Hi Linda,
Yesterday I played a course that has a water area marked
with yellow stakes and about 20 yards around the opposite side it is marked
with red stakes. I hit my ball across the yellow area and my ball hit on
land above the stakes but being a bank it rolled in a semicircle and into the
water. My opponents said that I had to hit another ball from the same
side as before since it went into the water even though it did cross the water
initially. Was that a correct ruling?
Lulu
Dear Lulu,
With regard to water hazards, where you have to drop depends
on where your ball last crossed the margin of the hazard. If your
ball first crossed the margin of the
hazard where it is marked with yellow stakes, crossed the water, landed on the
other side past the stakes, and
rolled back into the hazard where it is marked
with red stakes, your ball last
crossed the margin of a lateral hazard. As such, one of your relief options is
to drop your ball within two club-lengths of the point where it last crossed
the margin of the hazard, no closer to the hole. You would not have to hit
across the water.
If this were a standard water hazard (yellow stakes only),
the fact that your ball hit land on the far side and rolled back into the water
would not entitle you to drop on the other side. The ball would be in the
hazard, and your next shot would again have to cross the hazard.
Linda
Copyright © 2013 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.