How to Build a Yardage Book

A yardage book is a hole-by-hole record of the distances and features that decide a shot: how far it is to reach or carry a bunker, how far it is to the front, center and back of each green, and where a miss costs least. Its job is to move decisions out of the round and into the preparation, so that on the course you read a number and choose a club.

Five lines a hole is enough to start. The rest of this page covers what those lines are, how to measure them, one hole written up as an example and a blank nine-hole sheet to print. Read the rules section before you decide what goes in the book and how big it is. If you are deciding whether a young player needs one yet, start with our junior yardage book guide.

No Rule says a written yardage book is always allowed. Three things decide whether a player may use one during a round: the Rules of Golf themselves, their limits on putting-green information, and any local rule the event has adopted. The practical step is the same every time: read the event’s notice to players or local rules sheet before the first round.

This summary follows The R&A’s publication of the Rules of Golf, effective January 2023, as it stood on October 11, 2026.

The default. Rule 4.3 covers how a player uses equipment during a round. In its own words, it “only concerns how equipment is used. It does not limit the equipment that a player may have with them during a round.” Among the things it allows are “using information that was gathered before the round” and getting distance or direction from a device. It does not allow measuring elevation changes, or using a device to get a recommended line of play or club. So under the default Rules a player may use a book of yardages, carries and notes gathered before the round.

Putting-green information has limits. Clarification 4.3a/1 limits the green maps and green notes a player may use to read the line of a putt:

The R&A and USGA’s guidance on that clarification says the limits apply only to reading the line for a stroke from the putting green. A player may still use a larger book for other reasons, “such as determining how far and where to hit an approach shot into a green”. A hand-drawn green does not have to meet the scale limit, but the paper it is on must meet the size limit.

An event can change the default. The Committee, which the Rules define as the person or group in charge of the competition or the course, can adopt a local rule. The Rules of Golf publish model local rules for it to use, and three of them bear on a yardage book:

The Rules describe G-11 as “intended only for the highest levels of competitive golf”. That is a statement of its purpose, not a promise about any one event, so check each time. The guidance on G-11 and the guidance on G-12 give the detail, and the USGA publishes the same text of G-11 on its own page.

What to check before each event. On the notice to players or local rules sheet, look for:

• the words “distance-measuring devices”, “green-reading materials” or “yardage book”;
• a Model Local Rule number: G-5, G-11 or G-12;
• whether caddies are allowed, because that decides who may write notes about a green;
• when players may be on the course before the event. Under Model Local Rule I-1 a Committee can allow, limit or prohibit practice on the competition course before or between rounds.

If the sheet does not answer the question, ask the Committee before the round. Rule 4.3 says a player who is uncertain whether they may use a piece of equipment in a particular way “should ask the Committee for a ruling”.

One dated example of how a sheet reads: the AJGA’s Conditions of Competition and Local Rules for AJGA Championships, revised January 31, 2025 and read on October 11, 2026, lists its local rules and gives the Model Local Rule number for each one that follows a model. G-5, G-11 and G-12 were not on that list, and the page sends players to each event’s Notice to Players for additional local rules. That is one organization’s page on one date. Other tours, high school associations and clubs write their own.

The penalty. A first breach of Rule 4.3 is the general penalty, which the Definitions give as loss of hole in match play or two penalty strokes in stroke play. A second breach is disqualification, and the Rule says that applies only when there has been an intervening event after the first. Model Local Rules G-11 and G-12 carry the same two steps.

Record what changes a decision and leave the rest out. For each hole:

• The hole. Number, par and the yardage from the tees you will play.
• The tee shot. A target line, the distance to reach any trouble and the distance to carry it, and the club that follows from those two numbers.
• The approach. The distances to the front, center and back of the green, measured from one spot you will be able to find again, such as a marker in the fairway.
• The miss. The side where a miss leaves a simple next shot, and the side to stay away from.
• One note. The reminder you would give yourself on that tee.

Start with the front, center and back distances. The front and back numbers also give you the depth of the green, and with the day’s hole location the front number becomes the distance for the shot. Slopes and breaks on the putting surface are a separate matter with their own limits, covered under green notes.

Build the book on a round where the score does not matter, so there is time to stop, look and measure. First check that you may be on the course at all. In stroke play the default is that a player must not practice on the course before a round on the day of the competition, and a Committee can adopt a local rule that allows, limits or prohibits practice on the competition course before or between rounds. Look in the event’s information for whether a practice round is offered and when. If none is, ask the Committee whether players may walk or play the course beforehand.

Work from the tee forward. Stand on the tee and choose the target line, measure to the trouble on that line, then go to the place your tee shot usually finishes and measure the green from a fixed spot nearby. Walk to each likely miss and look at the shot it would leave. Pair the book with a course-management plan and the thinking is done before the first tee. It is the scouting part of tournament prep.

There are four ways to get a number. Use two and compare them:

• A laser rangefinder gives the distance to something you can see and aim at: the lip of a bunker, a tree on the corner, the flagstick.
• A GPS watch or app gives distances to the points its course map holds. Check that it shows the front, center and back of the green for the course you are playing.
• The course’s own markers. If the course has yardage plates or numbered sprinkler heads, ask the golf shop which point on the green they measure to, then check one against your own number.
• Pacing. Count your steps over a distance you have already measured, so you know the length of your own pace, then pace the green from front to back.

What you measure with while building the book and what you may use during the round are separate questions. During a round, Rule 4.3 allows distance from a device unless the event has adopted the local rule against it. It does not allow a measurement of elevation.

This hole is invented, and so is the player. The distances are there to show how the lines work together, not to describe a real course. In a practice round the player wrote this for hole 7:

How the player uses those lines during the round:

1. On the tee. This player carries a driver about 200 yards. The bunker runs from 190 to 212, so a drive on the right-hand line finishes in it. The book already says left half, so there is nothing to decide on the tee.
2. In the fairway. The ball is 8 yards behind the sprinkler head, so every number grows by 8: front 146, center 158, back 170. The green is 24 yards deep, the back number minus the front.
3. Finding the hole. The event has given players a hole location sheet, and it shows the hole 6 yards on from the front edge. The shot is 146 plus 6: 152 yards. Check whether a sheet counts in yards or paces before adding.
4. Choosing the club. The note says land it short of the flag and the book says long is the side to avoid. The player takes the club that carries a little under 152, not the one that carries past it.

Nothing in those lines is a read for a putt, which is why the example needs no green map. Whether the player may open the book during the round still depends on the event’s local rules.

The sheet below sets the example’s four lines out as four columns, with room for nine holes. To print it, use your browser’s Print command on this page. In a current browser only the sheet prints, so two copies cover 18 holes. If the print dialog offers to save as a PDF, that gives you a copy to keep. An older browser may print the whole article instead: choose the page that holds the sheet.

Under Trouble, write the distance to reach it and the distance to carry it. Under From, write the spot you measured the green from. The layout is our own and deliberately plain: four columns a hole and no course map.

We do not describe this sheet, or any book, as approved for competition. It is a planning sheet. Whether a player may look at it during a round depends on the Rules above and on the event’s local rules, and where Model Local Rule G-11 is in effect only the Committee’s approved book may be used. Try the finished book at an event from the junior event profiles, and correct it after the round.

The template has no green map and no line for slopes or breaks. That is deliberate. Notes about a putting green are the one part of a yardage book the Rules of Golf limit by default, and a full sheet of printer paper is larger than the size limit. The R&A and USGA’s own guidance uses an 8½ by 11 inch sheet as its example of an oversize page.

If the event allows green notes, the limits point to a simple method:

• Keep anything about a green in a pocket book or on a card no larger than 4¼ by 7 inches.
• Have the player write or draw it by hand, or the player’s caddie. Copying someone else’s notes out by hand is allowed. Using a photocopy of them to read a putt is not.
• A hand-drawn green does not have to be to scale. A printed or computer-drawn map does: 3/8 inch to 5 yards or smaller.
• Write only what you would use standing on the green: which way it tilts overall, where a tier is, and the side a putt must not finish on.

Where Model Local Rule G-11 is in effect, only the Committee’s approved book may be used, and where G-12 is in effect no notes may be used to read a putt at all. If the event gives players a hole location sheet, mark the hole against your front, center and back numbers as in the worked example. For the reading itself, see the green-reading work in the training resource.

On the course the book should shorten a decision: read the number, allow for the wind and the lie, choose the club, commit. If you are studying a page while standing over the ball, there is too much on it. Cut it back to the lines you used.

Update it as you learn. Rule 4.3 lists recording playing information during a round, such as club distances, for use after the round among the things a player may do. When a bunker turns out to be closer than your number, or a club goes further than you wrote, note it and correct the book that evening. A book for a course you play often gets more accurate every time.

You can make a book by hand, write on a printed base, or buy one for the course. Each comes with a rules question:

• Homemade. It costs nothing and you learn the course by building it. Yardages and notes about the hole can go on any size of paper. Notes about a green go on paper within the size limit, in the player’s or caddie’s own hand.
• Bought or printed, with green maps. Ask the seller for the scale of the green images and the size of the book. The R&A and USGA’s guidance encourages publishers to print both on the cover or in the legend. Its example states the scale as 3/8 inch to 5 yards or less and the book’s size as 6 by 4 inches.
• The event’s own book. Where Model Local Rule G-11 is in effect, the book the Committee approved is the only one a player may use during the round.

Whichever you choose, keep it small enough for a back pocket and carry a pencil. It belongs with the rest of your tournament prep.