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Golf Monthly
Golf Monthly
Sport
Fergus Bisset

I Marked My Ball Using The Toe Of My Putter And Then Cleaned It. Is That Allowed?

Player marking golf ball using toe of putter.

The first thing to consider with this question – Is your ball on the green? If your ball is off the green and there are no preferred lies in place then you cannot lift and clean your ball without penalty.

If your ball was sitting on the fringe, no matter whether you marked it with the toe of your putter, a ball marker, a tee or similar, if you lifted it to clean it, you would have broken Rule 9.4b and would incur a one stroke penalty.

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