The Dad Golf Handbook - The Official Rules of Recreational Golf, Finally Written Down

Golf's official rulebook runs to hundreds of pages and assumes you can find the fairway. This is the other rulebook, the one governing the game as it is actually played. Below is the Foreword, a linked index of the ten Rules, and the Definitions that make them enforceable.

Foreword - The Spirit of the Game

Golf has rules. Twenty-something of them, written by committees, for people who hit fairways. This handbook is for the rest of us - the recreational golfer, who plays a different sport that happens to use the same courses.

That sport has never had its rules written down. Until now.

The Dad Golf Handbook governs the game as it is actually played: breakfast balls, generous gimmes, creative lie improvement, and scorecards that are best described as historical fiction. Play well. Or don't. We wrote rules for that too.

The Grounds Crew

The Ten Rules

Each rule is published in full as its own post. New rules are added to the Handbook first, then serialized here.

The Rule	What it governs
↳ Rule 1 - The Player and the Round: Casual Golf Rules, Written Down	who you are out here, and what a round even is
↳ Rule 2 - The Breakfast Ball: The Mulligan Rules, Finally Written Down	the sacred second shot on the first tee
↳ Rule 3 - The Gimme: Gimme Putt Rules for Casual Golf	the concession of putts nobody wants to watch
↳ Rule 4 - Lost Balls and the Search: The Casual Lost Ball Rule	when a ball is officially lost, which is almost never
↳ Rule 5 - Improving Your Lie: The Foot Wedge, Made Official	the gap between where your ball is and where you deserve it
↳ Rule 6 - Scoring and the Maximum Number: The Quick 7 Rule	turning the events of a hole into a number
↳ Rule 7 - Equipment: The Fourteen Clubs You Carry and the Four You Use	the fourteen clubs you carry and the four you trust
↳ Rule 8 - Water and Other Personal Attacks: The Water Hazard, Explained	ponds, creeks, and everything the course aimed at you
↳ Rule 9 - Conduct, Commentary, and the Group Chat: Golf Etiquette, Roasted	what may be said, filmed, and posted
↳ Rule 10 - Handicaps and Other Fiction: Funny Golf Rules on Sandbagging	the number you claim versus the golfer you are

Definitions

Terms defined here carry these meanings throughout the Handbook.

Dad Golfer: any recreational golfer, regardless of age, gender, or number of children, including zero. You don't have to be a dad. You just have to golf like one - the extra practice swing, the gimme diplomacy, the drive that starts left and stays left. If you have ever celebrated a bogey, you qualify.
The Crew: your regular playing group. The Crew is judge, jury, and heckling gallery for all rulings.
Breakfast Ball: a second tee shot on the first hole, taken because the first one "didn't count." See Rule 2.
Gimme: a putt conceded before it can embarrass anyone. See Rule 3.
Roughly: the legal standard of certainty for ball location. See Rule 4.
The Foot Wedge: the fifteenth club. Illegal everywhere, used everywhere. See Rule 5.
A Quick 7: any score written down fast enough that it becomes a 6. See Rule 6.
Honors: the right to tee off first, and to be blamed first.
The Damage Report: the true and complete account of a round, which no scorecard in recorded history has ever contained.
Beer: the standard unit of penalty throughout this Handbook. Where a player does not drink, one (1) sincere apology to the group may be substituted. The group decides if it was sincere.