Dear Linda,
Keep up the good work with your blog!
In a major local golf tournament, a competitor’s ball landed in a water hazard and the ball ended up on a watering hose that had been left coiled up inside the hazard. They allowed him to drop out of the hazard with no penalty. Isn’t this considered an abnormal condition which does not give you free relief? Shouldn’t he have to play it as it lies OR take relief from the HAZARD?
Thank you,
Lou Lou
Dear Lou Lou,
A coiled hose is an obstruction. Assuming it could be moved without too much effort, and that moving it would not take too much time, it would be considered a movable obstruction.
When a player’s ball lies on a movable obstruction, the correct procedure is to lift the ball, move the obstruction, and drop the ball as near as possible to the spot directly under where it lay on the obstruction, not nearer the hole [Rule 24-1b].
The competitor’s ball was lying on a movable obstruction (the hose) in a hazard. He was entitled to a free drop in the hazard. There is no provision in the rule book for taking a ball out of a water hazard without incurring a one-stroke penalty. You are correct in your understanding that this player should not have been granted a free drop outside the hazard, Lou.
Linda
Copyright © 2009 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.
