Ask Linda #120-Dangerous situations

Dear Linda,
My ball landed near a goose egg, and the mother or father goose was making it impossible for me to get close enough even to retrieve it, let alone try to hit it. Is this a lost ball? an unplayable ball? What’s the penalty? How do I proceed?
Lulu

Dear Lulu,

The rules of golf provide for free relief from “dangerous situations.” It would be unreasonable to expect you to risk bodily harm, and unfair to penalize you. Abandon the ball, and proceed as follows:

Drop a ball, without penalty, at the nearest spot, no closer to the hole, that is not dangerous. If your ball is in a hazard, then make every effort to drop it in the same hazard or in a similar one nearby that is not closer to the hole. If it is not possible to drop the ball in a hazard, then you may take it out and drop it behind the hazard on the imaginary line drawn from the hole through your ball. This last option will, unfortunately, require that you add a penalty stroke to your score. There is always a price to be paid for taking relief outside a hazard [Decision 1-4/10].

Live rattlesnakes, bees’ nests, and alligators would all come under the heading of “dangerous situations.” These are problems that are not normally found on a course. However, while you might consider it dangerous to enter a patch of poison ivy or cactus to hit your ball, the rules of golf take the view that these are common occurrences on a golf course. You are not entitled to free relief from “normal situations,” no matter how unpleasant they may be [Decision 1-4/11]. If you prefer not to hit a ball that is lying in poison ivy or near a cactus (or in any other similar, naturally-occurring problem), your only recourse would be to declare it unplayable, accept your one-stroke penalty, and proceed under one of the options listed in Rule 28 (see Ask Linda #13-unplayable ball, posted on January 13, 2008, for an explanation of your relief options).

Linda

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