Winter Rules

With winter upon us, I thought I would be interesting to talk a little bit about what most golfers like to call "winter rules". As most of us know, the terms winter rules refers to being allowed to improve your lie in less than optimum conditions, mostly brought on by winter weather. Barren areas of the fairway are what we mostly see, and it's reasonable to assume that one might be able to improve his lie if he ends up in one of these areas.

Personally, I don't like to play by winter rules, but if I'm in a group that is recognizing winter rules, I am perfectly willing to take every advantage I am allowed. I like to go by the concept of "fair for one, fair for all", meaning basically that anyone can have bad luck, anyone can have good luck, no matter what the season. I don't get any breaks for landing in a divot in the summer, so why should I get one for landing in a bare spot in the winter? I do make an exception to this line of thinking, however, in that if a person or his equipment might be injured or damaged because of a certain shot (tree root, rock, etc.), I am perfectly willing to let them improve their lie. I don't follow this rule just because of the season. I will do this any time of year.

Here's a great article explaining what a lot of us probably don't know about winter rules.