When the first known Rules of golf – the 13 Articles and Laws in Playing at Golf – were drawn up in Edinburgh in 1744, they were just 338 words long. Using a smallish font size, they fit on a single page.
Although many of the principles contained in those 13 articles remain, the Rules of Golf have evolved slightly over the last 280 years. The current 2023 Rules of Golf are considerably longer.
There are now 25 Rules with multiple subsections contained within each of them. The section of the Rule book that covers those 25 rules comprises 192 pages of A5. The full rule book, including contents, definitions and index is 256 pages.
There’s also an Official Guide To The Rules of Golf that is published by The R&A and USGA. It includes the Rules but also clarifications for each of the 25 Rules – examples of situations pertaining to each Rule to help give context. It also contains guidance for Committees on General Play, Competitions and Model Local Rules. This Guide to the Rules stretches to a whopping 525 pages in total.
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The reason for the length and complexity of golf’s Rules is the fact the game can be affected by a huge number of variables. A vast array of scenarios can occur during 18 holes of golf and the Rules must be able to deal with each of them, even if a situation occurs that has never been faced before –
“An alien spacecraft has landed on the line of your putt… What do you do?”
Well, thankfully, the Rules have you covered. It would very much depend on the size of the alien spacecraft. If it was a really wee one, it would be a movable obstruction (Rule 15) and you could simply shift it politely out of the way. If it was a biggie, it would be an immovable obstruction (Rule 16) and, because you’re on the putting surface and it’s in your line, you could place your ball to the side of the craft and putt past it.
The Rules of Golf are undoubtedly quite long, but how do they compare to other sports? Does golf stand alone in having a weighty tome of a rule book?
Cricket
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Non cricketers tend to find it quite difficult to understand the sport of cricket, and it pushes golf all the way in terms of complexity of rules. The laws of cricket have been looked after by the Marylebone Cricket Club since the club’s formation in 1787.
There are 42 laws in cricket, so that’s 17 more than golf. And each of those 42 has multiple subsections. The laws of cricket, including preamble, contents, appendices and index, cover 79 pages of A4 with the actual laws themselves covering 60 pages of A4, which would roughly be 120 pages of A5. Cricket’s rule book is long but not as long as golf’s.
Tennis
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Ostensibly, tennis would seem to be a far more straightforward sport than golf. But you might be surprised, no wait, you won’t be surprised actually – it is far more straightforward than golf and the length of the rules reflects that. The International Tennis Federation’s Rules of Tennis cover just 14 pages of A4. Come on tennis, you’re hardly even trying.
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The International Football Association Board are the official Guardians of the Laws of the Game. There most recent 2024/25 version of the laws of the game span an impressive 215 pages. But there’s quite a bit of filler in there and a lot of nice pictures.
Then, the official FA handbook is an absolute monster. It’s fully 744 pages long. That’s quite a bit longer than Crime and Punishment, which is a somewhat ironic analogy.
But to be fair, the FA handbook covers different stuff to the simple rules of the game – everything from anti-doping to equality policies. There’s a lot to know if you’re running a football club!
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In order to make a comparison, we’re looking at NFL here – The Official Playing Rules of the NFL can be downloaded from their website, and they cover 78 pages of A4. But, those 78 pages are absolutely packed with detail – The rules of the NFL are extremely complex and weighty. In fact, a strong rival for golf in terms of overall length.
Track and Field Athletics
Josh Kerr of the UK leads the way
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This is a serious contender for weightiest rule book in sport, but it’s a little bit of a cheat as there are so many events to cover in track and field athletics. But, even still, the technical rules from World Athletics are impressively long. There are 134 pages of text-packed A4 to chew through, a total of 55,700 words. I think we might have found a winner – track and field athletics has a longer rule book than golf.
Golf’s reputation for having an overly long and complicated rule book seems unfair. Most sports have intricate, detailed and lengthy rules to give guidance to officials when a challenging circumstance arises. Golf and other sports’ rules may be long, but without them, there’d be uncertainty and inconsistency from grass roots to the elite. For sports to be as good as they can be, there must be a level playing field and that’s what the rules should provide.