Dear Linda,
On the green my opponent asked me to move my ball two putter heads away from her line of play. When I replaced my ball (two putter heads) she said it was not in the right place. I told her I had replaced it two putter heads and thought it was where the ball was at rest. She was sure it was not. I suggested she could file a claim for the Committee to review and I would putt out or if she wanted to show me where she thought the ball should be placed I would putt out from there with no penalty. I did putt from where she thought the ball should be placed, made the putt and won the hole. Was this OK?
Dear Lulu,
I’m so proud of you! Instead of letting this fussbudget get under your skin and disrupt your concentration, you kept your cool, came to an amicable agreement, and then nailed the putt and won the hole. How sweet that must have been for you!
Match play is basically a golf tournament between two people. As long as you and your opponent do not conspire to break a rule (which was not the case in your situation), then just about any reasonable agreement you can reach to resolve a dispute is acceptable and encouraged. By deferring to your opponent’s opinion as to the exact location of your ball on the green, you saved yourself the suspense of awaiting a decision on a claim (which I imagine might have been resolved in your favor).
That being said, there is a tried and true measure to avoid this problem in the future. Whenever you are asked to move a ball that is interfering with another golfer’s play, line the ball up with a stationary object (a tree or a shrub would work, a goose or a squirrel would not), tell your opponent what object you have chosen, and then move and mark your ball in a straight line away from this object. When you replace your ball, it might be helpful to repeat the name of the object you lined up with, as in “I’m replacing the ball two putter-head lengths in line with the tall fir.”
Here’s a related piece of advice. If you are aware that another golfer has forgotten to replace a moved ball and are able to warn her in time, in the spirit of fair play please do so. It is not the intention of the rules of golf to turn the sport into a game of “gotcha.”
Well done, Lulu!
Linda
Copyright © 2009 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.
