Original 13 Golf Rules

4.

You are not to remove Stones, Bones or any Break Club, for the sake of playing your Ball, Except upon the fair Green within a Club's length of your Ball.

5.

If your Ball comes among water, or any watery filth, you are at liberty to take out your Ball & bringing it behind the hazard and Teeing it, you may play it with any Club and allow your Adversary a Stroke for so getting out your Ball.

6.

If your Balls be found any where touching one another, You are to lift the first Ball, till you play the last.

7.

At Holing, you are to play your Ball honestly for the Hole, and not to play upon your Adversary’s Ball, not lying in your way to.

8.

If you should lose your Ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the Spot, where you struck last, & drop another Ball, And allow your adversary a Stroke for the misfortune.

9.

No man at Holing his Ball, is to be allowed, to mark his way to the Hole with his Club, or anything else.

10.

If a Ball be stopp’d by any Person, Horse, Dog or anything else, The Ball so stop’d must be play’d where it lies.

11.

If you draw your Club in Order to Strike, & proceed so far in the Stroke as to be bringing down your Club; If then, your Club shall break, in any way, it is to be Accounted a Stroke.g

12.

He whose Ball lies farthest from the Hole is obliged to play first.

13.

Neither Trench, Ditch or Dyke, made for the preservation of the Links, nor the Scholar's Holes, or the Soldier's Lines, Shall be accounted a Hazard; But the Ball is to be taken out and play’d with any Iron Club.