You are playing the second hole at Liphook and your second shot has ended up on the Old Road across the fairway.  You elect to take free relief from your lie on the road that the Local Rules describe as an immovable obstruction.  You identify the nearest spot, not nearer the hole, where the ball could lie so that it, together with both your feet, would be clear of the road when playing a stroke with the club you would use for the shot.  You mark that spot with a tee peg.  It is your Nearest Point of Relief (NPR).  You then lift your ball, clean it and drop it within a semi-circle, centred on the NPR, of radius the length of your longest club and no point in which is nearer the hole than the NPR.  Your ball rolls ten yards back down the slope away from the road and the putting green and towards the Clubhouse.

What do you do now?
 

Playing in a Stableford competition, you unwittingly drove off having tee’d up outside the teeing ground.  Your ball went out of bounds.  What is the penalty?

In stroke play, the penalty for playing from outside the teeing ground when starting a hole is two strokes.  You must then play a ball from within the teeing ground (Rule 11-4b).  Rule 11-1 permits you to tee your ball up when playing from the teeing ground.

The fact that your ball went out of bounds is immaterial because you had not put it in play.  A ball can be put in play at the start of the play of a hole only from within the teeing ground.

SUPPLEMENTARY TEASER

A puddle has formed after heavy rain and you and your opponent both observe your ball to go into it. When you reach the puddle, you cannot find your ball.

The puddle is an Abnormal Ground Condition (See Definitions).  Because you and your opponent both observed your ball to go into the puddle it is a fact that it is lost in it.  Rule 25-1c tells you how to proceed.  You must determine the spot where the ball last crossed the outermost limits of the puddle and the ball is deemed to lie there.  You then take relief in accordance with Rule 25-1b (i), (ii), (iii) or (iv) depending on whether the ball is through the green, in a bunker, in a water hazard or on the putting green.

You are participating in the Liphook GC individual Stableford competition for the Dave Thomas Trophy at the end of the Wednesday Men season.  Playing the 15th Hole, one of your fellow competitors points out to you that you have played your tee shot from three inches in front of the line joining the forward edges of the two yellow markers.  As if that were not bad enough, your ball has gone wildly to the right and has come to rest beyond the line of Out of Bounds posts.  You must play another tee shot.

For your second tee shot, may you tee your ball up?

How many penalty strokes have you incurred?

SUPPLEMENTARY TEASER

After heavy rain, a large puddle has formed on a fairway.  You and your opponent both observe your ball enter that puddle and disappear.  When you get to the puddle, you cannot find your ball.  Is the puddle a water hazard?  How do you proceed?

Tom Just-Startin, a prospective member, has not had an auspicious start to a round.  He teed his ball up at the first and then played and missed.  In addressing his ball for a second attempt, he inadvertently nudged his ball off the tee peg.  What happens next?

Normally, if a golfer nudges his ball off the tee peg in starting a hole, there is no penalty and he simply tees up again.  All those around who are chortling ‘three’ are simply showing their ignorance of the Rules.  At the start of a hole, the ball becomes ‘in play’ only when a stroke has been made at it.  Addressing the ball on the tee is not making a stroke at it.  A stroke is ‘the forward movement of the club made with the intention of striking at and moving the ball.’

When Tom swung and missed, he was making a stroke and in so doing he put his ball in play.  When he readdressed it and nudged it, he fell foul of Rule 18-2b.  ‘If a player’s ball moves after he has addressed it (other than as the result of a stroke), the player is deemed to have moved the ball and incurs a penalty of one stroke.  The ball must be replaced, unless the movement of the ball occurs after the player has begun the stroke or the backward movement of the club for the stroke and the stroke is made.’  So he has now played two (the air shot and the penalty for the nudge) and must play his third after putting his ball back on the tee peg.

SUPPLEMENTARY TEASER

Linus Schmuccatella, the visiting American, is two up in match play when he realises during play of the sixth hole that he has one too many clubs in his bag.  Rule 4-4a states that, at the conclusion of the hole being played when the breach is discovered, the match score is adjusted by deducting one hole for each hole at which the breach occurred up to a maximum of two.  So, although the breach occurred on each of six holes, he loses only two holes and his two-hole lead is negated.  In stroke play, it would be two strokes per hole up to a maximum penalty of four strokes.  If you are in doubt, ask Ian Woosnam.
 

Regular readers of this column may be relieved to learn that they are to have a brief respite from following the tortured exploits of Jock Hacker McDivott our enthusiastic and doughty high-handicapper with a woefully inadequate understanding of the Rules of Golf.  Jock and his long-suffering wife Morag have taken a holiday break to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. 

In Jock’s absence, his patient playing partner, Frank College Arbiter, has agreed to mark the card of Tom Just-Startin, a newcomer to golf who is also a prospective member of the Club.  This will be his third card before he begins the ‘playing-in’ process.

On the First Hole, Tom tees his ball up but, with beginner’s nerves on edge in front of an unwelcome gallery, he completely misses his ball at his first attempt at a stroke.  In addressing his ball for the second time, he inadvertently nudges his ball and it topples off the tee peg.  He tees up again and, at the third attempt, plays a passable shot down the fairway towards the green.

Has Tom proceeded correctly and now played 2 (that is the air shot plus the passable shot down the fairway) or will College, with his Rule Book ever in hand,  have something to say?

COMPLEMENTARY TEASER

An American visitor, Linus Schmuccatella, is playing a friendly singles match as a guest of one of our members.  After the Fifth Hole, Linus is three up but during the playing of the Sixth he realises that, when he put his brand-new super-duper driver in his bag, he forgot to remove a club and so he has been playing with fifteen clubs.  Promptly, he owns up to his opponent.  How should the match score be adjusted?

It has been said that the reactions of dinosaurs were so slow that it would have been possible to pull their tails and then run up their long backs and tap them on the nose before they realised that you had done it.  One of our members, Austin Fossil Fawcett, the retired and much respected palaeontologist has long seen a striking similarity between the short, broad protuberance at the top of the front of Jock Hacker McDivott’s head and that of the crestless hadrosaurid Tanius.

Early in January 2008, Jock had taken Frank College Arbiter to task for straddling his ball ‘croquet-style’ while putting to avoid standing on Hacker’s line of putt.  ‘Hacker’, said College, ‘you have been very slow to hoist in that the Rules of Golf have undergone a revision and that a new set came into force on 1 January 2008. Rule 16-1e now grants an exception to permit standing astride one’s line of putt if it is done so as to avoid standing on another player’s line.’

SUPPLEMENTARY TEASER

If you mark and lift your ball (other than on the putting green) because it is interfering with another player’s play, Rule 21c specifically prohibits you from cleaning it.  However, if your ball is on the fairway and Winter Rules are in force, then you are free to mark and clean your ball before replacing it.

Jock Hacker McDivott and Frank College Arbiter, having wished each other a cordial new year, are playing a friendly singles.  On the 3rd Hole, where Hacker is delighted that the heather jungle between teeing ground and putting green has been declared GUR for the foreseeable future, each golfer has placed his tee shot on the green.  College, who is slightly further from the hole, putts first and his ball stops two feet from the hole.  ‘I’ll just finish that off, if I may’, he says and Hacker does not demur.  To take a normal stance would mean College placing his right foot on Hacker’s line of putt so he broadens his stance but his feet are now astride the line from the hole running back through his ball.  He sinks his putt.

‘Hang on a minute’, objects Hacker, ‘you are not allowed to straddle the line of putt “croquet-style”, I remember you telling me that months ago.’

Has Hacker brought a blush of embarrassment to College’s cheeks?

SUPPLEMENTARY TEASER

If you mark and lift your ball because it is interfering with your opponent’s play on the fairway, may you clean it?

The teaser showed an aerial picture of an island and asked you to identify its golf club, the course record and to expound on wild life you might encounter in the course of a round.  The following reply, probably worthy of a PhD, was submitted:

Hello George,
 
How about            'Christmas Island'   See attached photo
 
Course Record-     Men           Mr Bruce Sorrenson 58 strokes
 
                            Ladies        Ms Helen Muller       74 strokes
 
 
 
 
Flora and Fauna
 
The Robber Crab (Birgus latro) is the largest of the various crab species found in the island. Able to climb trees, the crabs only return to water during breeding season to lay its eggs. However, the most notorious are the Red Crabs (Gecardcoidea natalis) which migrates by the millions at the end of the dry season around November to mid-December. The dry season spans May to November while the wet season is between December to April. The coconut trees growing freely were probably brought by the natives of the Cocos Islands. Other indigenous fauna peculiar to the island include:

The White-tailed Tropic bird (Phaethon leturus fulvus) first described by Brandt in 1840.
Christmas Island Fruit Bat (Pteropus melanotus natalis) which usually feeds on papayas, introduced to the island and is closely related to similar bats in Indonesia.
Shrew (Crocidura trichura), no longer sighted on the island.
Rats, (Rattus macleari and M. nativitatis), no longer sighted on the island.
Andrews' or Christmas Island Frigatebird (Fregata andrewsi).
The Christmas Island Silver-eye (Zosterops natalis), a species of bird common throughout Southeast Asia.
The Christmas Island Thrush (Turdus poliocephalus erythropleurus), a distinct form of thrush.
The Christmas Island Emerald Dove (Chalcophaps indica natalis), a land bird.
 
Not yet played the course.  Need more Air Miles.
 
David Wright

David is to be commended on the thoroughness of his research, especially in flora and fauna.  The Golf Club’s website restricts itself to mention of the two types of crab, to golden bosuns and frigate birds and to dolphins.

It just seemed a seasonal question to ask.  Merry Christmas to all our readers!

In the northeast part of this island may be seen an airstrip.  Just to the east of it, partially obscured by cotton wool clouds, is a nine-hole golf course established in 1955.

a. What is the name of the golf club?

b. What is the course record?

c. What flora and fauna may be encountered during a round?

A Mars Bar goes to anyone who has actually played the course.

Jock Hacker McDivott’s tee shot on the second hole has bounded into a green keeper’s cart coming towards him down the left edge of the fairway.  What procedure do the Rules of Golf require him to follow?

Frank College Arbiter as ever is on hand with his well-thumbed copy of the Rules.  He points out that what Hacker has been calling a cart all these years is, in fact, known at St Andrews as an Outside Agency.  A ball in motion being deflected or stopped by an outside agency is dealt with by Rule 19-1a.  It states ‘If a ball in motion after a stroke other than on the putting green comes to rest in or on any moving or animate outside agency , the player must, through the green or in a hazard, drop the ball, or on the putting green place the ball, as near as possible to the spot where the outside agency was when the ball came to rest in or on it.’  So Hacker must drop his ball at the spot where the cart was when it captured his tee shot.

But say Hacker cannot find his ball amongst the grass cuttings in the bed of the outside agency or, more prosaically, cart.  College now leafs through to Rule 24-3a – Ball Lost in Movable Obstruction.  ‘If a ball is lost in a movable obstruction, a player may, without penalty, remove the obstruction and must through the green or in a hazard drop a ball, or on the putting green place a ball, as near as possible to the spot directly under the place where the ball last crossed the outermost limits of the movable obstruction, but not nearer the hole.’  In this case, Hacker does not need to remove the obstruction because it has already done that under its own motive power so he drops a ball at the point where the side of the cart was when his tee shot ball crossed into it.  Hacker is greatly relieved to have lost a ball but not suffered the usual penalty stroke.  Would that all patches of heather, like Great Birnam Wood moving to high Dunsinane, could be classified as movable obstructions!