Rules Guy: Can you use a tee as a ball mark to help line up a putt?

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 know that you can use a golf tee as a ball marker. Are you also allowed to use it as an alignment aid for your putt — that is, align it with a line on the golf ball? Obviously, the tee gets removed prior to the putt. — Tony Nguyen, via email

The answer is yes … with a caveat.

You’re in the clear so long as the tee doesn’t also include features specifically designed to be used to align the golf ball since — depending on the dimensions — that could turn the tee into an alignment device, and using it to align the ball in that way would be a breach of Rule 4.3a.

A tee designed as a tee used in the manner you describe, however, does not breach any rules. You’re an innovator.

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’d wanted to use it, I needed to have put it in my pocket first to claim that it’s 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!”

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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