I believe you should follow the rules. But I also think you should be able to hit the ball and move on. Really high handicappers should give themselves a preferred lie every time and move the ball down the course and enjoy hitting a good shot. It's no fun to be behind a couple of duffers who move the ball 40 yards with each shot, and they aren't enjoying the game much either. When you learn to hit the ball through the air, then start attempting the more difficult shots.

Some courses with slender maintenance budgets play "Winter Rules" (not always in winter), which means that if you find a bare spot or some other crappy lie in the fairway, you can lift/clean/replace.

My local 9-hole course doesn't even have a sprinkler system (!), so there are huge stretches of basically bare earth in the middle of some fairways. I found the owner once and asked him if he recommended Winter Rules, and he looked at me defiantly and said, "There are almost no spots on the course that have no grass at all." I suppose that was literally true, in the sense that almost every place would have at least a few pathetic trampled blades of brown that died months ago, but even so, I thought the claim was ridiculous.

But the conclusion is, I continue to play the ball as it lies, and I figure it's just one of the difficulties built into this particular course, even though it increases the frustration level quite a bit.

If there is a bet involved, play by the rules, period. If "winter rules" are in effect, you can improve your lie on the fairway only.

activesense wrote:

On the general topic of following the rules (including ball rolling/improving lie), the rule book produced by the USGA is comprehensive and tries to cover every eventuality, and as such makes heavy reading. In such case the casual golfer cannot be expected to know every single rule and the penalty attached.

I recommend reading the decisions book. Each chapter has the rule in the first few pages and the rest of it is the answers to real questions about how to apply the rules.

The nice thing with this format is you see the rule you just read repeated a number of times under different circumstances. It helps with the remembering of them.

I also find the decisions book isn't a hard read.

I agree with bortass, spend some time reading the rules and remembering as much as you can. The full rules are available on the USGA website.

Then go out and spend $10 on the 'Golf Rules Quick Reference' book. It covers pretty much every eventuality regarding hazards and penalty strokes on the course, and in simple english. It is fully illustrated with do and don't pictures and is laid out in a logical order, starting at the tee box and ending at the green, while stopping at fairways, bunkers and water hazards on the way (kind of like an average hole for me).
Spiral bound, with plastic coated pages make it convenient to use on the course in all weather. Here is the link to Amazon for the book, but it is available at most golf retailers.
http://www.amazon.com/Golf-Rules-Quick-Reference-Yves/dp/3909596169/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253835305&sr=8-3