Golf Rules Blog
A very big pine tree has fallen by the green. The grounds crew put ropes around it and it is to be played as “abnormal ground condition”. My approach shot flew into the center of the fallen tree. There is no way for me to find my ball. How do I proceed? Do I get a free drop?
This question came from one of our website visitors. If you have a question about the rules of golf, submit your question to Les Duer, CGC's resident rules expert.
Question from David S.
I'm not sure if this is a rules questions or a local custom question. I play a lot in the evening, just casually, when the sprinklers are often running, so I'm constantly dodging them and wait for them to clear - annoying but, hey, it's golf. The other night I hit in the middle of three sprinklers, all running and out of phase so that there was only about a 5 second window to line up, set up, and hit before one of the the (very high pressure!) streams clobbered me, so naturally it's tough to hit a good shot under those conditions. Is there relief for this situation?
We're playing a long par 4 today and all four players saw one player's ball splash in the greenside bunker. When we arrived at the bunker, no ball to be found. Looked everywhere, nothing. What is the proper way to proceed?
We guessed that it was "lost ball" and go from there. Just didn't know if there was any additional considerations since we were fairly sure that it should have been in the bunker.
And...Another question...
On a par 3, player hits the ball over and to the side of the green into the bushes but not in a hazard. Ball can be plainly seen once we got closer, but it makes for a difficult play. Obviously the choice is to play it or take an unplayable. However, my question is…if the player, while on the tee, thought it would be a lousy lie, could she have abandoned that ball immediately and played again from the tee before going to find out where the first ball was? This would have been a better result than either playing Ball 1 where it was or taking an unplayable.
One of my friends just presented me with this situation:
So I hit a ball into a lateral water hazard. I attempted to hit the ball out of the hazard. The ball went about 10 yards without clearing the hazard and landed in the hazard near a sprinkler head. Do I get relief from the sprinkler? What are my options?
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