St Mungo Golf Club

Rules & Rulings

Sleepers at 18th

The Match Secretary of the Home Club recently advised us of the correct ruling relating to the bunkers with sleepers that lie forward of the 18th tee. The sleepers are classed as an Immovable Obstruction and so Rule 24-2 applies if relief is required. Briefly, if the sleepers interfere with the stance or swing, relief may be taken without penalty. If the ball lies in the bunker the ball may be dropped inside the bunker, within one club length of and not nearer the hole than the nearest point of relief, without penalty. Under Rule 24-2 relief may also be taken by dropping the ball outside the bunker as far back as wished, providing the ball is dropped in line with where the ball lay in the bunker and the hole. In this case a penalty of one stroke is incurred. If Rule 24-2 does not apply ( IE because the sleepers do not interfere with stance or swing) but the player still wishes to take relief, then the player may declare the ball to be unplayable and take a drop in the bunker under penalty of one stroke. Remember however that in this case (ball unplayable) the ball may not be dropped outside the bunker. Equally the ball may be simply be played out backwards and no penalty is incurred.

Lost Ball

We had an incident in the September Medal where a marker refused to sign his player's card because the player was alleged to have exceeded the time allowed to look for a lost ball (five minutes) and then played the ball on it being found. The player subsequently accepted that he had exceeded the allowed time (in any case he was on the way to the next tee, with driver in hand, so had effectively declared the ball lost and NR'd). We had to do a bit of homework to figure out the correct rules and penalties to apply. And subsequenty I have written to the R&A to check the ruling. Here is the verbatim ruling from the R&A:

"It is not possible to continue play with a ball that has been found outwith the five-minute search period. By playing this ball, the player has played a wrong ball. Decision 27/8 clarifies this:

Q. A player searches for his ball for five minutes and does not find it. He continues to search, finds his ball and plays it. What is the ruling?

A. The ball was lost and therefore out of play when the five-minute period allowed for search expired – see Definition of “Ball in Play” and “Lost Ball”. When the player played a stroke with the ball out of play, he played a wrong ball – see Definition of “Wrong Ball” – and incurred a penalty of loss of hole in match play or two strokes in stroke play (Rule 15-3). In stroke play, he was disqualified if he did not correct the error by proceeding under Rule 27-1 before playing from the next tee – Rule 15-3b.

The player is required to put another ball into play under stroke and distance. By not going back to put another ball into play, he has played a wrong ball and because he did not correct the error, the player is disqualified under Rule 15-3b." (Shona McRae, Manager - Rules of Golf, The R&A, St Andrews, Fife

).

On a general point note that it would be helpful for the marker to advise the player of his opinion that the five minutes time is up. If the player continues to look for the ball the marker should then advise the player that he believes a penalty now applies. If the player does not accept this then the marker should advise the player that he will refuse to sign the card without the penalty being added. Also note that players may additionally be penalised for slow play under Rule 6-7.

A last point to note from this incident: if there is some doubt as to whether you have incurred a penalty during a round, don't sign the card until a ruling has been given.