Hi Linda,
We had an incident the other day. It went like this: We're
on the sixth hole, a short par four a little over three hundred yards. To
make it more difficult, the green is not very deep and is elevated, the fairway
ends about twenty yards in front of the green. That area is usually very soggy
and balls become embedded. We couldn't decide, although the grass there is
cropped short, whether it is considered closely mown. I told him to play two balls
and get a ruling later, but I was overridden and he picked up his ball, cleaned
it and placed it back close to where it was embedded. I've always been a little
confused by the phrasing of “closely mown area.” Some definitions say anywhere
on the course except hazards. Anyway, what is your opinion?
Lou from Florida
Dear Lou,
“Closely mown areas” are defined right in the Embedded Ball
Rule [25-2] as “any areas of the course…cut to fairway height or less.” If the
grass in that 20-yard section between the fairway and the putting green is
taller than the grass on the fairway, it is not “closely mown” and you do not
get free relief for an embedded ball.
Incidentally, when you take relief for a ball that is
embedded in its own pitch mark in a closely mown area, the ball may be lifted,
cleaned, and dropped as near as
possible to where it lay, no closer to the hole. I’ll repeat: An embedded ball
is dropped, not placed.
There is a Local Rule that allows players to take relief for
an embedded ball “through the green [Appendix I, Part B, #4]. “Through the
green” means everywhere on the course except
all hazards and the teeing ground and putting green of the hole you are
playing. Under the circumstances, this Local Rule should probably be adopted at
your course.
Linda
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