stuart
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Posts: 2470
Location: Scrambling from the rough
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 Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:02 am Post subject: In a recent newsletter |
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| Quote: | EMBEDDED BALL: By Ivano Ficalbi
I have just returned from an enjoyable 36-hole professional event at St. Francis Links affectionately known as The Road Trip. The links at St. Francis is built amongst magnificent sand dunes and from the first tee shot to your last putt you are wonderfully tested. During the second round, my betterball partner ballooned his approach on the 5th hole, a short par 4, and the ball just barely carried one of the many pot bunkers protecting the green.
When he arrived at his ball you could quite clearly see that he was not too impressed with his lie. His ball had cleared the bunker by about half a metre, but the ball had actually plugged into the soft sand surrounding the bunker. While he pondered the best possible shot to play, I informed him that the local rules sheet on the golf cart stated that free relief was available for an embedded ball through the green.
Therefore, as per relief for an embedded ball, ‘Through the green, a ball that is embedded in its own pitch-mark in the ground may be lifted, without penalty, cleaned and dropped as near as possible to where it lay but not nearer the hole’. It is important to note, you are not allowed to drop the ball within 1 club length as per normal relief but you are required to drop the ball as close as possible to where it lay but not nearer the hole. Therefore the ball when dropped must land as close as possible to the original pitch mark.
This all seems quite simple, however under Appendix 1 - Specimen Local Rules there is an exception with regards to relief for an embedded ball, this exception states that a player may not take relief under this local rule if the ball is embedded in sand in an area that is not closely mown. Therefore, due to the fact that my partner’s ball had in fact embedded itself in an area where a mower cut on a regular basis, he was entitled to relief. But, if the area around the bunker was wild grass and never cut, he would have had to play the ball as it lay.
Take the trip to St. Francis, it’s definitely worth the occasional embedded ball. |
Does no-one edit this stuff.
| Quote: | | While he pondered the best possible shot to play, I informed him that the local rules sheet on the golf cart stated that free relief was available for an embedded ball through the green. |
You did that because??? Because it was obviously not a lie on a CMA, otherwise why even worry about a local rule.
But hold on, thanks to the appendix you can't get relief from sand throught the green so the local rule can't help.
But no wait - he didn't need the local rule after all because the ball had:
| Quote: | | In fact embedded itself in an area where a mower cut on a regular basis, he was entitled to relief |
I like that - "where a mower cut on a regular basis".
So we have a situation that the normal rule can't help with, so we use a local rule to help, but it can't help, so we fall back on the normal rule which earlier we didn't want to use.
And all that based on the mower cutting regularly. Relief is not based on whether the mower cuts, but the length to which it is cut.
What is it with these guys describing rule situations casually as though presenting it casually and flippantly makes it better.
Get it right, present it right or don't do it.
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Hit it hard, it will land somewhere |
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GT
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Posts: 12104
Location: on tour
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| Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 10:37 am Post subject: |
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Stu - I read it the same way you did, talk about confusing.
Confusious say man who's balls are buried in sand must...
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“ I don’t always know what I am talking about, but I'm never wrong!” - Mohammed Ali |
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