By the book

Kathyrn Belanger's interest in golf rules started early and runs deep. John Mummert, USGA

On Kathryn Belanger’s high school golf team, the only way to get your hand on a golf club at Friday practice was to pass a 10-question Rules of Golf quiz. Failure to get the requisite number of questions right meant players had to stick around instead of getting to practice.

The exercise helped plant a rules seed in Belanger’s brain. Did she like those Friday afternoons? Belanger affirms.

“I didn’t like not knowing the answers,” she said. “So when I wouldn’t know something, I remember getting nervous about it, not that it really mattered in the grand picture.

“But I definitely always enjoyed the rules.”

Belanger, 31, is now the USGA’s Director, Rules of Golf Championships. She has been with the governing body since 2014, when she arrived as a rules associate whose primary job was to answer questions about the rules that the USGA received by...