Rules Topic

Gentlemen,

This topic came up in our Board meeting.  Here are a couple of examples of how you can use the rules to your advantage at Cedars:

1.  You hit a crappy drive to the left on #3 and find yourself in bounds but between the gravel cart path and the barbed wire fence.  First off don’t do that!  Second, the barbed wire fence is a boundary fence, so you get no relief from that.  You are a right-handed golfer.  Since you have read the rules, you tell your playing companions that you would hit the next shot left-handed.  Sooooooo you would have your feet on the cart path.  Since you get relief from the cart path and complete relief is not available between the fence and the path you drop on the fairway side of the cart path.  And then you use your normal right-handed swing Is this legal?  Yes.  Is this a Local Rule?  No.  You need to know the rules well enough to implement what I just explained.  There are other places on the course where you could implement this strategy such as a case where you are next to a tree and have virtually no normal swing.  You say you are going to hit a left-handed shot and lo and behold you are now standing on a sprinkler head.  You take relief from the sprinkler head and now you have the option of hitting the shot right-handed.  

2.  You are 2 feet from the hole on #15 but putting downhill.  You hit the putt too hard, miss the hole and the ball rolls off the green and 20 feet into the fairway.  Since you have read the rules, you tell your playing partners you are declaring an unplayable lie and return the ball to the location of the original putt with a one stroke penalty.   Your playing partner says, “you can’t do that!”  You say, “Under Rule 18.1 the player always has the option of implementing a stroke and distance penalty and I am choosing to do so.  Is this a Local Rule?  No. You need to know the rules well enough to implement what I just explained.  Similar scenario on #15 where you putt the ball off the green into a bunker.  You can play it as it lies or declare an unplayable and return the ball to the original position under stroke and distance.  

There are other examples I am sure but in general knowledge is power.  I am not going to post these because they are one off ways of implementing the Rules to your advantage.  In both cases above you could simply play the ball where it lies and be within the Rules.

By the way the easiest way to read the rules is to go to USGA.com and look under the “Playing” tab.  There you will find the Rules and various educational tools and videos.  I encourage you to visit.

Harry Phillips

Rules Chairman