Care of the Courses

Always ensure you have a supply of sand with you – all buggies have bottles of sand and there are additional bags of sand available at various points throughout the Old Course.

Please fill in any divots you make, particularly when using an iron for the tee shot.

Please repair all fairway divots, an even more important task, as a player’s ball can otherwise end up coming to rest in an old divot, making for a difficult shot. Please use the sand filler provided and tamp down the divot after filling.

When driving a buggy, please respect all signs directing buggy traffic to ensure the course is not damaged by the weight of the buggy or its turning wheels. Buggies are not permitted on or around greens or the approaches to the greens.

In damp ground conditions, please follow instructions from the caddy masters and marshals to keep to cart paths only or observe a 90º rule.

Please enter bunkers from the closest side that can be easily walked along. Once the ball is out of the bunker, please rake footprints and ball marks with back-and-forth motions, leaving a smooth surface layer of sand.

Please leave rakes in the bunker after use.

Please repair your pitch mark and at least one other when entering the green. To fix a mark, you should always use a pitch mark repair tool and push the soil towards the centre of the mark from all four sides. Once repaired the surface should be tamped down with a putter.

Balls should be retrieved from the hole by hand. Please do not retrieve balls by using a putter head or by pulling the flag stick up sharply.