Rules Guy: Is it legal to play a round using a rubber driving-range tee?

The Rules of Golf are tricky! Thankfully, we’ve got the guru. Our Rules Guy knows the book front to back. Got a question? He’s got all the answers.

I play year-round here in Colorado. Come winter, it can be hard, and sometimes impossible, to get a tee in the ground, so I use a rubber tee like the ones at driving ranges. Is this permissible — and, if so, is it permissible year-round? I like that the ball is always the same height at address, and my drives are more consistent as a result. — Dean Marraccini, Niwot, Colo.

Dean, it sounds like you want to know where the rubber meets the road, Rules-wise.

As long as your rubber tee doesn’t exceed four inches in height, it’s perfectly acceptable to use, regardless of the ground conditions. Keep burning rubber on those tee shots and you might just turn into a trendsetter.

For more tee-related guidance from our guru, read on …

The other day, I picked up a tee someone had left on the tee box and proceeded to use it. My friend told me this was a penalty, for using someone else’s equipment. He said that if I wanted to use it, I needed to put it in my pocket first to claim that it was mine. What’s the ruling? — Wade Lindren, via email

This sounds like a demented magician’s trick: “I put someone else’s tee in my pocket … say the magic words — ‘It’s mine!’ — take the tee out of my pocket … and — presto! It’s legal!”

Rules

Suffice to say, your friend is a severely misguided stickler. The only restriction on sharing equipment relates to clubs. There is absolutely no issue with using someone else’s tee, towel, rangefinder or ball.

(If the one-ball Local Rule, Model Local Rule G-4, is in effect, you can still borrow a ball, so long as it’s the same make and model as the one you were using.)

Accidentally using someone else’s clubs is a general penalty of two strokes in stroke play or, in match play, adjusting the match with a one-hole deduction, with a maximum of two such penalties in either instance. The club must immediately be declared out of play once the player becomes aware of his or her error — otherwise, he or she is disqualified upon again using the club.

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Got a question about the Rules? Ask the Rules Guy! Send your queries, confusions and comments to rulesguy@golf.com. We promise he won’t throw the book at you.