Corporate Golf Services

Here are a few interesting situations involving Rule 26: Water Hazards.

(Before trying to answer these questions, be sure you know the difference between a direct and lateral water hazard and the options you have with each.)

Direct hazard -  yellow stakes

Lateral hazard – red stakes

(from Golf Digest - August 2010)

1. Your opponent hits a ball toward a water hazard, but neither of you knows if the ball went in or if it is lost outside the hazard. She then hits a provisional but later finds the first ball inside the margin of the hazard. Is  she required to abandon the original ball?

2. You hit your ball into a water hazard that is marked with yellow stakes (a direct hazard). You see a spot on the opposite side of the hazard that is equidistant to the hole from the point where your ball last crossed the hazard margin and went into the water. Can you take a penalty drop at that spot?

3. Your playing partner duffs a tee shot that rolls just inside the margin of a water hazard. To make things worse, she tries to play her second shot from there, and it flies out-of-bounds. Can she add a penalty stroke for hitting it out-of-bounds and another stroke for taking relief from the hazard and then hit from the tee again, now lying 4?

4. Your shot lands on the green, rolls past the pin and off the other side into a lateral water hazard. It’s easy to determine where the ball last crossed the margin, but it’s impossible to find a spot within two club-lengths to drop that’s no closer to the hole. Can you drop in that area anyway?

5. Taking a one-stroke penalty, you drop within two club-lengths of the point where your ball last crossed the margin of a lateral water hazard, no closer to the hole. Your ball hits a pebble and rolls outside the two club-length zone but is still no closer to the hole. Can you play it as it lies, or do  you have to re-drop?

Answers

1. No. She must play the original ball as it lies or drop and take a one-stroke penalty. (Rule 26-1) The rules don’t allow for a provisional if a shot is known for certain to have been hit into a water hazard. In this case the player thought her first ball could be lost outside the hazard, so it was okay to have hit the provisional.

2. No. This option is available only if it’s a lateral water hazard marked with red stakes or a red line. (Rule 26-1c)

3. Yes. Or she can play another shot from the hazard (lying 3) or drop a ball behind the hazard, keeping the point at which the first ball crossed the hazard margin between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind the hazard the ball is dropped – lying 4. (Decision 26-2/1)

4. No. You must proceed under one of the other options for a lateral water hazard. Most likely you’d replay the last shot. (Decision 16-1/18)

5. If the ball rolled more than two club-lengths from the spot where it hit the pebble, you must re-drop. Otherwise, play it as it lies. (Rule 20-2c(vi)).

It always pays to know the rules!

Cathy Schmidt, an LPGA teaching professional in Bradenton, Florida tells this story about a rules situation she encountered while playing in the 2012 LPGA Teaching & Club Professionals National Championship. See if you can figure out her score for the hole.

“Blame my poor shot on loss of concentration. Slow play due to tough course – Donald Ross’ French Lick in Indiana. The teaching pro’s games were not up to par and slow play ensued. Too much time in between shots and too much distraction from idol chit chat. My fault, too. I was ready to tell a story when I heard, ‘It’s your shot, Cathy’.

“(I) hit my tee shot on a par 3 into the fescue. With rules officials, the two other players, my caddy and a few spotters (looking), it seemed like I was going to have a lost ball. Then at 4:58 I stepped on what felt like a ball and identified it to be mine. The mark was the blue sharpied whale stencil, provided in the starter tent that (for fun reasons) I chose to use that day for my id-ing mark.

“One stroke for stepping on the ball. Then (I) placed it, but could not improve the lie so (I was) still in a hole in the fescue. Shot number two hits me and falls back into the fescue, so now I’m lying 4, out on 5 and up (on the green) in 6. I go to mark my ball and see that the whale is not on a Titleist.

“Wrong ball! Some other player used the same stencil. So back to the tee box, lying four, hitting five. (From the tee I) bogied for a grand total of eight.  By the time the rules officials decided what strokes would remain and what ones did not count, I was too confused to argue and just went on to play my best to the end.

“Just before entering the scoring tent, the rules official stopped me and the player who had my card to tell us I took a nine for the hole and to add one more stroke. They had miscounted.

“LOL!  I had fun, though. Fortunately, I only got (penalized) strokes; (I) could have added a host of hitchhiking chiggers from the fescue to itch my thoughts of slow play away.”

That’s quite a story, wouldn’t you agree? But the more I read the account, the more I thought that the final count of 9 wasn’t correct. So I contacted two “rules gurus” at the Minnesota Golf Association, Doug Hoffman and Lisa Overum and went over the situation with them.

Doug & Lisa’s conclusion:

“When she picked up the ball and either replaced or dropped it after stepping on it, she had a responsibility to (then) identify the ball as hers.  Had she done so, she would have discovered that the ball was not hers, and she should have kept looking for her original ball.  By not doing so and putting this found ball into play, she is treated as having declared the original ball lost.  Of course, this requires her to go back to the teeing ground under ‘stroke and distance.’  When she simply placed or dropped the ball and subsequently played it, she was in violation of Rule 20-7c for having played from a wrong place with a serious breach.  This is a ‘must correct’ situation requiring her to go back under the applicable rule (27) and proceed correctly with an additional two stroke penalty.  The strokes played with the ball played from the wrong place do not count.

“(We) both agree that the score is 8 either way you count it. She played five strokes and incurred three penalty strokes – 1 under Rule 27 and 2 under Rule 20-7c.  She does not incur the (2-stroke) penalty for the ball hitting her (Rule 19-2) since that stroke was deemed not to count.”

Are you still there?

For your reference, here are the rules mentioned above:

Rule 27 – Ball Lost or Out of Bounds: If a ball is lost … the player must play a ball, under penalty of one stroke, as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played.

Cathy complied with this rule by going back to the tee once she determined that her ball actually was lost.

Rule 20-7c – Playing from Wrong Place: If a competitor makes a stroke from a wrong place, he incurs a penalty of two strokes…

Raise your hand if you got the right answer! It pays to know the rules or, at the very least, know how to find the applicable rules in the Rule Book. In this case, it would have saved Cathy one stroke. And one stroke is one stroke.

I was working as a rules official at a tournament recently, and I encountered an interesting out-of-bounds issue. A player hit his tee shot astray; it was careening down the hill on the opposite side of the fairway, so I wasn’t able to see exactly where it ended up. We searched and found the ball, but we weren’t sure if it was in bounds or out of bounds. One of the problems was that the out-of-bounds stakes were quite far apart. Another issue was the weeds, bushes and small trees that were growing right on the out-of-bounds line.

I put a call in to another rules official who had fishing line with him. He came over and we strung the line from one stake to the other (at least 30 yards apart), through the weeds and underbrush. When we were certain that the line was straight, we looked at the position of the ball. It was in bounds!

So – When is a ball out of bounds?

When the ENTIRE ball is out of bounds. (The Rules of Golf – Definitions)In this case, only part of the ball was out of bounds.

What is the procedure if the ball is out of bounds?

If the player hasn’t hit a provisional ball, (s)he must play a ball as nearly as possible to the original spot where the ball was played and take a one-stroke penalty. (The Rules of Golf – Rule 27-1) In this case, the player had hit a provisional ball but didn’t have to use it.

What is the proper procedure for hitting a provisional ball?

Two things: 1) announce to your fellow competitors that you’re hitting a provisional ball, and  2) tell them how this ball differs from your first one (different logo, number or brand). If you’re hitting from the teeing ground, wait until everyone has teed off before hitting your provisional ball. (The Rules of Golf – Rule 27-2)

When should you hit a provisional ball?

Whenever you think there’s even a possibility that your ball is lost or out of bounds. You can potentially save a lot of time and energy.

What if…. you’re taking a practice swing and accidentally move your ball?

You must take a penalty stroke for moving a ball in play and the ball must be replaced. Rule 18-2a.

What if…. your ball ends up on a green that’s not part of the hole you’re playing?

Under The Rules of Golf – Rule 25-3,  you are not allowed to play your ball from a wrong putting green. You must take relief without penalty. As in all other situations where you’re allowed free relief, i.e. a cart path, you must find the nearest point of relief not closer to the hole and drop your ball there.

What if…. a pond which is defined as a water hazard overflows, and your ball lands in the overflow water?

If your ball is not within the defined margins of the hazard (either red or yellow lines or stakes), it is considered to be in casual water, and you may take free relief.

What if….a player is on the green, it’s her turn to putt and she realizes that she doesn’t have her putter? Can she borrow one from another player?

No. The only exception in the Rules of Golf is in a situation where partners are sharing clubs. However, the total number of clubs shared between them may not exceed 14.

On a lighter note, there’s a group of women in Florida     who golf together on a regular basis and call themselves the WAKS – Women Against Keeping Score. These girls just wanna have fun! You go, girls!

I make it a habit to mark all of the balls in my bag with an identifying mark, and I try to remember to identify my ball each time I’m ready to hit. However, every now and then the ball is lying in such a way that my mark is not visible. What to do?!?!?!

Incorrect procedure!

In the “Rules of Golf” – Rule 12-2 is very clear on this. You may not just quickly lift the ball, look at it and put it back. In order to be in compliance, you must follow this simple procedure:

1) Tell a fellow-competitor what you are going to do and give that person the opportunity to observe you.

2) Put a marker next to the ball.

3) Lift and identify the ball.

4) Replace the ball exactly as it was.

“If the ball is the player’s ball and he fails to comply with all or any part of this procedure, or he lifts his ball in order to identify it when not necessary to do so, he incurs a penalty of one stroke.”

Most of the times when I’ve seen this done incorrectly, it’s simply because the player hasn’t been taught the correct procedure. But I’ve seen the other extreme as well – where a player will lift the ball on almost every shot pretending to identify it, but giving himself a better lie as well.

Make it a habit to mark your ball for identification! Make it a habit to identify your ball with the correct procedure!

Barb Hanson

If a player hits the ball into the hole from off the green and the ball is lodged next to the flagstick but not touching the bottom of the hole, is it considered to be “holed?”

In this case, we have to look at the definition of “holed” in the Rules of Golf.

A ball is “holed” when it is at rest within the circumference of the hole and all of it is below the level of the lip of the hole.

So, if the ball meets these requirements, it is deemed to be holed.

Now, take a look at Rule 17-4:

17-4. Ball Resting Against Flagstick

“When a player’s ball rests against the flagstick in the hole and the ball is not holed, the player or another person authorized by him may move or remove the flagstick, and if the ball falls into the hole, the player is deemed to have holed out with his last stroke; otherwise, the ball, if moved, must be placed on the lip of the hole, without penalty.”

This may seem like it is in opposition to the previous definition, but if the ball is not “holed,” it apparently hasn’t dropped beneath the level of the lip of the hole. Whoever removes the flagstick will have to do so very carefully to make sure the ball falls into the hole.