How to Make a Yardage Book for Golf: A Junior Guide

A yardage book is a small notebook with a few lines for each hole: the distances and the plan a player wants in front of them before a shot. For a junior it does one job. It moves the thinking to the day before, so that on the course the player reads a number and picks a club.

This page answers the junior questions: when to start one, how much to put in it at each stage, who should write it and what the Rules of Golf allow. How to measure each number, a worked example and a blank sheet to print are in our complete yardage book guide.

The Rules of Golf set no age for a yardage book, and this page does not give one either. The test is whether a number changes the shot the player hits. A book starts to help when three things are true:

• The player knows how far each club carries. Without that, a yardage is only a number. A wedge distance chart is one place to begin.
• The player is playing competitive rounds, where the choice of club is a real decision and a wrong one costs a shot.
• The player can see the course beforehand, on a practice round or a walk, so the numbers are their own.

If those are not true yet, the book can wait. Our getting-started guide covers the first events. Once they are true, build the book up a line at a time:

The test for adding a line is whether the lines already there get used. If the player reads the front, center and back numbers before an approach without being asked, add the next line. If the book stays in the bag, take a line out.

A junior does not need green maps to begin with. Notes about a putting green are also the part of a book the Rules of Golf limit, as the next two sections explain.

The player. A junior who measured a number and wrote it down knows where it came from. A book a parent filled in is the parent’s plan.

There is also a rule behind it. Clarification 4.3a/1 of the Rules of Golf allows hand-drawn or written information about a putting green only if it is “written by the player and/or their caddie”, and only in a book or on paper no larger than 4¼ by 7 inches. The R&A and USGA’s guidance on that clarification adds that copying someone else’s notes out by hand is allowed, while using a photocopy of them to read a putt is not. So a parent can walk the course, measure and call out what they see. The junior does the writing.

That limit is about notes used to read a putt. It does not cover yardages off the tee or into the green. Having the player write the whole book keeps it simple.

Whether a parent may caddie is the event’s decision. One dated example: the AJGA’s Conditions of Competition and Local Rules for AJGA Championships, revised January 31, 2025 and read on October 11, 2026, say players must not have a caddie during the round unless AJGA headquarters permits one. At an event with that local rule, the player or their caddie means the player. Other tours set their own policy, so check each one. Our guides to caddying for your own junior golfer and parent rules at junior tournaments cover the parent’s side.

No Rule says a written yardage book is always allowed. The short version, from The R&A’s publication of the Rules of Golf as it stood on October 11, 2026:

• The default. Under Rule 4.3 a player may use information gathered before the round. A book of yardages and notes is that kind of information.
• Devices. A device may give distance or direction. It may not measure elevation changes or recommend a line or a club.
• Greens. Green maps and green notes used to read a putt are limited. A printed image of a green must be at a scale of 3/8 inch to 5 yards or smaller, the book or paper must be no larger than 4¼ by 7 inches, and handwritten notes must be the player’s or the caddie’s own.
• Local rules. An event can adopt one of the model local rules. G-5 prohibits electronic distance-measuring devices. G-11 allows only the yardage book the Committee has approved, so a homemade book may not be used during the round. G-12 prohibits using any written, printed or digital material to read a putt.

The Rules describe G-11 as “intended only for the highest levels of competitive golf”, wording the USGA repeats on its own G-11 page. Do not rely on that for a particular event. Before each one, read the notice to players or local rules sheet and look for the words “yardage book”, “green-reading materials” or “distance-measuring devices”, or the numbers G-5, G-11 and G-12. If it is not clear, ask the Committee before the round.

The limits in full, with the penalty for a breach, are in the rules section of the yardage book guide.

When the player is ready to start, go to the complete yardage book guide. It has one hole written up the way a player would use it, a blank nine-hole sheet to print and the ways to measure each number.

Print the sheet, take it on a practice round, and have the player fill in only the columns for their stage: Approach and Miss for a first book, Tee shot once those are being used.