Ms. Linda: What do the Rules of Golf say about a
situation that might only happen at a golf tournament where a golfer's ball
goes into the crowd and ends up inside an overturned, commemorative plastic tournament
beer cup? (I have one such cup from a past U.S. Open played at Oak Hill).
Thanks.
Lou from Georgia
Dear Lou,
It’s probably not as unusual as you might think for a ball
to end up in a plastic cup; this happenstance is certainly not limited to tournament
play.
The plastic cup is a movable obstruction. When your ball
lies in a movable obstruction, you may lift the ball, discard the cup, and drop
the ball as near as possible to where it lay in the cup on the ground. You may
not drop nearer the hole. The ball may be cleaned when you lift it [Rule
24-1b]. Should the ball happen to be in a plastic cup on the putting green, you
would place the ball, rather than drop it.
Linda
Copyright © 2014 Linda Miller. All rights reserved.
