Rules Review
Rules of Golf Review: My partner wants to concede a hole to our opponents, but I don't. What happens now?
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In terms of competitiveness, there can be a lot of variability from one golfer to the next. You probably know one or two folks who can't take the club back without first making some sort of wager. Then there are other golfers who don't even bother to write their score down. It's a fairly wide spectrum.
What happens when one end of that spectrum gets paired as partners with the other in a match? That's when things can get a little awkward.
The win-at-all-costs golfer, for instance, might pause before conceding one-foot putts while the casual "friendly match" player is more apt to give holes away like he or she is handing out cups of water at a half marathon. So what if there is a disagreement over whether to concede a hole to an opponent?
In short, if you're on the stingy side of concessions, you better find a way to keep your partner's mouth shut. Under Rule 3.2b, a concession is made when it's communicated clearly by anyone in a match. And it doesn't have to be verbal. If your partner gives the thumb's up sign to one of your opponents as a gesture of indicating her or she should pick the ball up because they've won the hole, then that act stands as a concession.
Even worse for the partner who didn't want to concede the hole is that concessions cannot be withdrawn. "It's good" means "it's good," even if the player conceding didn't realize that his or her side was still in the battle to win the hole or if a score was mixed up and the golfer just gave away a hole that his or her side was about to win. Agreeing to withdraw a concession actually is supposed to result in a DQ for both sides. You can't agree to ignore a rule (Rule 1.3b).
The takeaway here is to either choose your partners carefully or come up with some agreement on a process for making concessions, such as both you and your partner have to sign off on one before someone opens his or her mouth.
