Good day Linda,
I'm just a little confused. This last weekend, I pulled my
tee shot over a lateral hazard that runs all the way down the left-hand side of
the fairway. The only option I had was to try and hit the ball back over the
hazard onto the fairway. I then proceeded, much to my disgust I may add, to hit
my second shot into the hazard. I wanted to drop my ball within two club-lengths
on the opposite side of the hazard at a point equidistant to where my ball last
crossed into the hazard, but my fellow competitors said that as I had not
cleared the hazard I had to play my 4th shot from where I had last played. I
was under the impression that only applied to a yellow stake hazard. Am I reading
the lateral hazard rule incorrectly???
Kind regards,
Lou from Randburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Dear Lou,
No, Lou. You are not reading the Rule incorrectly. Your
fellow competitors are confusing the relief options from yellow- and red-staked
hazards.
When your ball is in a lateral water hazard (red-staked),
one of the relief options is to drop within two club-lengths (no closer to the
hole) of the point where the original ball last crossed the margin of the
hazard, or from a point on the opposite side of the hazard that is equidistant
from the hole [Rule 26-1c].
Linda
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