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Fergus Bisset recounts his experiences in successfully completing all three stages of R&A Rules training

- Words Fergus Bisset Photography The R&A, Getty Images

Standing beside a makeshift, waterless pond in a conference suite at the Fairmont Hotel outside St Andrews, I’ve seldom felt so out of my depth.

Which was surprising given the lack of water in that makeshift pond. It was the final afternoon of TARS – The R&A’s Tournament Administrators and Referees Seminar. I’d just been asked to give a ruling on a hypothetical situation constructed by the (extremely friendly) R&A referees running the three-day event and I was overcome with a panic that I hadn’t felt since I sat my driving test.

What to do? What to say? The referee playing the person asking for a ruling acted the part well, demanding an answer immediately as to whether she was entitled to a free drop despite having picked her ball up without marking it after finding her stance was impeded by a bridge across the pond.

I rushed it. I forgot to ask whether her ball had been in the penalty area and assumed it had... it hadn’t! So the ruling I then gave was totally wrong and the group of trainee referees looking on shook their heads sadly.

What I’ve learned from going through three stages of The R&A Rules seminars is that, no matter what level of Rules knowledge you think you have, there’s always more to learn. The scenarios that can occur on a golf course are so many and varied that you are bound to encounter circumstances where you must really take your time to consider how to proceed.

FINDING OUT HOW MUCH YOU REALLY KNOW

I've been writing on, and helping with, the Rules section at Golf Monthly for over 15 years. Longtime subscribers will have seen pictures of me falling into bunkers, missing the ball completely, snapping golf clubs around trees and much more within the pages of this publication.