NCG’s resident rules guru received an email box full of queries. He delves deeper into the file and selects a few hot topics
Some of you might be a little frustrated with me. If this is the case, I can only offer my sincerest apologies. I get a lot of requests for decisions – dozens every week – and I can only review so many of them before my employers start asking me who I’m actually working for.
So I thought I’d try to clarify some of the most common rules in a large Rules of Golf column. And the results are below.
If I haven’t found yours yet, don’t worry. There are a lot more requests in my inbox to do this sort of thing multiple times…
Rules of Golf Explained: Your Rules Questions Answered
I regularly see caddies returning the ball to professional players, no problem. I was watching the John Deere Classic on TV and saw it being played on a green with red lines at the water’s edge. The Pro recovered the ball.
Then I thought, if he didn’t catch it and ended up in danger, what would happen? I understand he marked his ball before handing it to the caddy but now he has to use a different ball to complete the hole. Is it just a matter of “OK, we all saw what happened, so get another ball and keep playing”? – Chris, by email
Ian Poulter’s fitness coach once plunged into water at the Players Championship in 2004 after the Englishman accidentally threw his ball into a pond – he slipped it from the green and it flew from the back of his hand.
Fortunately, the rules are now a little more friendly to such acts of negligence. You replace a ball in a spot here, because it’s been marked, and usually Rule 14.2a says that “the original ball must be used when replacing a ball.”
But there are exceptions when you can use another ball. And one of them is this: “The original ball cannot be retrieved with reasonable effort and within a few seconds, until the player deliberately makes the ball unrecoverable.” »
Can you declare a ball lost when you hit it off the tee without looking for it? –Christine Ratcliffe
You can not declare a ball lost. What you can do, however, is ease the blows and distance. If you restart the shot, do not call a provisional and put another ball in play, it is now your ball in play. From this point on, it does not matter if you find your original ball. You’re done with that.
Remember, you always have this shot and distance option, even if your ball is in the middle of the fairway!
Is there a penalty for a very short ball that inadvertently hits a golfer’s foot and goes into the hole? –Brian Egan
It’s rare, but it happens – usually when a short putt has a horseshoe spin. Is it holed? Yes it is. Rule 11.1a says that if a moving ball accidentally hits a person – “including the player” – then there is no penalty.
Because the ball hit the player, Rule 11.1b (2) says you should normally play it as a lie. Who’s in the hole!
While making a practice swing, I made contact with my ball, moving it a short distance. My understanding is that I have to address the ball for it to count as a shot played. Can you tell us the correct decision, please? –John Aird
Addressing the ball is a bit of a red herring. But the answer is that it depends on where you moved the ball in the practice swing. If it’s on the tee or on the green, no problem. Just put it back.
However, if you are elsewhere on the course and you do this, you have moved the ball. Even if it’s not a stroke, you still add a one stroke penalty to your score.
Again, make sure you put the ball back where it was. If you don’t do this, you will be penalized for playing the ball in the wrong place.
I hit a ball into a dangerous area. When I was playing out of the hazard, my ball hit a metal post, went over my head and was lost at the bottom of the hazard. How should I proceed and what penalty do I incur? – Sylvia Haq
I’m going to assume by chance that you’re talking about a penalty area, Sylvia. Your moving ball hit an object – Rule 11.1a again – and you play the ball as it lies.
Obviously you can’t do this because the ball is lost but, as it is known or virtually certain to be in a penalty area, you can take relief from the penalty area – for a penalty of ‘one blow – under Rule 17.1.
On the last day of our club championship, the 18th green hole was placed on a fairly steep slope. This might have been acceptable in the morning when the greens were wet, but after exposure to sun and wind the greens became very firm and a ball thrown from below the hole that missed the cut would not stay near the hole. After about half a second, he started going back down the slope about 10 or 15 feet.
Would it have been within the rules of golf for a player to ask his caddy to stand near the hole and, when the ball stops for half a second, to mark the position of the ball and pick it up before it starts going back down the slope? –Ian Hodkinson
There is no problem with a caddy lifting a player’s ball on the putting green. They are allowed to do this without authorization via a exception to rule 14.1b. The key is whether the bullet actually stopped.
It would be helpful to have a definition for this, but there isn’t one, so we’ll have to use common sense. In my opinion, the bullet must have stopped. If there is a trace of movement, that means it hasn’t stopped and you can’t mark the position. If so, mark it.
Do you have a question for our rules of golf expert?
Despite the simplification of the rules of golf in early 2019, there are still some that leave us perplexed. And as I have passed the R&A Level 3 rules exam with distinction, I will try to help you by presenting the best in this column.
