During a wet, wild round of golf played in the winter months, you smoke a drive center cut only to walk up to your dream shot to find the ball in a puddle of mud.

Your playing partner calmly proclaims: “Winter rules, take a drop.”

So you pick up the ball and drop it on a more firm patch of ground — no closer to the hole, of course.

The problem is that by acting on your friend’s advice, you might have just incurred a two-stroke penalty.

In a friendly game, that penalty might not matter.

But in a heated money game, there might be a problem.

Winter rules are often misperceived by golfers and rules officials alike.

“There are certainly some misconceptions,” confirms Craig Winter, manager of rules education for the Oregon Golf Association, who just happens to have a perfect last name for this topic.

Two basic rules from the handy United States Golf Association’s 2008 Rules of Golf guide golfers playing in poor conditions:

1) Lift, clean and place.

2) Preferred lies and winter rules. (These terms are interchangeable.)

Golfers who venture out to play in less-than-ideal weather — especially if they try to play those rounds competitively — should know the difference.

The biggest misconception is that golfers often confuse “winter rules” with “lift, clean, and place.”

But the two are very different sets of rules.

Any golfer who has played in the Willamette Valley during a rainy January day has probably encountered a sign announcing: “Winter rules in effect today.”

So golfers gladly clean the ball and give themselves a better lie after most shots.

But Winter says, and the USGA agrees, that under extremely wet conditions — such as those often found on the state’s rainy side — lift, clean and place should be the guiding rule.

Lift, clean and place gives the golfer the right to pick up the ball anywhere on the course except the putting surface, clean the mud off the ball and place the ball in the EXACT same place at which the ball came to rest.

It is a routine similar to what most golfers use on the putting green in any conditions.

“If you hit the ball in the rough and you are right next to a tree, you can lift your ball and clean it, and then you have to put it right back down next to the tree,” Winter says.

Failure to return the ball to the same place is subject to a two-stroke penalty or loss of a hole during match play.

Winter rules, or preferred lies, give golfers much more leniency on the drop (depending on the rule set by each individual golf course) as long as the ball is dropped no closer to the hole. But the rule is generally more limited on the golf course than lift, clean and place.

According to the USGA, winter rules can be instituted by the golf course in certain “closely mown” areas (generally fairways) on the course that a mower cannot, because of current conditions, mow.

“Typically, you would hit the ball in the fairway and you would have a great lie,” Winter says. “If you can’t give the player that great lie, in order to facilitate the proper playing of the game, you would institute winter rules, which would allow the player to lift the ball, clean it, and place it, say, 6 inches away, and then play. And that would give them the lie they should have been entitled to because they hit the fairway.”

But unlike lift, clean and place, winter rules can be instituted only on specified areas of the golf course — and that rarely includes the rough.

“For that rule to be in effect there needs to be a lot of direction to the player (from the golf course), and where they can do it,” Winter says. “Whether it is just in the 14th fairway, or whether it is all closely mown areas, or whether it is just in front of the 15th green.”

Both lift, clean, and place, and winter rules are considered local rules, which means it is up to each golf course to decide which one is in place. And in the case of winter rules, it is up to each course to determine WHERE those rules are in play.

It can be a bit confusing, so before your round ask at the pro shop for some guidance.

But one thing is certain, says Winter.

“The rules don’t allow you to make your own rules; you have to adhere to the rules of golf,” Winter says. “The only two options you have for play of this nature is lift, clean and place, or preferred lies and winter rules. And they are very, very different rules.”

The purpose of both rules, Winter says, is to make sure that in a competitive game, golfers are playing on a level field.

If your particular game is about as competitive as a Sunday walk in Drake Park, then I say feel free to make up your own winter rules.

For more information

For more inforation

USGA Rules of Golf: www.usga.org/playing/rules/pdf/2008ROG.pdf

USGA Rules of Golf: www.usga.org/playing/rules/pdf/2008ROG.pdf