever's ready, if it saves time and it's safe. | Ready golf |
"Away" is the word you'll hear. If someone says "you're away," it means you're farthest from the hole and it's your turn. Now you know.
Silence and stillness
The most visible etiquette rule, and the one non-golfers find strangest. It's real, it's taken seriously, and it costs you nothing.
- Total silence. Mid-sentence? Stop mid-sentence.
- Stand still. Movement in peripheral vision is as bad as noise.
- Stand behind them and off to the side, never in their eyeline.
- Phone silent. In your pocket.
- Wait for the club to finish before you move or talk.
- Watch where their ball goes. They may not see it, and you're their spotter.
- Talk, whisper, or cough during a swing.
- Rattle clubs in the bag.
- Stand directly behind the ball on their target line.
- Stand directly in front of them.
- Give unsolicited swing advice. Ever. Unless asked.
- Comment on a bad shot. Not even sympathetically.
You will get advice from your playing partners. Some of it will be good, some contradictory, most of it unrequested. Take it graciously and don't act on any of it mid-round. You cannot rebuild a swing between holes.
And don't give it. Even when you learn something. Especially then. "Hey, do you want a tip?" is the only acceptable form, and the answer is often no.
The correct response to a bad shot
Someone chunks one 20 yards. What do you say?
- Nothing. Nothing is correct. Silence and then move on.
- Or, at most, a neutral "you're fine" or "you'll find it."
- Never: "oof." "You got under that one." "Tough break." "Keep your head down." All of these are worse than silence.
And the correct response to a good shot is enthusiastic and immediate. "Great ball!" "That's perfect." Golfers live on this. Be generous with it.
Safety
Not etiquette exactly. A golf ball leaves the club at over 100 mph and will put someone in a hospital.
- Never hit when anyone is ahead of you. Not "probably out of range." Not "I never hit it that far." Wait.
- Never stand ahead of someone who's hitting. Ever. Even off to the side. Balls go sideways.
- Yell "FORE!" immediately and loudly if your ball is heading toward any person. Do not hesitate, do not be embarrassed. That word is the entire warning system of golf.
- If you hear "FORE!", do not look up to find the ball. Turn away, crouch, and cover your head with your arms. Looking up is how people get hit in the face.
- Stand well clear when someone's swinging. A shanked ball goes dead sideways at speed.
- Watch for the group ahead on blind shots. If you can't see the landing area, wait until you can.
- Lightning: the horn means stop. Get inside immediately. Golf courses are open fields and you're carrying metal poles. This has killed people.
Fix what you break
A golf course is an enormous, expensive, fragile garden. Three things to repair, and doing them marks you instantly as someone who belongs.
🌿 Divots
The chunk of turf your iron rips out. Either replace it, meaning pick it up, put it back, step on it, or fill the hole with the sand and seed mix on the cart if there is some. Which one depends on the course. Watch what your group does.
⛳ Ball marks
The dent your ball makes landing on the green. Fix every one. Push the divot tool in at the edges and work the turf toward the center. Do not pry upward, that tears the roots. Then tap it flat with your putter.
🏖 Bunkers
Rake it. Always. Enter from the low side near your ball, and rake your footprints and your blast mark on the way out. Leave the rake where the course wants it. Watch what others do.
The old custom: fix your own ball mark, then fix one more that somebody else left. Takes ten seconds. If everyone did it the greens would be perfect. Do it and you'll be the person who does it.
On the green specifically
- Never walk on someone's line, meaning the path from their ball to the hole. Step around it. Footprints affect a putt.
- Don't drag your feet on the green. Pick your feet up.
- Mark your ball with a coin if it's near anyone's line. Put the coin behind the ball, then lift.
- Don't stand behind someone while they putt, either directly behind or directly beyond the hole. Both are distracting.
- Tend or pull the flag if someone asks. Take it out and lay it gently off the green, don't drop it.
- Don't lean on your putter on the green. It leaves a dent.
- Get off the green fast once everyone's holed out.
The social stuff
- Gimme / conceded putt: in a casual round, if your ball is within a foot or two, someone may say "that's good," meaning pick it up and count it as made. Never give yourself one. Wait to be offered. Offering them generously is a nice thing to be known for.
- "Mulligan": a do-over, usually only on the first tee, and only if the group offers. Don't take one unprompted, and don't take five.
- Playing with strangers: if you're a single or a twosome, the course may pair you up. Introduce yourself on the first tee, shake hands, be friendly. It's usually delightful. Mention you're new, people are almost always kind about it.
- The beverage cart comes around every few holes. Cash tips are appreciated and remembered. Plenty of people don't drink at all and nobody notices, so get a Gatorade and move on. Worth knowing: cart plus alcohol is a genuinely bad combination, and four hours in the sun makes two beers feel like four.
- Tipping: bag drop attendant, $2–$5. Beverage cart, a dollar or two a drink. Caddie (if you ever have one), 50% or more of the fee. Nobody tips the pro shop.
- Phones: silent. GPS and scoring apps are completely normal. Taking a call on the tee box is not.
- Music: increasingly common at municipal courses, still frowned on at nicer ones. If your group has a speaker, keep it low and turn it off near other groups. Read the room.
- Shake hands on 18. Universal. Do it, say thanks, mean it.
Tell your group you're new. Right at the start. "Hey, fair warning, I've golfed like twice."
It resets everyone's expectations, gives you room to be bad, and almost universally triggers the helpful, generous version of a golfer instead of the impatient one. Golfers love introducing people to golf. Let them.
Golfing with your boss
A huge share of the people reading this site are here because of a work outing, not a hobby. The social stakes are completely different from a round with friends, so here's the specific version.
The round is the meeting.
That's why you're there. Five hours of low-stakes time with people you'd otherwise get twenty minutes with. Business talk is normal and expected, but let them open it. Your job is to be good company, not to pitch on the second tee.
- Just play your game. Don't deliberately play badly to let the boss win. It's transparent, it's more insulting than beating them, and you're not good enough to control your score anyway. If you happen to out-play them, that's fine. Be gracious and don't narrate it.
- Pace matters MORE here, not less. Nobody will remember your score. Everyone remembers the group that fell two holes behind and made the whole outing run late.
- Suggest a scramble if anyone asks what to play. It hides your weaknesses, keeps everyone moving, and makes the round social instead of an examination. If it's a company outing, it's probably a scramble already, and that's exactly why.
- "I'm new, thanks for the patience" on the first tee resolves about 90% of the awkwardness before it starts. Say it once, then stop apologizing for the rest of the day. Repeated apologizing is more tiring for everyone than a bad shot.
- Drinking: match the group, and it's completely fine not to. Nobody tracks it. "I'm good with water" ends the conversation. Being the visibly drunk one at a work outing is a much larger risk than being the bad golfer.
- Your phone is gone for five hours. Set that expectation with your team before you go, because you will not be able to check it and answering emails on the cart reads badly.
- You'll get paired with someone senior at some point. Usually a cart pairing. Ask them about themselves. Golf carts are the easiest place on earth to have a conversation, which is the entire reason this ritual exists.
Be the person who was easy to play with. Ready when it's your turn, complimented other people's shots, didn't complain, didn't hold anyone up, laughed at their own bad ones. That's what gets remembered and that's entirely within your control. Your score isn't.
Things nobody tells you
- Don't tee off until the group ahead is out of range. Not "probably" out of range. Actually out.
- The flag color often tells you pin position: red is front of green, white is middle, blue is back. Not universal, but common.
- Don't take the pin out until you're ready to putt. Under current rules you can leave it in and putt against it, which is fine and faster.
- Don't hit into a group ahead "by accident" twice. Once is an accident. Twice is a statement, and they'll take it as one.
- Nobody counts your strokes but you. Golf runs on the honor system, which is the whole personality of the sport. Count them all, including whiffs.
- A whiff counts. Sorry.
- Don't ask what someone shot unless they bring it up. Some rounds are painful.
- Do compliment good shots. Immediately and loudly. This is the social currency of golf.
- If you hit someone's ball by mistake, it's technically a penalty. In a casual round: apologize, put it back, laugh. Mark your ball with a Sharpie and it never happens.
- The 19th hole is real. The drink after the round is, for a lot of golfers, the actual point of the whole thing. Ordering a Coke works exactly as well.