Monday, November 24, 2014

Ask Linda #954-Ball lands in beer cup

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
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